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I started the embroidery for the first project I posted about previously - I'm experimenting with some different smocking stitch designs and I topstitched the shredded fabric panels with a variety of basic embroidery stitches (I'm a big fan of cross-stitch). I also started a new project this weekend - when I was at Woza Moya (at the Hillcrest AIDS Centre), I purchased a denim bag made by one of he sewers in the craft collective. It is relatively simple and unadorned except for a zipper pocket on the side opposite to the one depicted. Yesterday I started embroidering a design on the plain denim side. It is directly inspired by a Zulu beaded bedspread I saw at the Phansi museum. The insect, bright colors, and repetition of circles instantly attracted me to the large panel. It was also one of the only examples of Zulu beaded embroidery on a light background I have seen - for the most part, the Phansi's holdings are nearly all beaded panels on indigo fabric.
The Zulu bedspread was specifically made by a woman to be used after her marriage, at a time in her when she would change bedding type (moving from a woven sleeping mat to a large, raised bed with beaded pillow shams and a large bedspread) and begin to sleep with her husband. During apartheid, these married women's bedspreads gained a new function - apartheid's widespread installation of men's hostels during the institution of migratory/distance labor (mostly to the mines, but not exclusively). Basically, married women were required to stay in the "homeland," and were not allowed to enter the urban areas in which their husbands worked and were even restricted from visiting them in the townships anchored around cities. The women were allowed to visit their husbands only two weeks in the year and they had to stay with the them in the same hostel room where as many as seven other men also lived. So the bedspreads were used to hang up and divide the tiny room to provide more privacy for the married couple.
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