What happened to hippie embroidery?

emmys-bag-of-fun Don’t miss Arlee Barr‘s article on hippie embroidery and its comeback over on MrXStitch. Oh, the nostalgia. I remember a Christmas in the early 1970s when I embroidered a chambray work shirt for each member of my family. I beg to differ with Arlee on one point, though. She says,

On a side note, from my crawl around the interwebs, adding fringe, Indian coins or the word GROOVY does not necessarily make it hippie. Neither do marijuana leaves—we smoked it in those days, we didn’t embroider it.

Well, I didn’t embroider it. But I recall sitting in a literature class, marveling at the variety of herb illustrations embroidered on the clothing of my classmates. One boy looked as if his entire right leg were being choked to death by a mutant marijuana vine. (The embroiderer seemed to know more about stitching than botany.)

You don’t have to love ganja — embroidered or otherwise — to enjoy Arlee’s analysis of hippie embroidery or the fabulous examples she shares. See her blog post.

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Comments

2 Comments so far

Embroidered Clothing on April 23, 2010 5:45 am
Hey there,

You must not forget that what happened to the hippie embroidery clothing because it brought huge revolution in the world of designs and clothing. It is different from the Indian embroidery and still I don’t remember many things about it.

Regards,
Abraham
val on May 17, 2010 3:26 pm
OMGosh, I was TOTALLY into that when I was in my teens….It was such hard work. I would draw all OVER my jeans and jean jackets, even hats and then embroider the heck out of them. I couldn’t embroider to save my life now! HA!