    Palestinian cross-stitch, fallahi, embroidery continues as an outstanding craft of the Palestinian village women who decorate their traditional dress and domestic accessories with embroidery. Fallah means farmer, village worker, tiller of the soil. The cross-stitch assumed the name fallahi because it was the stitch embroidered by the fallaha, farm woman. In turn, the embroidery itself is called fallahi.
    The beautifully stitched patterns you are about to see represent a symbol of and a vivid visual identification to each sector of Palestine and its villages. The "knowing eye" is able to distinguish each village or district, one from the other. They are objets d'art with beauty and meaning---an expression of the innate creativity and colorful personality of the Palestinian woman. There are certain colors that different villages adhere to. For example Ramallah and Jaffa favor thread the color of wine red, while Hebron opts for burnt sienna, and Gaza likes the color of magenta.
     Although at first the dress of all the villages look similar, look closely and you will see distinct differences. These differences mark the separate villages, even if they are a few miles apart.

--Palestinian Embroidery. Kawar Widad Kamel and Tania Tamari Nasir. EOS Verlag, D-8917 St. Ottilien, Germany