Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora

Co-authored with Wafa’s mother, award-winning Palestinian embroidery artist Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim, Tatreez & Tea is a 448 page book that serves as an oral history documentation and biography of a Palestinian family in the diaspora preserving traditional embroidery techniques and dressmaking traditions. The book uses the embroidered dresses created by Wafa’s mother to tell the stories of their creation, the historic meanings of the patterns as passed on in the Abbasi family from Safad, and the new stories they capture in Feryal’s process of making in the diaspora. Each embroidery created by Feryal includes the cross-stitch patterns passed on to Wafa and her sisters, the important lessons that tatreez teaches in daily life, as well as tea recipes and anecdotes that helped Wafa and her family recreate the historic “stitching circle” that is paramount to preserving the culture of tatreez. Tatreez & Tea is more than just a book about patterns, tea, coffee and embroidery techniques preserved in the diaspora—it preserves and protects tatreez as an indigenous ceremony enlightened by relationships and storytelling.Palestinian tatreez embroidery is a centuries-old folk art, traditionally passed from mother to daughter over a cup of tea. In Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora, Wafa Ghnaim brings traditional Palestinian embroidery to life by resuscitating its roots as a powerful, provocative, and profound storytelling tool used by Palestinian women for hundreds of years to document their stories, observations, and experiences — including those from her mother, Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim. With 47 cross stitch patterns; six complete sets of dress patterns; tea, coffee, and quince jam recipes; detailed traditional Palestinian embroidery techniques and rare northern Palestinian Arabic tatreez terminology — each design, history and meaning is documented and preserved. Tatreez & Tea is far more than a book about traditional Palestinian embroidery designs and meanings: it’s an oral history documentation of the Nakba survivors in her family that captures the essence of tatreez stitching circles as they once were and how to recreate them in exile, as well as a way forward to resurrect tatreez as a source of identity—one that guided Wafa as she created a home in the Palestinian diaspora.Please note that this is a black and white book, and there is a full color version available on Amazon. Read more