Anastasiia coltiva il lino, produce tessuti e tesse opere d’arte su un telaio centenario

71-year-old Anastasiia Andrusyk, a resident of the village of Bykhiv in Volyn, has her own weaving loom. For nearly 60 years, she has been weaving ritual towels (rushnyky), rugs, and blankets on it.

>“Flax requires a lot of work –  you have to work with it all year to make threads like these and to weave everything from them. I started working from a very young age. I was the third child in the family and was always by my mother’s side, helping her, and she taught me. Back then, there were no spinning wheels like there are now – back then everything was done by hand: pulling the fibers, spinning with a spindle, and winding the thread onto it,” said Anastasiia Andrusyk.

She began spinning flax in the fifth grade and started weaving at the age of 13. The craftswoman said that at first she made simpler items – cloth for pants and ryshnyky – while more complex pieces were made by her mother. Today, Anastasiia Andrusyk continues to work on her grandmother’s loom, which she inherited. The tool is about 100 years old.

>“This loom is small; it can be set up anywhere. It works well. If you weave properly, you can make three towels in a day. Someone who’s healthy can weave for half a day or even a full day, but I can’t anymore – I’m not as young as I used to be. Your whole body moves: your hands, your legs, your spine” 

While working, Anastasiia Andrusyk sings. She said that from a young age she loved going to weddings and performing songs. For 34 years now, she has been singing in a church choir.

The woman grows the flax herself, from which she makes the fabric. To do this, she harvests the plant, separates the seeds from the stalks. Later cleaning and threshing them, and then dries the stalks and breaks them on a flax brake.

>“This fabric is very good for the body — it’s light and pleasant to wear.”

[https://suspilne.media/lutsk/1113074-tce-na-stolitnomu-verstati-svoei-babusi-ak-volinska-majstrina-majze-60-rokiv-vigotovlae-rusniki/](https://suspilne.media/lutsk/1113074-tce-na-stolitnomu-verstati-svoei-babusi-ak-volinska-majstrina-majze-60-rokiv-vigotovlae-rusniki/) 

GOD LOVE HER! ❤️