How artists, volunteers and designers turned a Ukrainian folk blouse and craft into symbols of defiance.
Tbilisi— Alla Timoshenko threads a needle through a bird-shaped felt piece in the corner of a Ukrainian café in downtown Tbilisi.
Alla says the nightingale she is embroidering into a brooch symbolizes hope, spring, and homebuilding for Ukrainians.
She’ll sell it on Instagram as a symbol of Ukraine’s victory over Russia.
Alla learned embroidery from her grandma at eight years old. She only did it as a pastime until she quit her hectic IT job in Kyiv to become a design consultant in her late twenties. “Embroidery became a form of meditation for me,” the 34-year-old explains.
She has done commissioned needlework art for hotels and cafes in Ukraine and Georgia, where she has lived intermittently since 2017. After Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Alla used embroidery to express her anger and grief.
‘Protective amulet’
Alla was in Tbilisi during the war and could only follow the news and talk to her parents in Ukraine. Her parents assured her they were secure in their village of Pyryatyn in central Poltava. Alla admits, “They were more calm than me.”
“I told myself now isn’t the time for embroidery,” she explains. “I immediately realized I had to do everything I could for my country and use my talents and creative energies to help.
She embroidered to show her patriotism.
She posted an embellished jacket she had just finished to Instagram on the 28th day of the battle, stating needlework was her way of “contributing Ukrainian abilities to the future”.
