Tatreez and me

How I connect to my grandmother and Palestine through traditional embroidery.

My mother is wearing her traditional wedding dress made by my Sitti and aunt Nada. She holds me as I also wear a thobe at the Seattle Arab Festival in 2002. // Photo by Anyssa Mahmoud

Sitti Zainub loved tatreez, she loved creating flowers and using vibrant colors. She, alongside my great aunt Nada, designed my mother’s wedding dress. It took them over four months to cross stitch the whole thing. My baba and mama often laugh at the fact my great aunt Nada would sometimes undo and redo my grandmother's stitching because it did not meet her “standards.”

I wear sitti Zainub’s embroidery with pride, it is one of the only things I have from her. Every time I wear her designs I get to connect to a piece of my past. I remember the resilience of my people and the strength my grandmother had resisting occupation while raising seven children in a refugee camp.

My Sitti was forced out of our village in Innaba, Palestine in 1948 and forced out of Palestine entirely in 1967. All she had with her was her family and a few belongings. According to the Institute for Middle East Understanding over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes in 1948 and made into refugees due to the creation of Israel. My family was no exception. My father was born in 1967 in one of the oldest cities in the world, Jericho, Palestine. 

When my father was 4 months old the six-day war of 1967 happened. My family was forced to flee again. On June 5th, 1967 Israel, unprovoked, invaded Palestinian, Syrian and Egyptian territories all at once. Within six days over 300,000 Palestinians were made into refugees. The Mahmouds migrated to the Al Baqaa refugee camp in Amman, Jordan.

Sitti Zainub was a strong woman, many would describe her as bull-headed, stubborn and a force to be reckoned with. We only met a few times before she passed. Living on opposite sides of the world, and speaking completely different languages, made things difficult. Her death impacted me more than I thought, I always feel her with me, and I wanted another way to connect with her.

There is a traditional style of embroidery cross-stitching in Palestine called tatreez. It can be traced back to the Canaanites, our descendants. Each city and village in Palestine has its own style, colors and motifs. Sitti Zainub wore thobes with tatreez designs all the time, a thobe is a long dress indigenous to Palestine and other countries in the Levant.

Traditionally the skill is passed down from elders to the younger generation of women — women gather in groups to do it, drinking shay, Arab tea. My baba recalls sitti Zainub and his aunties sitting in a circle on the floor, laughter filling the air, hot tea on the stove and needles with thread everywhere. My mother is not Palestinian so she was unable to teach me. The occupation of Palestine took away that opportunity from me. I am having to make memories on my own across the world from our homeland. The place our family had lived for thousands of years. 

Tatreez is all about the land, there are patterns for oranges, chickpeas, camels, sunflowers, almond trees — the list goes on. In the village where my great-grandfather lived, he was the grand muqtar, meaning mayor. I often dream of her and I in our village stitching a thobe together and drinking shay, hot tea with mint and dried sage. We would feel the warmth of the Mediterranean sun on us, laughing as we poke our fingers by accident with the needles we use to stitch.

I dream of getting to know her, to have more than my faint memories. Then I wake up, and I am not in Palestine, and my grandmother is not alive. In cold, rainy Washington, it is time to connect my heart and my hands to Palestine.

I have always wanted to learn but felt ashamed that I did not know how, or where, to begin. My mother bought me a tatreez kit years ago and I never opened it, it never felt like the timing was right or that I was worthy. I felt different this day, so I dug through my drawers and found the kit. 

The completed tatreez flower attached to the aida cloth and the shirt. // Photo by Anyssa Mahmoud

I begin.

My mother gifted me the book “Tatreez and Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora” by Wafa Ghnaim, it has the history of tatreez, and which colors and designs are native to each village. This book was made specifically for Palestinians in the diaspora, those outside of Palestine looking for connection. Ghnaim started an institute inspired by the teachings in her book that reminds anyone that joining the tatreez community is more than art, it is “an agent in fighting for Palestinian liberation.” Before I pick up a needle and thread I need to understand the history of this craft.

The designs are very intricate, but the role of tatreez changed with the occupation of Palestine. It became a means of resistance. When Israel illegalized Palestinians from waving the Palestinian flag women began to embroider it onto their thobes. 

We are more than the occupation and means of resistance show up differently. Motifs used in tatreez tell a story, traditionally men had more access to school, and so women were able to share their stories despite not having the writing skills to do so. Weddings and pregnancies are merely a few of the stories told.

In my village, Innaba, we are known for our bright colors, although a city sits on top of the ruins of our village it is our job to keep the village and its story  alive. Innaba was depopulated in 1948 during what we call the “nakba,” meaning catastrophe. The men in my family stayed back to defend our village and my great-grandfather was captured by Jewish soldiers from the Yiftach and Eighth brigades, he eventually escaped after gruesome torture that left him with broken ribs. The Israeli city of Kfar Shmuel sits on top of our village.

Raising seven children in Al Baqaa while her husband my Sidi worked as a teacher in Saudi Arabia left her no time to teach her daughters my four aunties our families way of tatreez. Another thing the occupation took away from us. 

I have decided to tatreez a simple flower on one of my shirts.

I start by using Aida cloth, included in the kit, it is a fabric with a bunch of tiny holes that make cross-stitching easier. I start with a yellow thread and lick the end to get it small enough to push through the needle, my mom helps me with this part. To make a line I have to create tiny X’s, dashes on one side, and loop back to complete it. 

Salty tears rush down my face, I feel a mix of emotions.I am sad I am not with Sitti, she should be here. But I also feel a sense of pride. My fingers were meant to do this.

Now that I have mastered a simple line that took me almost an hour to complete, I pick the flower I want to design. I am choosing to use red and purple, these colors are popular in my village Innaba. I take a deep breath in as I poke my first hole in. I can’t help but wonder how old she was when her mother taught her.

Back and forth, in and out, I wonder how Sitti felt doing this. How fast did she go? Probably a lot faster than me. 

I have now completed one petal.

This is taking me way longer than it ever took her.

Because I want my flower on a shirt I am using the Aida cloth connected to the shirt. Now that I am finished I am taking tweezers and a seam ripper to pull apart the cloth from the shirt.

My flower is done. My skill is nowhere close to what my grandmother’s was but this has brought me even closer to her. Every time I pick up a needle and thread I feel like I am sitting next to her. 

With each geometric petal, I reflected on her life: How beautiful this craft is, how connected to her I feel, and connected to my home which I have never been able to visit. It is somewhere I long for, until I can touch Palestine’s soil I will touch a needle and thread.