Applique Embroidery Designs

Conservative Chic: The Muna AbuSulayman Collection

By MARRIAM MOSSALLI, MARRIAM.MOSSALLI@ARABNEWS.COM

Published: Jun 22, 2011 20:13 Updated: Jun 22, 2011 20:13

We have all met Muna AbuSulayman, the TV personality, and we’re all fans of Muna AbuSulayman, the United Nations goodwill ambassador. While most know her today as Muna AbuSulayman, the current secretary-general at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, it is her newest hat — or scarf, in this case, that has us talking.

The muhajaba personality we’ve all come to love is quickly proving there’s nothing she cannot do. Allow me to introduce you to Muna AbuSulayman: the fashion entrepreneur.

“I love creativity,” enthused AbuSulayman, whose passion and energy is pleasantly contagious. “Whether it’s writing or drawing, I always need to have some outlet of creativity in my life or else I feel my world is somehow stagnant,” she confessed.

It was this marriage of her creative side and her proactive attitude that got AbuSulayman thinking that that she had to do something to fill a huge void in the retail market. Born out of her own frustration, AbuSulayman decided to create her own clothing brand when she found herself returning back from countless shopping trips unsatisfied and unfulfilled. “I couldn’t easily find clothes that were nice, elegant, mid-casual and modest!” she stated.

However, AbuSulayman allowed her idea to gestate for a year before she finally launched her line. “I did a lot of research and it was a huge learning curve,” she admitted. “I wanted to make sure that all the issues other women and I had been concerned over were addressed.”

From transparent chiffon blouses, which force modest women to layer, to embroidery on the neckline, which often gets covered when a scarf is worn, AbuSulayman found solutions to with her own line.

“Finding the right materials to use, like a silk that wouldn’t be transparent, took a lot of trial and error,” she revealed. “There was a lot of experimentation.“ She went on to discuss how she even tested different jerseys, omitting ones that were too heavy in the warmer climates of the Gulf. “I wanted my pieces to be light-weight enough so you’re not sweating in your clothes,” stated AbuSulayman, who as a resident of Riyadh, is obliged to wear an added layer in the form of an abaya over her outfits. 

“I want my clothes to be practical, as well as timeless.” With a loyal following of fashionistas aged between 25-45, it seems the vivacious designer has done just that. Her wrapped coveralls are a hit among all aged women, while other pieces are aimed at more specific demographics. “I have things that my young daughter wears and other pieces that my older sister and sister-in-law have in their closets,” she added.

The Many New Faces of Applique Embroidery Designs | Pursuing Other ...

Textile arts have been part of the woman’s world for many centuries and throughout many cultures. When women had enough income and rank that they weren’t scrambling to keep their families fed and clothed, the creation of textiles developed artistic purposes. Tents in India, ceremonial clothing in Native American cultures, and quilts in the American colonies all employed slightly different methods of creating applique embroidery designs , but they all operated on the same idea—one piece of fabric is attached to the surface of another to create an interesting design.

Many of the applique embroidery designs that we see today originated when the art was popular in the early American colonies, though many popular designers draw inspiration from the applique of other world cultures. Applique was probably first discovered as a way to patch clothing. Small pieces of fabric were used to cover holes or tears in existing clothing to all a person to keep wearing the article. People noticed that this could create a very pleasing visual effect, so they began experimenting with cutting the patch into different shapes. Eventually, this practice developed into an art form. It seems appropriate that American colonists would be especially drawn to this art, since it lends itself so well to the frugal lifestyle that many colonists experienced. Rather than buying large amounts of new and expensive threads shipped from England to create their embroidery, the colonists could use pieces of scraps left over from making clothing, bedsheets, blankets, curtains, and tablecloths to decorate their textiles.

This proved to be both a very economical and visually satisfying pastime. Applique developed as a way to attach small pieces of fabric directly to the top of a larger sheet of fabric, while piecing is the process of sewing many small pieces of fabric together to form a larger sheet. Piecing patterns developed as mostly geometric designs, while applique lent itself better to the creation of rounded shapes. Today, many of the applique embroidery designs used by quilters evolved either during the Revolutionary or the Civil War eras. Flowers and leaves are the most common motifs in applique embroidery designs from this era. For example, hundreds of instruction books teach methods for creating the designs found in Baltimore album quilts. Prior to the Civil War, Baltimore was one of the most populous and prosperous cities in the new United States. Many young women at the time found a pastime in creating very complex, beautiful applique embroidery blocks. These might be sewn together into a quilt as a part of the young woman’s trousseau, or they could be exchanged with friends.

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