Weaving
Hemp and flax were cultivated not only for their seeds, used to extract cooking oil, but also for their textile fibres, from which different household goods such as towels, bedspreads, pillow-cases, tablecloths, or garments like shirts, blouses, headscarves were woven. Wool was also largely used in textile weaving and, later on, coming from the orient, cotton and silk reached the Romanian home textile industry.The woollen textiles can in turn be divided into two main categories – for the house (blankets, carpets, shoulder bags), and for clothing – peasant’s skirts, aprons, dresses, men’s long coats etc. Experience acquired over many centuries led the Romanian village women to a high degree of technical skill and artistry in processing the textile fibres. The horizontal weaving loom is attested in the territory of Romania as early as the 10th – 11th century, while the spinning tools are much older, because most of them preserve Latin names: Rom. fus (spindle), furca (distaff, rock), caier (flock of wool), ghem (ball of thread) etc. Although made of the same material (wool) and, on the whole, using the same tools and techniques, the woollen rugs and carpets show a great variety in patterns and colours. The geometrical patterns of Moldavian carpets are set on a blue, green or sometimes red, background on which the famous Sassanidic Persian motif of the Tree of Life can be easily identified. Carpets in the Banat area have very wide borders and are predominantly geometrical design, on a bright red background. In Maramures, the carpets are woven in delicate browny-yelowish shades and display various stylized motifs which include the “hora”. The background of Wallachian carpets is dark blue, and their patterns, which are usually geometrical, consist mainly of cogged, rhombic motifs interspersed among the elements of the design. The carpets woven in Oltenia are among the most famous of the kind; they used to be made by highly-skilled women, known as “chilimgioaice”, in workshops traditionally run by either monasteries or rich nobleman.
