All posts filed under: Team building

Ukrainian community project 2025

Published by gertrud

On May 15th, in celebration of World Vyshyvanka Day (Vyshyvanka is the Ukrainian word for Embroidery), Ukraine House in Washington, D.C. hosted the grand opening of the Ukrainian Embroidery Mosaic. Unveiled alongside the Ambassador of Ukraine to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, the mosaic stands as a powerful tribute to Ukraine’s rich cultural heritage and deep-rooted tradition of embroidery art in the country. Each embroidery pattern within the mosaic was individually created by a member of the community, designed in the style of regional Ukrainian embroidery to reflect the nation’s diverse artistic traditions. Every pattern was reviewed and approved by an ethnographer from the National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine, ensuring historical and cultural accuracy. The mosaic is geographically arranged—from the Lutsk region in the northwest at the top left, to Crimea in the southeast at the bottom right—forming a visual map of Ukraine through the language of textile art. This intricate work, composed of 25,000 stones and brought to life by more than 30 contributors, is a testament to unity, resilience, and …

Ukraine House community mosaic

Published by gertrud

In March 2025 we ran 2 workshops with the Ukraine House community to draw designs and later built them as mosaics. The idea was to create a map of the beautiful embroidery of Ukraine as a mosaic mural. I was thrilled by this commission as I lived in Ukraine between 2006-12 and could experience their rich culture in embroidery. Now during the time of war in Ukraine, I had never been able to express my sorrow enough about not only the loss of lives but also of hand crafted items like embroidered garnment, handcarved ornaments on houses and churches and of course the flagship of Ukrainian artisanal mastery – Pysanky eggs. But the patterns are still alive! In books, in the memory of people and in objects that survived destruction. In this project we literally set in stone 25 embroidery patterns each one depicting a region of Ukraine. Nearly 30 people came to draw and later built these patterns with small kizment glass tiles. Participants were not only Ukrainian nationals. I met a young reasearcher …

Embroidery pattern – Mosaic, Washington DC

Published by gertrud

Turning embroidery patterns into mosaics has always appealed to me. Cross stitch patterns in particular are notated in small squares. Pixel mosaic templates are produced in the same way. I wanted to use this equality in the design templates to create an embroidery pattern mosaic. In March/April 2024, I worked with over 50 women from the World Bank Family Network in Washington DC to create a community mosaic based on embroidery patterns. The patterns come from embroidery and other textile works from many cultures, which women from different parts of the world discovered, photographed and sent in for the project. Each woman has written a short text about the embroidery design and her relationship to it. At the moment, one of these stories appears on Facebook every week. I will forward them to you: <iframe src=%2Fposts%width=”500″ height=”586″ style=”border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”true” allow=”autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share”></iframe> <iframe src=%2Fposts%width=”500″ height=”638″ style=”border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”true” allow=”autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share”></iframe>