On the chest and sleeves of a dress, cross-stitches tell of a place: its colours, its motifs and the names of its villages.
Palestinian tatreez is the art of cross-stitch on cloth. It passes between women: a girl learns from her mother and grandmother how to count the threads and build a motif, stitch by stitch.
The Palestinian dress, the thob, takes many forms, and its embroidery could once tell which town the woman wearing it came from: each region had its favourite motifs and colours.
In 2021, the art of embroidery in Palestine was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Today you will find tatreez on dresses, and on cushions, belts and accessories too. Even Cana's logo carries embroidery stitches on the sunbird's neck and shoulder.
