1984

I had a graduate fellowship at the Smithsonian's Division of Community Life to identify and properly store the contents of 17 trunks of mostly Eastern European costumes and household textiles. It was literally going through buried treasure. I came across a Sofia region cardwoven belt, the first Bulgarian cardwoven belt I ever saw in person, as opposed to in a book. I had just learned the Russian Old Believer technique, and wanted to see if I could apply it to a Bulgarian pattern. Since I couldn't take the original belt home to look at and refer to while I wove, I sat with it during lunchtime, reproducing the patterns. I got it!

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