#rememberingmymother

 

Museum item: Virgin Mary icon.

Digital item: Colorful bag

Donor of digital item: Nevenka Jevtović*

Note from donor: 

My colorful, cheerful purse made up of different combinations of colors on both sides is the handiwork of my late mother, Milica Dragicevic (1927-2016), from Krusevac. I was given a few similar purses over the years which I’ve kept unused and in perfect condition in her memory.

This bag was made thirty years ago from various balls of woollen thread of approximate thickness. I remember that she knitted it without any preplanned idea of how she wanted it to look, she just followed her intuition and innate sense of color matching. She was usually guided by this feeling when she created various dresses and items.

The entire female part of the Dragicevic family (two of my aunts and my mother) have, from their youth to the end of their lives, been engaged in the production of beautiful woolen and cotton garments and items. There is a lot of love, creativity, patience and pinched fingers in each of these many beautiful works.

My mother was especially interested in creating handicrafts made up of many different patterns and colours, she especially liked making rows of bright colours … she would loose herself in her work: creating, decorating, and redoing, all within one creation.

Her favorite sentence was “Now I’m going to Paraćin,” after which she would unweave the work she was not happy with and start from the beginning. It happened often that we would all go to sleep, except her, and in the morning be presented with beautiful items of clothing or house slippers, or small bag, or element for hanging kitchen items. Or some similar creation.

She had inexhaustible ideas and revelled in the creative process of her work. Since she was also quite economical she never discarded the offcuts of wool, instead would tidily wrap them in small piles, keeping them for some future opportunity for her inspiration. As well as for surprising us, her children. So, that’s how this bag came to be.

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*For more stories from the Jevtović family scan the following items: