In traditional Ukrainian embroidery since ancient times, five main colors stand out: white, red, blue (indigo), yellow and black. Embroidery can be single-colored or combined.
Sewing with "white on white" or white (with bright white threads) is undoubtedly an ancient tradition that is characteristic of all Ukrainian lands, as well as many European nations. White sewing is currently preserved in Poltava Oblast, so there is a stereotype that white embroidery can only be Poltava. However, there are many artifacts in museum and private collections that demonstrate the white sewing of Polissia, Volhynia, Podillia, Zakarpattia, Pokuttia, Bukovyna and other regions.
In ancient times, cloth was bleached, as well as threads for embroidery during St. Peter's Day, on the longest and sunniest days of the year. But if the canvas can be bleached in one season, then pain was prepared for three years in a row (information from Poltava region) so that the energy of three different years entered the threads that will be used to embroider sacred patterns. In essence, white is a combination of all the colors of the rainbow spectrum. It is not for nothing that white is called the color of strength. That is why our ancestors bleached cloth for shirts and towels well, whitewashed houses outside and inside. Embroidery "white on white" also belongs to this culture.
There were usually threads of different colors, and in addition to the main five, listed above, there were many dyes of vegetable origin, which gave a wide palette of natural ocher, gray, brown, green and other colors. But in order to dye threads in decoctions of plants, it was first necessary to bleach them, to give them the power of light on the one hand, and secondly, to make the colors brighter. The lands of Ukraine, where there was a tradition of sewing with linen, are also distinguished by a rich embroidery technology. After all, in order for the white embroidery to play with different light and shade effects, embroiderers used a combination of transparent and opaque stitches. Sometimes there can be 10-15 of their varieties on one shirt.
Now, when traditional culture is being revived, including folk embroidery, white sewing is becoming more and more popular. Such things are refined, stylish and versatile, they are successfully combined in the wardrobe with modern clothes.
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