Hmong textile art Wikipedia

Table Of Content

• Hmong Sev Sewing Pattern Sewing Tutorial Sewing Pattern Hmong Clothes Digital Patterns
• Vintage Tribal Black Hmong embroidered cotton batik
• FREE SHIPPING - Paj Ntaub Heart Women Shirt. Hmong Shirt. Hmong Clothes. Hmong Gift. Hmong Inspired.
• Hmong Keyfobs and keychains, Hmong prints, handmade, gift, blue, purple, teal, machine, snail print
• Gender and Paj Ntaub
• Story Cloth
• Hmong Digital Files - Starter Pack 1. JPEG, PNG. Digital file. Updated 11.11.2023

From handmade pieces to vintage treasures ready to be loved again, Etsy is the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. It’s also home to a whole host of one-of-a-kind items made with love and extraordinary care. While many of the items on Etsy are handmade, you’ll also find craft supplies, digital items, and more. The Hmong Cultural Center and the Hmong Archives would like to thank the following people who contributed their time to support this project. He wrote narratives for the selected pieces to be featured on the Hmong Embroidery website.

Hmong Sev Sewing Pattern Sewing Tutorial Sewing Pattern Hmong Clothes Digital Patterns

The motifs and symbols represent everything from nature to architecture, and one can only imagine the intimate relationship between the Hmong and the land they lived on when it is featured on elaborate and arduous embroidery. Many of the people in the diaspora may not have the same kind of physical closeness to the land as they once did, but these symbols continue to persist in the form of tattoos and other mediums. In traditional Hmong culture, the women prepare traditional funeral textiles adorned with Paj Ntaub for their close relatives such as their parents, in-laws, and spouse.

Vintage Tribal Black Hmong embroidered cotton batik

The stories revealed the essence of humanity by seeking peace only to face wars, escaping tragedy to find a new voice, and seeking shelter and creating new lives for future generations. As the Hmong people continue to adapt and redefine themselves across the world, their stories are stitched onto cloth as memories of their lived history. Like all art, Hmong paj ntaub (flower cloth) is inspired by their environment.

FREE SHIPPING - Paj Ntaub Heart Women Shirt. Hmong Shirt. Hmong Clothes. Hmong Gift. Hmong Inspired.

Today the motifs in Hmong embroidery are used as decorations in clothing, accessories, and crafts. Traditional Hmong batik, known as Paj Ntaub nraj ciab/cab in the Hmong language RPA,[3] is created using white hemp fabric, beeswax, indigo dye, and a tjanting tool. Aesthetically, Hmong batik is similar to other Hmong visual design and often features bold and contrasting geometric designs. These designs are achieved by holding the handle of the tjanting tool with the copper nib positioned closer to the wrist which allows straight strokes to be drawn.

Hmong Keyfobs and keychains, Hmong prints, handmade, gift, blue, purple, teal, machine, snail print

Batik is a resist-dyeing technique in which hot wax is applied to cloth to create a pattern. The cloth is then dyed, typically using a single color (traditionally indigo), and the wax is removed. The waxed areas of the cloth resist the dye and the desired pattern remains. Here is a selection of four-star and five-star reviews from customers who were delighted with the products they found in this category.

Gender and Paj Ntaub

Many elders do not have time to teach these traditions to their grandchildren. For the reasons above, the Hmong art of making paj ntaub may be lost among future generations. Traditionally, Hmong embroidery was made exclusively by women to provide clothing for themselves, their husbands, and family members. They also embroidered baby carriers and funerary textiles like clothing and pillow casing for the deceased. The Hmong people who practiced animism (the belief that natural objects have souls or spirits, and that they can help or harm people) believe dressing their deceased loved ones in flower cloth textiles allowed them to join their ancestors in the spirit world. Traditional paj ntaub has many motifs and symbols that represent objects from the natural world to the man-made world.

Story Cloth

This is typically done well in advance of their relatives' death and are gifted to them as a token of filial endearment. There are complex embroidery techniques used by Hmong women to make clothes and other decorative items. The main techniques are appliqué, reverse appliqué, batik, chain stitch, cross stitch, embroidery, and story cloth stitchery. The table below gives a brief description of what each technique is and examples for reference. Traditionally, these flower cloths were applied to regalia worn during courtship festivals, baby-carriers, and men’s collars as decoration. Overtime, Flower Cloths transformed into the primary way of communicating Hmong Culture and history between and among the people and over generations.

The Blue/Green Hmong women are known for their batik pleated skirts that are dyed black or indigo blue. White Hmong women do not dye their pleated skirts but leave them in their natural “white” color. Meanwhile, Striped Hmong women wear a jacket with blue or white stripes around their black sleeves. Even though each group of Hmong have their own unique clothing items, they share common articles in their attire. Formal Hmong clothes are worn at celebrations like the New Year, weddings, funerals, naming ceremonies, and other important ritual events. In the refugee camps, everyone had more time than they once did in Laos, so story cloths were not exclusively sewn by Hmong women and girls, but men also helped.

The Hmong people’s desire to live freely drove some of them to flee China into the mountainous areas in Southeast Asia (Burma, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam) in the late 1800s. To save their written language, Hmong women turned the script into motifs or symbols hidden in the pleated skirts of the Blue/Green Hmong. Over time, the motifs lost their meaning, but they remained important symbols of Hmong identity. Embroidery is a sewing technique that uses a needle and thread to decorate the surface of a fabric. The overarching term for Hmong embroidery is called paj ntaub (pa thou) and translates to “flower cloth.” Hmong elders said the name was inspired by flowers where the stem, when cut, radiates symmetrically from the center.

Outagamie County, Hmong work to create Secret War Memorial at Plamann - Post-Crescent

Outagamie County, Hmong work to create Secret War Memorial at Plamann.

Posted: Wed, 19 May 2021 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Hmong women coded onto clothing their language in order to disguise their stories from their oppressors. Common design motifs found in traditional Hmong embroidery are the elephant’s foot, snails, mountains, house, dragon tail, cucumber seed, heart, pinwheel, star, landscape, diamond, flower, and more. For instance, the three patterns on the skirt were sewn to represent the three main bodies of water (Yellow River or Dej Dag, Yangtze River, and Dongting Lake or Pas Dej Toob Theeb) the Hmong crossed to escape persecution. In the Thai refugee camps, Hmong people began to sell their Flower Cloths across seas, producing items like bedspreads and purses which were then shipped worldwide. The men in the camp created illustrations for the folktales which represented the traumatic events of their exodus.

Hmong people living in the US and in developed countries around the world may not spend time making traditional paj ntaub and pictorial story cloths like they once did, because they have jobs and educational access that have expanded their economic opportunities. Meanwhile, Hmong people in Southeast Asia and China still embroider in order to make a living from their crafts, but they have learned to adapt due to access of materials, machines, and markets. Hemp is most commonly used for funeral garments in the contemporary era. Hmong motifs are copied, and replicated into machine-made patterns with Hmong designs and motifs. These copied patterns are made into pleated skirts, cuffs, and the placket fronts of jackets, as well as accessories.

Hmong women used paj ntaub to make colorful intricate designs for their clothing. Clothes are important to the Hmong people because they identify groups and clans based on the design, style, and accessories. In Thailand, story cloths were sold at open markets to Western aid workers or sent to relatives in other countries (USA, France, Australia, etc). Story cloths can invite the viewer to empathize and appreciate the experiences of the Hmong people.

In China, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world, Hmong embroidery is passed down from mothers to daughters as young as five or six years old. In Laos, the skills these young girls acquired made them valuable to potential suitors because the expectation was for them to know how to sew clothes for themselves and their family members. Hmong elders also share that their ancestors call it the Flower Cloth because the embroidery patterns resemble how the petals of a flower stem out evenly from its center. Outside of the traditions, families will profit from the paj ntaub by making traditional or contemporary pieces. These pieces will then be sold at the Hmong New Year which occurs in late October through December.

Story cloths emerged out of necessity to bring income to support Hmong families in the refugee camps after surviving the Secret War. Through this new art form, Hmong women, children, and men transformed Hmong oral traditions into visual narratives by telling their stories on cloths. This new style of embroidery offered Hmong artists a chance to share their creativity and record their desolate reality living in the refugee camps, while expressing their yearning for home and loved ones left behind in Laos. A common story shared by many elders say that paj ntaub (flower cloth) are the remnants of the Hmong language.

Hmong women adapted traditional motifs, and developed new styles of paj ntaub and crafts for commercial purposes, especially targeted to tourists and the Western market. From traditional textile decorations on clothes, they developed tapestries or story cloths. These tapestries first appeared in the 1980s when the Hmong people lived in the refugee camps. There was little opportunity to make money, so the women used their embroidery skills to earn income to support their families. On the story cloths, the women depicted the war experience through embroidery needlework, and similarly the village life that the Hmong were once familiar with when they lived in Laos. The squares normally found on the qua sev, a belt that is traditionally worn on the Hmong women’s waist with Hmong clothes, were also adapted to larger sizes.

These stories were then passed down from generation to generation, primarily through the matriline. Hmong Textile Art consists of traditional and modern textile arts and crafts produced by the Hmong people. Traditional Hmong textile examples include hand-spun hemp cloth production, basket weaving, batik dyeing, and a unique form of embroidery known as flower cloth or Paj Ntaub in the Hmong language RPA. The most widely recognized modern style of Hmong textile art is a form of embroidery derived from Paj Ntaub known as story cloth. The second form of paj ntaub is known as pictorial story cloths  or paj ntaub tshiab (pa thou chia), a new type of flower cloth that were created in Thailand refugee camps in the 1970s.