Poltava white-on-white embroidery
The regional embroidery manner of the Poltava region, in which the pattern is worked in white thread on white cloth, combining counted satin stitch (lyshtva) with openwork techniques.
White-on-white work is the hallmark of folk embroidery in the Poltava region; openwork stitching in white on white is also found in the Chernihiv region. Because the thread does not contrast with the ground, the design is read through the relief of the stitches and the pierced areas.
The manner rests on combining two groups of techniques: openwork (cutwork and drawn-thread merezhka) and lyshtva, a counted satin stitch with many variants. The ornament is geometric and stylised floral; established motifs include the «broken tree», viburnum and pumpkin leaf. Grey, ochre, greenish, pale blue and occasionally black thread may be added to the white, but the range stays muted.
Its relation to Reshetylivka embroidery is as follows: Poltava white-on-white embroidery is the regional style of the whole Poltava region, while Reshetylivka is its best-known local centre with its own school of masters. It is the Reshetylivka variant that is protected: «The technology of white-on-white embroidery of the settlement of Reshetylivka» was entered on Ukraine's National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2017. Poltava embroidery as a whole is not a separate element; another Poltava-region element is the tradition of embroidering women's shirts in the Hadiach area (2023). None of these is on a UNESCO list.
