I purchased a pair of gorgeous oversized shams at last year’s Omaha Botanical Gardens Antique show and they are the centerpiece of this post. Embroidered with the name “Margit” I now have an alter ego. (My new french name!) I loved these shams because they had such pretty embroidery all around the edges. They anchor my bed and currently act like a head board. But I really didn’t know much about them or why they were called “Turkey red”.
The Centerpiece of my sham
My research shed a lot of light on this subject. In the late 1800′s, the country of Turkey was the first to refine a process to make cotton thread colorfast and red was the first color. Until the introduction of colorfast cotton, only silk was used in traditional colored thread embroidery. Colorfastness was critically important because threads used to embroider linens needed to endure the rigors of washing and line drying. Until this point only white and natural cotton were acceptable and
The Entire Sham
affordable for such mundane work. The introduction of turkey red marked the beginning of an era in which colorful decorative items were no longer restricted to clergy and wealthy. Suddenly a whole new colorful world of embellishment was open to the average person. Hand work was more than just busy work in this era. Young women were expected to furnish their own linens as part of their trousseau.
