Irene Martín Morales I Alhaurín el Grande (Málaga), (EFE).- Almost twenty-four months of work has cost Antonia Ortuño, a resident of Alhaurín el Grande, to embroider letter by letter, stitch after stitch, a reduced version of the book Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, who resumes his adventures in this craft work, the result of years of trade, skill and patience.
“I have realized that with the sewing machine I can do anything,” explains Ortuño to EFE, who preaches her “passion” for embroidery, with which she gives free rein to her imagination on a daily basis and which she learned as a child together to his mother.
She assures that Don Quixote has been one of the “most important” works for her and summarizes and adapts it in twenty-five pages from a version by Martín de Riquer, so that it is understood “in a simpler way” and that “what is and what it means” the whole story.
“First I use the paper to make the structure or patterns and then I transfer it to the fabric, going from the ballpoint pen to the needle and the colored threads, at the same time that I prepare it to also bind it by hand”, he details.
Cookbooks, poems, a nativity scene…
With her pedal machine, Ortuño has created, in addition to Don Quixote, also a nativity scene, various stories, cookbooks and poems, among other works made by her, which she exhibits in her own “museum”, located inside the Haberdashery in the town of Alhaurín el Grande that he runs.
“The books are as if they were my children, there are so many hours that I dedicate to them that it is difficult to put a price on them, it is more a sentimental value,” he says.
Although she acknowledges that her way of sewing is not typical “hand embroidery”, she maintains that for her her machine is “a tool that serves to lighten more” and with which she has the freedom “to add or remove color or shine ”, unlike the new embroidery machines that reproduce the image as it is, without allowing modifications.
Transfer the passion to their granddaughters
Years ago, this neighbor was dedicated only to embroidering sheets, towels, table linen and household linen, but for some time she discovered that she could go much further and “paint pictures, draw or write”, for which she decided to carry out “more laborious” challenges.
“I have many ideas underway and I am getting older, what I want is to carry out all my projects before I go to the other neighborhood,” jokes Ortuño, who admits that he leaves his other jobs in the haberdashery in the background for it.
Antonia Ortuño’s desire is to transfer her passion for embroidery to her little granddaughters, so that they know “what the needle and thread mean and what can be done with it”, just as her mother did with her, teaching her the “love” for sewing and leaving her precious machine, which has served her to earn a living.
“I am passionate about this job; if I were sewing all the time I wouldn’t get tired ”, she concludes. EFE
