I didn't learn tatreez until 2020.
Considering how it has taken over my life, it seems strange to think that only 5 years ago, tatreez was a skill that seemed nearly impossible for me to access. Before 2020, I had dabbled in attempts at tatreez and could do some basic embroidery, but didn't have access to anyone who could teach me the Palestinian tradition of cross-stitch. Like many Palestinians growing up in diaspora, I lived far away from any elders who could pass on their knowledge.
But I'm also from Tulkarm, where we have a saying قلة الشغل بتعلّم التطريز ("a lack of work will teach you embroidery" - which I've also turned into a tatreez pattern 🤭). Almost none of the women in my family practice tatreez. One of my aunts practices tatreez, but she is self-taught, it was not something passed down from another elder. So, when I finally learned tatreez and started learning about regional motifs, I excitedly went in search of motifs from my hometown of Tulkarm. To my utmost dismay, I found absolutely none.
Why are there no Tulkarm motifs??
Books and websites documenting tatreez motifs featured elaborate and extensive designs from Ramallah, Bethlehem, Gaza, Yafa, Al Quds, and even tiny villages I had never heard of. But where was Tulkarm? How had no one documented a single motif?
As I progressed in my tatreez journey, I soon learned that Tulkarm did not have an extensive practice of tatreez to begin with. We, the women of Tulkarm, were too busy working in the fields and tending to our homes to waste time filling our clothes with useless embroidery. We had fruit to pick! Vegetables to harvest! Food to prepare! Clothing to wash! Floors to sweep! Chickens to pluck! Bread to bake! Children to raise!
While not all women in Tulkarm adorned their clothing with tatreez, those who did kept things very simple. Thobes (dresses) from Tulkarm often only had tatreez on the chest panel and sometimes around the ankles of the Elbas (loose pants) worn underneath a woman's thobe. With lots of white space and simple motifs, the women of Tulkarm stitched minimalist thobes before it was cool.
Growing recognition and early stages of documentation
Since I first began my tatreez journey, there has been growing online recognition and limited documentation of thobes and motifs from Tulkarm. My sister and I keep an eye out for anything related to Tulkarm tatreez and excitedly share whatever few tidbits we find. Over the last year, we have seen more and more pictures and information pop up on Instagram and elsewhere. Here are some of the thobes and motifs I have encountered:
Historic dresses from @Thobnah
A narcissus flower motif in Wafa Ghnaim's book, The Tatreez Companion
A necktie motif featured in Tirazain.com's tatreez archive
Replica thobe produced by Al Hannouneh Society for Popular Culture
Thobes and videos from @PalestinianGrandma
Crowdsourcing tatreez and bringing it all together
As I've hunted for information about tatreez from Tulkarm and saved anything I could find, an idea began to form. If no centralized documentation of motifs from Tulkarm currently exists, why can't I be the one to create it? And so, here we are! I had already begun analyzing photos and digitizing tatreez motifs from Tulkarm for personal projects and patterns earlier this year. It seems selfish, however, to keep everything I'm learning to myself. I also still have many unanswered questions about what the motifs are meant to represent, except for a few.
Starting from now, I will be collecting and digitizing tatreez motifs from Tulkarm in a more formal and organized fashion and publishing some here as I go. But I need your help! Many of the motifs I publish will be unnamed and of unknown meaning. So if you are from Tulkarm or have elders in your family who might be able to help, please reach out and help me identify the motifs I will be sharing.
Follow along as I turn the spotlight on to the beautiful, but long-neglected tatreez traditions from the North of Palestine.
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