What better story to highlight for the trees theme than the folktale of Baba Yaga? It’s a Belarusan folktale, set deep in the massive forest, that has been used to spook children over dozens of centuries in an attempt to get them to behave! Among the snaggy trees lives the ferocious witch Baba Yaga in […]
Tag Archives: Iryna Varabei
Do you believe in superstitions? In the days when water was drawn from a well and carried back to the house in buckets on shoulder poles, there was a superstition about it in Belarus. If one came across a girl or woman with I like to stitch a good omen in all my cross-stitch projects […]
Simon the Musician is one of the first designs I created when I moved to Canada. I wanted to create a Belarusan archetypal image. Simon the Musician is a popular character from the poem of the same name written by Yakub Kolas. Simon is a young village boy shunned by all for his love of […]
I made this Talisman for my son who is an athlete. He takes this good luck charm to all cycling races, keeping it in his pocket. I taught him how to use it. Within the Talisman, there are three ancient magic symbols. The main one is the burdock plant. The burdock itself is a symbol […]
It happened quite by serendipity. Suddenly, I found myself with a heap of leftover yarn. I also found a forgotten piece of evenweave fabric with an attractive texture to it, shortly after. The cloth is a great backdrop for Nizanka embroidery and if I gave the design some pop of colour, it will be quite […]