Craft Snippets: Embroidery with Julie Clemett

Sally reports back from the last Craft Snippets event at Upper Riccarton Library. The next event on Wednesday 25 March will feature ceramicist, Nikki Wallace-Bell.

It was wonderful to see so many of you for our first Craft Snippets talk of 2026 and so interesting to hear our speaker, Julie Clemett, talk about her journey in Ukrainian folk embroidery.

A lifelong pursuit

Julie started her journey at a young age, taught by her mother and grandmother. Julie has a set of orange gingham placemats she embroidered at four years old. Her interest in embroidery ebbed through her teenage years but took off again when she had children. After mastering cross stitch designs of Teresa Wentzler, Julie decided there were other techniques to learn. Mostly self-taught, Julie calls herself a technician, as she loves learning new techniques.

Julie’s work has progressed through the years including crewel embroidery using wool on twill and this started her teaching at Broomfields. The goldwork Julie showed us was a three-dimensional piece that features iridescent green beetle wings that come from Indonesia and are collected from dead beetles. Julie cuts them into pieces and stitches them on to the work. From goldwork Julie moved on to metalwork using metal threads that are also used for decorating saris in India.

Julie showed us her lockdown project, a quilt. A colleague of hers had commented before Julie started the project that she would struggle with it because it wasn’t counted thread embroidery. Julie took up the challenge and fell in love with the colour, pattern and process. Always keen to try something different, Julie didn’t follow the colours in the pattern or the lay out. We all agreed it was a success.

Another beautiful work Julie showed us was her needle lace on tulle. Tulle has a hexagonal grain (three straight grain instead or the normal two in woven fabrics). So, it takes a bit to get your head around working with it. Another challenge accepted and a new technique learnt. From this Julie played with the tulle, dying it and enjoying the effect of how the petals of the flowers would curl when water was dropped on to the tulle.

Ukrainian embroidery

Through all of Julie’s embroidery from Italian embroidery to German embroidery, it is Ukrainian embroidery that has held her attention the longest. Julie is not Ukrainian, nor does she have an attachment to the Ukraine, but she likes the powerful cultural identity attached to the embroidery. Julie talked about going down a rabbit hole after seeing a picture of a rushnyk, a religious ceremonial cloth. This piece is something people would wear at a wedding, birth or funeral. People have more than one and the piece of clothing will follow them from their birth to their grave. The geometric pattern and colour of red attracted Julie.

Research and embroidery resources

Julie found various places to find out more about Ukrainian embroidery including this folk costume blog. This site has an extensive bibliography where you can find more resources.

Julie mentioned two books that she has found incredibly useful in her Ukrainian embroidery work – “Embroidery of the Hutsuls”, by Sorochaniuk and “Borshchiv Folk Shirt”. Both books are out of print, but you can find copies online.

A lot of the patterns and information is written in Cyrillic. Julie has taught herself some of the characters and to begin with used Google Translate to help her. Eventually this wasn’t enough. Julie found Lexilogos, an online keyboard where you can put in any language and it will help you translate the words.

There are also several good web resources Julie has found including Lidiya Bebeshko on Pinterest. Lidiya Bebeshko has recorded traditional patterns from the Ukraine, going around museums and graphing patterns and has amassed a large resource of photos and produced several pattern books.

Browsing the website, National Clothing took Julie down another rabbit hole. For example, learning that embroidery on clothing was often incorporated to add warmth. Buttons were expensive so not traditionally used. The fabric for shirts was usually wool or hemp. People had shirts specifically for various occasions. Girls would work on embroidering the shirts for their dowry and how many shirts a girl had in her dowry was an indicator of status, 30-40 showed you were poor, 100+ showed you were better off. Girls from well to do homes had more time for embroidery so could make more shirts. Once they married there was less time for stitching, so you wanted to have a good number of shirts put away.

Regional variations and national identity

Different parts of the Ukraine have different designs, for example in the west they are more strictly geometrical designs, the North have geometric designs with flowers, the East a more flowing floral design. Traditional motifs have different meanings. The diamond signifies fertility and is often on marriage garments. Young women traditionally wear garments with diamond designs until the birth of their first child. The eight-point mallow signifies the meaning of life and is made up of a combination of the straight cross for men and the angle cross for women and features strongly in Ukrainian embroidery.

To keep the traditions of Ukrainian embroidery alive there is now a national day to celebrate on the first Thursday of May. This is now a day of national unity and people will wear embroidered garments.

Julie has thoroughly enjoyed learning all about Ukrainian embroidery and understanding the culture behind it. She has never visited the Ukraine but would love to go and has a long list of places to visit when she does get there.

Embroidery supplies

Julie share what sorts of materials she uses and where she gets them from:

• Linen & cotton or wool thread - from any embroidery supplier – local suppliers like Broomfields, Sew & Co, Art and Frame, or further afield such as Plume Art + Stitch, Naki Threads, or Ribbon Rose.
• Goldwork threads – ShirleyPDesigns (Auckland), or Alison Cole Embroidery (Australia).
• Indian Embroidery supplies – coloured metal threads, mirrors, kundan etc – Embroiderymaterial.com, and various other online sources.

More examples of Julie's embroidery work

Latest craft titles: January 2026

Angela did a roundup of great books and magazines. Items shared at our January gathering.

View Full List

What’s On

Upcoming craft events:

• Our next Craft Snippets event is Craft Snippets with Nikki Wallace-Bell on Wednesday 25 March
• Suffrage Stitchers Contribute some stitchers towards a piece celebrating women's suffrage - Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre, Friday 20 February.
• Spinners and Weavers Come along with your spinning, weaving or knitting project. Ōrauwhata: Bishopdate Library, Friday 20 February.
• Crafting for Wellbeing - Braided Bracelet Tūranga, Saturday 21 February
• Matatiki Sewing Club Every Thursday at Matatiki Hornby Centre.