This year the participants started to embroider a 15-meter-long rushnyk (embroidered towel). The emblem of the festival has already been embroidered in the middle of the canvas, and the leading Ukrainian masters will embroider the ornaments typical of the regions of their residence. “We will start in Ternopil, transfer it to Ivano-Frankivsk, to Bukovyna – and it will continue to travel across other regions of Ukraine. One ornament will be 35 centimeters long,” says the initiator and organizer of “Blossom of Embroidered Shirt” Yevhen Fil. The discussions of new trends of development of Ukrainian embroidery, financial aspect of embroidery, quality of used materials, and relevance of transformation of old ornaments took place during the event which was held in the central square of Ternopil. A prominent trend of this year’s festival was the increased number of bead embroidered peaces.
A gem of this year’s festival was the exhibit of ornaments of Chornobyl Polissia from the Exclusion Zone. The collection was presented by Donetsk resident, head of the All-Ukrainian Civic Organization of Disabled Persons “Chornobyl – Aid,” founder of the Smoloskyp Museum Viktor Tupilko. By this time the exhibit has been on display in Kuban, Transnistria, Munich, Paris, Barcelona, Andorra, etc.
This year the organizers of the festival brought forward the initiative to consolidate the status of embroidered shirt on a state level. They suggest celebrating the Day of Ukrainian Vyshyvanka on second Sunday in May together with Mother’s Day. They appealed with the request to merge these two holidays to MPs from Ternopil oblast, who promised to draft a corresponding bill, register it in Verkhovna Rada, and lobby its approval.
