when the homes in the depopulated palestinian village of lifta were originally built is impossible to tell and most likely varies from house to house. the area's been known since ancient times, including having been written about in the hebrew bible. it's retained multiple different names throughout history - lifta by romans, nephto by byzantines, clepsta by crusaders, then lifta again by arabs. in more recent times, the area saw battle in the early 19th century, when it saw a peasant's revolt against egyptian conscription and taxation policies. (egyptian-ottoman ruler muhammad ali had attempted to become independent from the ottoman empire, and sought to use the area of "greater syria" which palestine was apart of as a buffer state.)

the village was predominantly muslim with a mosque, a maqām for local sage shaykh badr, a few shops, a social club, two coffee houses, and an elementary school which opened in 1945. its economy was based in farming - being a village of jerusalem, farmers would sell their produce in the city's markets. an olive press which remains in the village gives evidence to one of the most important crops its residents farmed. the historically wealthy village was known for its intricate embroidery and sewing, particularly of thob ghabani bridal dresses, which attracted buyers from across the levant.

lifta also represents one of the few palestinian villages in which the structures weren't totally or mostly decimated during the 1948 nakba. 60 of the 450 original houses remain intact. from zochrot's entry on lifta:

israel's absentee property law of 1950 permits the state to expropriate land and assets left behind, and denies palestinians the right to return to old homes or to reclaim their property. it's estimated that there's around 400,000 descendants of the village's original refugee population dispersed in east jerusalem, the west bank, jordan, and the palestinian diaspora.

like many depopulated palestinian houses, some of those in lifta were initially used to settle predominantly mizrahi immigrants and refugees, in this case 300 jewish families from yemen and kurdistan. the houses weren't registered in their names, and the area generally saw poor infrastructure and no resources including water and electricity provided by the government. most left in the early 1970s as a part of a compensation program to move out people who'd been settled in depopulated palestinian houses - if they didn't, they were referred to as "squatters" and evicted. (holes were even drilled in the roofs of evacuated buildings to make them less habitable). the 13 families which remain there today only managed to do so because they lived close to the edge of the village.

in 1987, the israeli nature reserves authority planned to restore the "long-abandoned village" and turn it into a natural history center which would "stress the jewish roots of the site", but nothing came of it. several more government proposals on what to do with the land had been brought up since then. this culminated in in 2021 when the israel land administration announced without informing the jerusalem municipal authorities that it issued a tender for the construction of a luxury neighborhood on the village's ruins, consisting of 259 villas, a hotel, and a mall. since 2023, they've agreed to shelve and "rethink" these plans after widespread objection.

the reasons for the objections varied significantly between the opposing israeli politicians - who see the village as an exemplar of cultural heritage and "frozen in time" model of palestinian villages before 1948 - and palestinians - who largely see the village as a witness of the nakba and a symbol of hope for their return. lifta is currently listed by unesco as a potential world heritage site, a designation netanyahu has threatened to remove several times.

many palestinians who are descendent from its former residents still live nearby. like with many other depopulated palestinian villages, they've never ceased to visit, organize tours of the village, and advocate for its preservation.

pardalote's top 20 makes for 2023! Post number three :D

Okay so this is kind of a double post. Firstly, I'm really pleased with the beetles I made this year, even though it was only a small handful. But also - I'm super proud of making my first online class, Embroidered Beetles! It was many weeks of work, structuring the lessons, filming and editing hours of detailed filming, making downloadable resources and launching it all. This was a big bucket list tick for me, that brought my teaching qualifications together with my love for stitching.

Reblog for a bigger sample size

An article so that you can find out about the different kinds of embroidery featured in this poll.

I got a little embroidery starter kit bc I wanted to teach myself how to embroider and I embroidered my first flower :)

3/4 of the way through the weaving step of this kuguri-sashi sampler. It’s so satisfying and genuinely relaxing, and because there’s no fitting to do or pattern to follow (besides what’s right in front of you) it’s so portable and easy. 10/10 idk what to do with this when I’m done.

I embroidered a trans flag in between some seams on my denim vest in the spirit of Transgender Day of Visibility!

So at the end of last year I decided to learn embroidery. And now I have finally finished the first thing that I actually like looking at 😇

dyed some silk mawata/"hankies" with onion skins and am spinning them into thread for embroidery, i always love how soft the spun silk is from these and the lustre is so subtle it almost looks and feels like cotton it's so lovely

Starry bunny cap is on sale for the week ✨🐰🧢👏

"You sleep rather soundly for a murderer."

Completed this last night! Used long and short stitch, gouache paint for worn paper/blood stained affect. In a plastic frame. I think my stitches were too tight as fabric has puckered so gonna need to work on that, however, pleased with how it turned out and was fun to do!

Brown beadie beetle, 2019.

Making these little guys is lots of fun! I have an online, work at your own pace, beetle-making workshop, here: https://pardalote.teachable.com/p/embroidered-beetle

Reblog for a bigger sample size

@summergirl2408

The franky terrifying (lovingly) amount of love for the executor keychain made me actually want to try making some for sale (in a more compact form because the whole thing took forever to make).

So stay tuned!

Hey, if I figured out how to sell them online, would you guys be interested in little crocheted Joltik guys like this one?

I haven't really entertained the idea of selling my creatures as I like to call them for various reasons, but one of them is that I don't really like the idea of sending them off to people don't know, but I'd be okay with, like, submas fans getting them. I trust you'd take care of them.

I still gotta like work everything out, like touching up/actually writing down my pattern and figuring out how to mail them, but I'm thinking they would be roughly $10 (CAD, so that's, what, like $8USD?).

Let me know if you're interested! Or if you have any experience selling things online that you wanna share. I'm currently thinking about setting up a Kofi.

I let my friend pick the colors for this one and ended up with a slightly altered ace flag (perfect for me). Definitely gonna keep marking my stitches from now on, ‘cause it made this a lot easier.