Tulle-bi-telli, also known as Assuit or 'Assiut after Asyut where it is made, is a textile marrying cotton or linen mesh with small strips of metal. The first documentation of fabric is in the 18th century. [1] Other spellings include assuite, asyut, assyut, asyute, and azute. The name translates roughly as "net with metal".
Assuit has great lateral elasticity, thanks to its openwork mesh. It is heavy, and retains heat, but is favoured for its ability to drape.
The base material is bobbinet, which is a machine-made fabric made of cotton or, in older pieces, linen. The embroidery is applied by hand. [2] Thin strips of alloy are threaded onto a flat, wide needle with a flat, wide eye. Alloy is used because pure silver would blacken with age and would be impossible to clean, and gold would be too costly. Each strip is approximately 1/8" wide and 18" to 24" long. The strips are threaded into the mesh, criss-crossed, flattened with the fingernails, and cut. The fabric is then stamped down, and when the designs are finished, the fabric is passed through a roller to flatten the metal even more.
Many tulle bi telli pieces have geometric or figural motifs (such as people, animals, and objects). One such motif is the comb, which is included as a visual reference to pre-wedding henna nights. People may represent the bride or the wedding procession. A camel, especially with a person or object on it's back, represents the groom. A bed represents the marriage, and often bed motifs are placed next to a row of star motifs, evoking the night and therefore the things a husband and wife do in bed. [3]
Tulle-bi-telli probably has it's roots in Turkey, where the similar embroidery style tel kirma originates. [4] The tulle commonly used in the fabric and the machine to make it was associated with France, [5] but invented in England. [6] The ultimate history of tulle-bi-telli and tel kirma is also connected to a technique called badla, and to khus-duzi. It is possible the prototype of these embroidery styles originated somewhere in the Turkic cultural sphere and spread outwards thanks to the Ottoman empire, or that it was invented in India in the Mughal period in the form of Muqayyash embroidery. [7]
In Egypt, tulle-bi-telli shawls were at first a Coptic specialty. [4]
In Egypt bobbinet machines started being imported from Europe in the 1840s and in the 1870s the first evidence of tulle-bi-telli appeared. [8] Early in tulle-bi-telli's introduction to Europeans, they called it spangled mosquito netting, and it was bought to hang over hats for that very purpose. [6]
Assuit has been used in Hollywood productions such as the 1934 Cecil B. DeMille opus Cleopatra . It was draped on Hedy Lamarr in Samson and Delilah . It is used extensively for dresses in old Egyptian musicals. It was also worn draped over the head, as wraps, and as wedding gowns. Folkloric Belly Dancers often make costumes from it. It can also be used for decoration: Piano shawls were extremely popular, and specimens can still be found occasionally in antique shops.
Shawls come in different sizes: most are long and narrow, and the designs vary, ranging from the simple to the elaborate. Some people believe designs have been passed down through families, as with weaving and embroidery work. Some designs appear to be intentionally left incomplete. Coptic Christian designs often have animal and human figures, whereas Muslim shawls rely on geometric designs. In some places, assuit shawls are incorrectly referred to as Coptic shawls. The geometric designs were popular with the Art Deco movement, beginning around 1925.
A needlework sampler is a piece of embroidery or cross-stitching produced as a 'specimen of achievement', demonstration or a test of skill in needlework. It often includes the alphabet, figures, motifs, decorative borders and sometimes the name of the person who embroidered it and the date. The word sampler is derived from the Latin exemplum, which means 'example'.
Crewel embroidery, or crewelwork, is a type of surface embroidery using wool. A wide variety of different embroidery stitches are used to follow a design outline applied to the fabric. The technique is at least a thousand years old.
A shawl is a simple item of clothing, loosely worn over the shoulders, upper body and arms, and sometimes also over the head. It is usually a rectangular piece of cloth, but can also be square or triangular in shape. Other shapes include oblong shawls. It is associated with the inhabitants of the northern Indian subcontinent—particularly Kashmir and Punjab—and Central Asia, but can be found in many other parts of the world.
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Asyut is the capital of the modern Asyut Governorate in Egypt. It was built close to the ancient city of the same name, which is situated nearby. The modern city is located at 27°11′00″N31°10′00″E, while the ancient city is located at 27°10′00″N31°08′00″E. The city is home to one of the largest Coptic Catholic churches in the country.
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Silk In India, about 97% of the raw mulberry silk is produced in the Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Mysore and North Bangalore, the upcoming site of a US$20 million "Silk City", contribute to a majority of silk production. Another emerging silk producer is Tamil Nadu in the place in where mulberry cultivation is concentrated in Salem, Erode and Dharmapuri districts. Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh and Gobichettipalayam, Tamil Nadu were the first locations to have automated silk reeling units.
The manufacture of textiles is one of the oldest of human technologies. To make textiles, the first requirement is a source of fiber from which a yarn can be made, primarily by spinning. The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving, which turns it into cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. For decoration, the process of colouring yarn or the finished material is dyeing. For more information of the various steps, see textile manufacturing.
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English embroidery includes embroidery worked in England or by English people abroad from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. The oldest surviving English embroideries include items from the early 10th century preserved in Durham Cathedral and the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry, if it was worked in England. The professional workshops of Medieval England created rich embroidery in metal thread and silk for ecclesiastical and secular uses. This style was called Opus Anglicanum or "English work", and was famous throughout Europe.
Croatian national costume, also called as Croatian traditional clothing or Croatian dress, refers to the traditional clothing worn by Croats living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, with smaller communities in Hungary, Austria, Montenegro, and Romania. Since today Croats wear Western-style clothing on a daily basis, the national costumes are most often worn with connection to special events and celebrations, mostly at ethnic festivals, religious holidays, weddings, and by dancing groups who dance the traditional Croatian kolo, or circle dance.
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