Irena Skorupska

Weaving – a way of life

For Irena Skorupska weaving became a lifestyle a bit accidentally. In Irena’s family, her husband, her mother, Katarzyna Borowska, and her mother-in-law all dealt with weaving. When her husband got tired with it and her mother-in-law could not continue due to advanced age, Irena took the loom in her own hands and started weaving. And enjoyed it, too. Weaving has cottoned on also to Irena’s two daughters. One of them, Magdalena Papakul living in the village of Mordy, is a famous and appreciated artist.

Irena weaves traditional designs enriched with her own colouring, creating beautiful graphical ornaments and checkered patterns. Some time ago, people used to bring wool with them and Irena weaved according to their wishes, particularly carpets and bedspreads which were very popular as, for example, wedding presents. Now custom-made works are less frequent. Irena looks for opportunity to trade everywhere, mostly at the handicraft markets all over Poland. Apart from arduous carpets, she weaves ‘normal’ rugs. She chooses colours carefully to make the fabric is interesting. The broadest are of 1,5 meters. Making a carpet with fringes takes about four days, including all the preparation and labour.

When tired with the loom, Irena takes up knitting and creates wonderful lace tablecloths. And this, too, is just perfect. A big tablecloth takes around two months of elaborate work.

In May 2015 her tablecloth and a green rug were awarded the first prize in the lace category in the Artistic Handicraft contest ‘Painted with a needle’ organized in Biała Podlaska. One of her fabrics was shown at the post-competition display in Białystok and now can be found in the Museum of Textiles in Łódź.

In 2015, Irena received the second prize in the weaving contest (‘Przygraniczny Konkurs Tkacki’) in Hruda. In October 2015 she was awarded a prize in the category of regional textile in the Biannual Unique Amateur Textile Contest in Bydgoszcz.