Meet Brazilian Embroidery: A History, Part 1 of 2
Note: I am a hobbyist who loves arts and crafts! I wrote this post as a brief intro for fellow novices - if you’re intrigued, I encourage you to dig deeper! My sources are listed here to help you get started.
The hand embroidery family is titanic in scale - for every one type you discover, there are hundreds more to explore. Which creates the age-old, kid-in-a-candy-store dilemma: Where to start??
Etsy actually alleviated my existential angst here, by dropping this lovely little Brazilian embroidery kit into my search feed. Crisis averted!
But what IS Brazilian embroidery… ?
What it is
Think shiny. Think dimensional. Think floral.
Brazilian embroidery is all that… AND a bag of chips! It uses high sheen, Z-twist rayon threads (no sticky wool or cotton here) to produce a raised surface design on fabric, traditionally featuring flowers and foliage. The smooth, shiny thread slides easily against itself, making it possible to pull off pretzel-esque maneuvers used in this style of sewing. Cast-ons, detached buttonholes, drizzles, French knots, and bullions are just a handful of the high-flying stitches you’ll find yourself working with. “Lower altitude” stitches - like stem, fly, feather and straight - lay a texture-rich background for their structural cousins to spring from.
Unlike stumpwork, which leans on wires, padding, and hidden beads to create topography, Brazilian embroidery relies solely on stitching and layering (and occasionally a little fabric stiffener) to work its 3-D magic.
Brazilian embroidery is NOT stitch-specific.
It actually borrows dimensional stitches from just about every type of embroidery. And conversely, you’ll often find a little Brazilian embroidery interjected into other needlework projects... for pizzazz, of course!
How it began
Fist bump to women’s entrepreneurship! This particular style of embroidery was born in the early 1960’s, when avid embroiderer, Mrs. Elisa Hirsch Maia of - you guessed it! - Brazil, rebelled against the dull, cotton embroidery flosses of the day. Her experimentation with vivid dyes, weights, and color variegations led to the development of a wildly popular range of rayon threads… and her subsequent launch of Varicor Company. “Madam Maia” produced, supplied, and ran workshops using her threads with such zeal, that the name “Varicor” became synonymous with any variegated thread. She also re-popularized the bullion, a quintessential Brazilian embroidery stitch whose origins have been archeologically dated back to biblical Middle East.
Maia sold her company in the 70’s to a U.S.-based manufacturer, fueling Brazilian embroidery’s international surge in popularity. Riding that wave, the Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery International Guild (BDEIG) formed by unanimous consent at a 1991 seminar hosted by aficionado, Virginia Chapman. You can still join today!
Read More in “Meet Brazilian Embroidery: A History, Part 2 of 2”
