S3E2 of Tatreez Talk: Digitalizing Tatreez with Tasneem
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TASNEEM IS A TATREEZ ARTIST, CHEST PANEL FANATIC, AND DIGITALIZER (@tasneemtatreez). Tasneem shares her journey into Palestinian embroidery and how she balances tradition with modernity. From her early days of stitching to becoming a digital pattern creator, her story highlights the resilience and beauty of cultural preservation.
Learn about the art of digitalizing tatreez and the dedication it takes to maintain authenticity while bringing traditional motifs into the digital realm. Tasneem dives into the narratives behind her designs, explaining how each stitch connects to identity, history, and resistance. She also offers practical advice for newcomers who want to explore their own stories through embroidery.
With laughter and engaging moments, this episode captures the heart of storytelling through tatreez. Don’t miss a fun debate on pronunciation, favorite tools, and memorable tatreez mishaps. Tune in to celebrate the power of Palestinian embroidery and its ability to inspire across generations.
You’ll hear about:
>> 1:20: Tasneem’s connection to Palestine
>> 3:50: How Tasneem started tatreez
>> 8:50: Digitalizing, Tasneem’s unique spin to tatreez
>> 18:07: “Imagine you are in a community full of artists”
>> 22:30: Digitalizing chest panels from depopulated Palestinian villages
>> 30:48: What’s next for Tasneem’s tatreez journey
>> 34:40: Recommendations to get started digitalizing
>> 37:11: Biggest lesson from tatreez
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Transcript
Lina : Hi stitchers! Welcome to Tatreez talk, where we share conversations about Palestinian embroidery. I'm Lina here with my co-host Amani, chatting with talented embroiderers and artists sharing their stories, inspirations, and the cultural significance behind their work.
Amanne: On today's episode. We are chatting with Disney.
Amanne: a Tatreez artist, chess, panel, fanatic and digitizer. Oh, I already screwed that up. But welcome. Welcome to Tatreez talk. Tasneem. Welcome! We're excited to have you.
Tasneem: Hi! Everyone! I am excited to.
Amanne: We were just. I have to give people context here.
Lina : Yeah, yeah.
Amanne: Before we started recording on the proper way to pronounce digitizing versus digitalizing. And I messed it up already. But it's okay. We're just gonna go with it.
Lina : Oh, this is gonna be a long episode of manny. Let's just avoid. We'll just avoid. I'll or I'll say the word digitalize.
Amanne: Tongue twister for me. I don't know why.
Lina : It is. It's a hard one. It's a hard one. Well, Tasneem, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show, because we have been seeing the work that you've been doing online and in digitalizing, especially chess panels, specifically so super excited to get into that. But before we get into all of those details. We'd love to hear from you about you and your family's connection to Palestine.
Tasneem: So both of my parents are from Jenin my mom from a village called Harryabe.
Tasneem: and my dad from village called Kufa dry
Tasneem: so both of my parents like I'm from there. But we both of them born in Amman Jordan, and I am the second generation.
Tasneem: and I live in Jordan.
Amanne: Have you had the opportunity to? You know. Go to Philistine at all, or do you not have a Palestinian Hawaii? Yet.
Tasneem: So sadly. Now I don't have Palestinian. I only have the Jordanian passport, and even though that I am so close to my homeland, it is so difficult to go there, so until one day we will all be able to go there freely.
Amanne: Inshallah!
Amanne: I'm you know. I know we've talked to other people other Palestinians who've grown up in the diaspora in Jordan, but I would love to hear from you a little bit about your experience. Obviously, as most Palestinian knows, Jordan is full of Palestinians. But what was your experience? Because you still live there as now. What was your experience growing up as a Palestinian in Jordan? And how did that shape? Your Palestinian identity.
Tasneem: So, as you mentioned, like, mostly I live in Amman, and 70% of people in Amman are Palestinian. So it is a normal conversation the 1st thing. When you get to know someone you ask you, where are you from? And like accordingly you will say, Oh.
Tasneem: I am from that village. I am from Khalil. I am from there, and if it is an old lady like she would say, Oh, I know your aunt. I know someone that know you and they. This is the way that how we get to know each other. And funny thing that now, because of, I am starting to ask someone, where are you from? And
Tasneem: according to that, I tell them oh, you have to freeze, you don't have to freeze. You have this. You have that
Tasneem: I love that.
Tasneem: Yes, this is how I became to know people. Now I ask them which village you are from, and do you have flatteries, and show me the thought of your like mom or grandmother.
Amanne: I absolutely love that. That's my new favorite thing. I think I'm Leanna. I'm gonna implement that now.
Lina : I love it, I love it well, I mean, speaking of how did you get into Tatreez? Where did that journey begin?
Tasneem: So I always like hope that I will get to know the 3 years, but because I am from Janine.
Tasneem: usually people we as from Jenin. We don't have Tatreez like we are not famous with it. We are from the few villages that do not have Tatreez. So it started. I watch a video, I think, from Patrice Circle, and about a lady who went to a man and her husband. Grandmother gifted her
Tasneem: this piece of Tatreez, and I remember I watched this over and over, and I started to cry. It was a middle of the night, because I was remembering my past grandmother, and I was being so nostalgic about something I will never have. Like both of my grandmother do not know Tatreez.
Tasneem: and this kind of feeling I will never have a piece of Tatreez with me, and then I think, like I need to be hopeful about this. What about me creating this piece of tortoise? What about me creating this piece of tortoise, and give it back to my future grand like sons and daughter?
Tasneem: And so the next day I called one of my friends, and she is from Gaza and her mom, and used to do a lot of potteries. We went to downtown. Amman and I grabbed this tools, and I went. It was the next day was a Friday, and I spent whole Friday like learning Tatreez, and usually at that time it was around December. It was the peak
Tasneem: of what went on with Gaz and genocide. I used to go to protest each Friday, and it was the 1st Friday that I did not want there. I wanted to learn totalis. And I was watching Youtube video and trying to learn it.
Tasneem: And I remember the conversation and the like between me and my friend, I say, Oh, my God, this is so difficult, this is so complicated, this is so slow, and I remember my friend like, cheer me up like, continue, continue.
Tasneem: because what going on with the current genocide, I continue to do the until it become an obsession.
Tasneem: So this is overall, the whole story behind it.
Amanne: I love that. And so you said, you started by watching Youtube videos. Right?
Amanne: that's also how I started learning before I jumped into classes. Did your friend's mom, or did anyone kind of in your circle jump in and start teaching you in person? Or how did you kind of develop your journey.
Tasneem: so I think when I started the 1st 2 months of potteries, I did not have anyone surrounding me doing potteries, but my mom tried to go to her friend.
Tasneem: And now, like the thing with Tatreez, it's built my connection not only with people all over the world like, but also with my mom and other cousin. Now, my Whatsapp conversation with my mom full of photo of anytime, she will go to visit anyone. She will photograph all of these kind of things, so she will tell me. Oh, see this piece!
Tasneem: And she has a Syrian friend who learned how to do Tatreez. She take me there, so I can learn more about, and also my auntie, like. She has also a lady that lives in Albaqa, a camp, and I went there, and she taught me a lot, because I want to make a dress that represents like
Tasneem: like has a chess panel and has a Tatreez. So it was so amazing that even though that he will spend so much time learning Tatreez through Youtube videos.
Tasneem: there are other level of skills and experience that come from interacting with people who done the trees for so many years like for a simple kind of thing, you know, when you use the canva wasted canva, and there are a lot of red. Usually I will throw them. But that lady from the baka, she told me. We don't throw them. We use them
Tasneem: to fasten the wasted, the new fasten like wasted canva, so they do not throw anything they use the thing within and evaluate available. So it was so interesting that
Tasneem: before I thought that I will not have that strong connection with people who are like the elder generation.
Tasneem: But now I have this kind of strong connection. And now, because of total use on Instagram, a lot of like my people, a lot of people, I interact. All are above 40 years old, and they
Tasneem: are proud of what I do. And this is the new kind of thing.
Tasneem: I when I started the trees I thought a lot of people from all the generation are doing the trees.
Tasneem: What could I add? What new thing I could add?
Tasneem: And because now of digitalizing, I have now my kind of print. You know the thing is, there is a poem from
Tasneem: in Arabic. You think like you think you are a small entity, but within you an entire universe. And this is stick within me.
Tasneem: because, you know, with the Gazan genocide
Tasneem: when it started, we did not think that it is will be so long.
Tasneem: So what we did? We started to go. We protest, we boycott, we prayed
Tasneem: because it is still going. You ask yourself every day, what should I do more, what should I do more?
Tasneem: And because of all of this, like digitalizing came up.
Tasneem: you know, and I think I will never.
Tasneem: We'll have this kind of a chance to do digitalizing
Tasneem: like if I did not have that drive that come from the current genocide because I wanted to do something for Palestine. I wanted to leave an imprint, so
Tasneem: I'm happy that I was able to do something.
Tasneem: and my hope to do more and show of love.
Lina : Oh, that is so beautiful, Tasneem! You're so inspiring! I you're making me excited about I mean, I'm already excited about the trees. But
Lina : you're taking me to the next like level or 2 of excitement. I think it's time to talk about digitalizing, so maybe define what that means, and would love to hear kind of what you're doing with that. And and the types of things that you're you're digitalizing.
Tasneem: So with digitalizing. I think I came up with a definition for it. Because
Tasneem: I think when we started our conversation, we've been debating, is it digitalizing? Or another word? Yeah. So it is interesting that sometimes you come up with a word that usually does not exist, pre that. So as all of you know, like I did 3 courses of digitalizing. And because of that, I felt like, it is
Tasneem: important to have a definition.
Tasneem: If we can hold just one second because I wanna say it as I put it here. Sorry for that.
Tasneem: So I did a presentation about digitalizing. And I want to have a definition as I wrote it.
Tasneem: Tamam. So what is digitalizing digitalizing of Patrice Fork is the process of creating a digital pattern by converting each Tatreez stage
Tasneem: into its equivalent square cell within the grid, a digital grid.
Tasneem: So the result is an accurate digital representation of the original embroidery, serving as a valuable tool, as a valuable tool for replicating authentic Tatreez design while preserving their intricate details.
Tasneem: So the idea with that that you create a digital pattern
Tasneem: that give it, that you can give it to anyone.
Tasneem: and it is a tool to replicate
Tasneem: the embroidery that are already present. So this is super.
Lina : Amazing, amazing. So can you tell us more about where did you get the idea to do this? And maybe what was the 1st thing that you digitalized.
Tasneem: I'll tell you the 1st thing that led me to this. So I used to hear your thought trees talk.
Tasneem: And yeah, like a lot of Eureka moment came to me because you totally stuck like, I remember, like the 1st 3 4 episodes I was doing a chess panel by my hand, and I was hearing a lot of like a word and definition that
Tasneem: I was not interested you it before, and I remember that Amani said about that. The 3 years is like the cross-se of the European.
Tasneem: And because of that thing I went and started to like search more about it.
Tasneem: and it led me to people talking about their cross stitch pattern.
Tasneem: Then I've been introduced to traditional. I think it is an Instagram account, and they mention a website called Freezy at work.
Tasneem: and
Tasneem: the whole digitalizing came from the idea. I opened a book by Widad Kaawar, called the Palestinian. It contained a lot of images of old Thorpe from the chest panel to like the old component of the Thorpe.
Tasneem: and I remember when I opened it, I saw one of the chess panel from Be'ersheba, Beersheba.
Tasneem: and I was so mesmerized by it like I started to like. Just look at it for more than half an hour, and at that point it was 2 months since I started the tatreez, and it seemed like a big, big kind of Crusa.
Tasneem: and I did more hobbies before, and my mom was not that supportive of the other hobby? I did. Photography called last art.
Tasneem: So I what I saw my mom.
Tasneem: and it was some kind of a 1 type of do
Tasneem: challenged me on that. And I told her, Mom, see, this is a big chess panel. What do you think about it? And she told me, oh, this is amazing. Oh, yeah, you can do it. Let me help you. So we like we were cutting the
Tasneem: fabric, and she was helping me with that.
Tasneem: And because what she said to me like I felt now it is a responsibility for me to do this. It's just panel, because usually she was not supportive of other people, because it is the truth. It is a linkage to Palestine. She was helping me to that.
Tasneem: and because of that the image was too like it was so old, and sometimes it would have been difficult for me to tell
Tasneem: heartless stitches.
Tasneem: And I was thinking I was dreaming about. Okay, what if there is
Tasneem: a better pattern where, if there will be an easy way to tell this and that.
Tasneem: and I did a lot of research, and I did not found this as a pattern, and there was an existing pattern of similar of other participants. But I wanted this participant.
Tasneem: and so I started to learn.
Tasneem: like.by dot, how to do it.
Tasneem: The 1st idea in my mind was, this is an insanity.
Amanne: And like, why would I do that?
Amanne: This isn't.
Tasneem: Yeah, this is. This is, I said, no, this is an insanity. I shouldn't do that. This is a lot of time spent on this. You know what I mean.
Tasneem: And now but I said like, let me start with with just the corner of the chess panel.
Tasneem: and let me see what will happen. So when I started with it? Oh, I found that. Oh, it is an easy thing if you do certain kind of trick and tips.
Tasneem: and
Tasneem: because of that like, I think a lot of people who attended my digitalizing course. They told me after they started doing it, they understand how addictive. It is that, like with digitalizing, you go to similar process, how you do toll trees, but it in a faster way.
Tasneem: Also, it's a way where you prepare yourself for the technique itself.
Tasneem: you know. Usually I remember when you I heard this from you, Amani, when you were talking about top threes, like as it is a technique. You have to figure out how you win or to start. And this type of thing. And it was similar to me when I started to do digitalizing. You need to figure out that symmetry line, how you can replicate this and that.
Tasneem: And from that point, because I'm so addicted to do chess panel.
Tasneem: I wanted to do. What is the next? What is the next? So I was thinking, Okay, let me do more chess panel.
Tasneem: And then, because it's time consuming to do chess panel.
Tasneem: and I wanted other people to do also chess panel. So I made 3 chess panel, and I bought them on Parazine at that time.
Tasneem: and I send them to all people who do that because
Tasneem: it is another level of doing the the leather chest panel. I know a lot of people told me like
Tasneem: there are when you start and you do small motif.
Tasneem: and there is liver when you do big chess panel and amount of proudness that come from doing that.
Tasneem: and I think it is like, I think it is a whole journey. I remember when I started doing the 1st chess panel, I was thinking about the old Palestinian women. How creative they are.
Tasneem: how like it, how creative they are! How interesting that they are. Know about the color theory, because 2 of my sister, like no like, came from art. They are art students. So they were. I was hearing about talking about the art color theory. They were talking about how making all of these small elements fit together.
Tasneem: And it was so amazing for me that this culture
Tasneem: of art, the sculpture of the trees, was widespread like.
Tasneem: Imagine you are in a community full of artists.
Tasneem: and a lot of people are competing between each other, how to go to the next step with it.
Tasneem: and I think that feeling
Tasneem: like was even more when I started doing the chess panel from Ramallah, because it consists of only 2 color, a black and red.
Tasneem: And I was thinking, Oh, my God, how amazing they are! So they only limited with 2 color, and now they have to compete with the motif
Tasneem: how to level it up. So the motif like. So I did the Shaba chess button. It has multicolor.
Tasneem: The motif were so simple compared when I went to the Ramallah panel.
Tasneem: The motif are next level because they are only limited with 2 color, and
Tasneem: it was a different way of experiencing, meantting Palestine. Because.
Tasneem: yeah, honestly, when I was in like when I grow up.
Tasneem: when I used to be in a school. I remember that the 1st
Tasneem: 2 days of the school year they will give us this kind of
Tasneem: like assessment to fail. And all of this they you ask you, are you refugee, or you? Are you like a Igb like? Are your parents
Tasneem: left Palestine and 19
Tasneem: 48, or lifted in Naksa, 1887. And I remember we question and asking our parents, What is the difference? What is Naksa? What is Nakba? And this hold a lot of responsibility, and our definition of Palestine was the suffering, the living of the land.
Tasneem: So now, because of the 3 years, I have new definition about old Palestine. It's not about
Tasneem: suffering is not about like feeling the heart burn, feeling the pain of leaving the land.
Tasneem: There was an old Palestine that it is beautiful, that full of all of this
Tasneem: artists of the color of the beauty.
Tasneem: And this is like, made me redefine
Tasneem: my Palestine. It is not all suffering. There is a beautiful world
Tasneem: that I now am experimenting and revisiting like through the trees, and this is was the big deal to me, and I think a lot of people. They know me now. They told me like.
Tasneem: I know you did photography for many years. You did collage art. You do this and that, but I know you will stick with this for 3 years, because it hold a huge level within you. This is my identity, you know. Always we have this kind, the Palestinian question, who I am. I am really Palestinian, but I never set foot there. I don't have any paper to prove that I'm Palestinian.
Tasneem: and I'm not a full Jordanian who I am, and you know what I mean. So now, because of the trees, I can proudly say.
Tasneem: Palestinian, and this is my heritage, and I'm proud of my ancestor
Tasneem: and Inshallah. One day we will go back there and rebuild Palestine, and make it beautiful again.
Amanne: Oh, that was so beautiful! I'm gonna like, sit here and cry. That was really, really, beautifully set. I
Amanne: absolutely a hundred 1 million percent resonate with everything you said completely, wholeheartedly. And you know it also brings me to this point, you know, with the the work you're doing. You know, it is very important because we don't have a lot of our history is oral history. A lot of our history has been lost because of ethnic cleansing and genocide. So it is very important to have nowadays people who can record our history to pass it down. And I know specifically to
Amanne: you are working on chess panels from depopulated 48 villages. Right? So can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think that goes hand in hand with everything you're just talking about, even with like this art being a part of your palace and identity.
Tasneem: So it's a huge journey with the depopulated villages cause
Tasneem: it also made me, when I started a little bit guilty.
Tasneem: for the fact that I did not know the name of that village.
Tasneem: I didn't know anything about that village, because I thought, I know Palestine because we read a lot of books. We read a lot of history about Palestine. We have our parents telling us about Palestine, but there are parts that we did not know about which is the populated villages.
Tasneem: I think it started from
Tasneem: seeing a chess panel that is so beautiful, but I never seen before.
Tasneem: and even the dimension of it.
Tasneem: It's different. So all Palestinian cheese panel are huge, are so bigger than the current one. Also, the second thing, what I notice that the motif are not widespread like
Tasneem: it. It is not easy to go, for example, to other book or Tirazain to find them again.
Amanne: Hmm.
Tasneem: And I remember doing the 1st one for the depopulated villages, and that a lot of people from Estigram came to me and saying to me, Oh, I am from that village.
Tasneem: I wanted a chessman from there. I didn't know that it is exist.
Tasneem: and this is the 1st kind of interaction that got me that a lot of people
Tasneem: who were from that village, and they do not have even focus from that village, because
Tasneem: during that war a lot of women left everything that they have
Tasneem: and left like went out of there, and
Tasneem: usually the process of doing the depopulated village is. Usually there are not a lot of
Tasneem: pop or picture available. So I'm very happy of the work of Vida power because her book thread of identity.
Tasneem: Hold some of these like chest panel sadly. They are so small, so sometimes I have to use a magnifying lens to look at them bit by bet but it is like so interesting when I'm doing this type of thing, or the second thing. When
Tasneem: I remember last month, someone from a village also from the belated village.
Tasneem: She told me that she has a her grandma, just Bannon, from Jerusalem. There are a lot of villages in Jerusalem are depopulated.
Tasneem: And
Tasneem: honestly, it's a whole kind of journey. When you look to that chess panel, try to analyze it, try to understand it, and bit by bit do the digitalizing? Because usually, when you actually doing the chess panel, you have to define how to start, is it from the middle? Or I have to start from the coast the Arc.
Tasneem: and also it.
Tasneem: Honestly, I did one for Jerusalem, and as soon as Mariah's by the fact
Tasneem: like, I will ask myself how they did that. This is so beautiful. This is so amazing.
Tasneem: can I share my screen? Because I'm yeah.
Amanne: We can. We can share pictures after on.
Tasneem: Afterwards.
Amanne: Yeah.
Tasneem: Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on.
Tasneem: So if I wanted to show you like, one of the things that I did is even in
Tasneem: the thing is also the linkage between the depopulated villages with a new thops after Nikba with the new villages, because what I noticed like, especially, for example, Gaza Khalid. A lot of people who left women left there
Tasneem: went to, for example, Khalil, and influenced the throbe after the Nakba and because a lot of debate will happen when I like. Post it, they call me. Oh, this is not like someone that in hepron, and they say, Oh, I thought, it is from Hebron. The reason is the Gaza one.
Tasneem: And I think that the price.
Tasneem: after doing the digitalizing, is seeing someone
Tasneem: doing it and doing the topics themselves
Tasneem: like like. Imagine the huge kind of connection, then, that I did this work.
Tasneem: someone far away from Uk, from the Us.
Tasneem: Have did it like someone who never visited, for example, to Ross Center.
Tasneem: and they were now able to do a chess panel from there.
Tasneem: and a lot of people told me. Now I'm making a dress from my daughter, from like a Gaza chess panel. I tried to do this before. I couldn't. Now I'm able to do it because I have the bathroom to it.
Tasneem: And after doing this, courses of digitalizing like, it was so amazing the fact that now new people are able to do that because they told me. And I want to preserve my grandma or my mom. So
Tasneem: so the idea with the digitalizing that even the
Tasneem: even the thought will be burned, even the thought will be disappear. We have a replica on it.
Tasneem: and people all around the world, Palestinian, all around the world now have the key to redo it again and preserve it. And I think this is the idea that make me more attached to digitalizing is the fact.
Tasneem: Like whatever will happen
Tasneem: now, the like, the future generation will be able to do that like, I'm so passionate about digitalizing and thrills that even people at my work, started to dream about and talk about it, and give me idea.
Amanne: I love that.
Tasneem: So I took the book of identity, and they say, Oh, my God! This picture goes back 100 years. Imagine this name, that your work. After 100 years from now someone in the future will be able to do this kind and replicate it. So for me this is a reward in itself. I want to be remembered. I want Palestine to be remembered. I'd want all of these things to be preserved.
Tasneem: So it's a huge reward for me to do digitalizing, even sometimes when you start with it. It's really a time consuming, but the reward it's more.
Lina : That is so powerful also. By the way, I know several people who are doing your patterns, the chess pieces in the Us. So it has. It is happening like everywhere. I get update photo update photos from a lot of people as well. It's so so powerful what you just shared. And you also said something that I thought was really interesting, that you learn about these depopulated villages when you wouldn't have otherwise, because you're only
Lina : surrounded by, you know your own family, and what you learn and like. For example, like Amani, I learned about Ramleh from you, you know, through your because it's not even necessarily just the Tatreez. But it's the stories from these families of people who practice and that they share with you, and that is, that is so powerful to be able to have that accessible for other people. Tasneem, this is such a pleasure.
Lina : so enjoying everything you're sharing, your energy is super infectious. What is next for your journey. What are you working on these days?
Tasneem: So the next because I did so many chess panels my wish is that I'm starting to collecting information to do
Tasneem: a chess panel design course. It is so interesting when you go and navigate and do many chess panel you go to, for example, Han units the chess panel, and it is only like one unit square, and it is so small you go to chess panel of Gaza. It is. You go to other villages. It's different kind of thing. So it is so interesting
Tasneem: to differentiate between the design of each village.
Tasneem: and I try to navigate that.
Tasneem: And I will say also another thing. A lot of people will come to me when they will do my battery and saying, Okay, can I change the color and tell them you are Palestinian. You have the ability to change. This is your imprint on it, and I think this should be also, when we think about designing a chess panel. A lot of people want their own soap that reflect their own kind of identity. And I hope to do that with this course, that I'm working on.
Tasneem: The second thing is, I hope to do other courses related to digitalizing. The 3rd thing, I want to digitalize more patterns, especially from the depopulated villages.
Tasneem: and I will end it with a dream, because
Tasneem: the course, the digitalizing, was a dream I was
Tasneem: holding and dreaming about this coming true
Tasneem: what I wish to do.
Tasneem: and it is like a huge kind of a dream that I hope to.
Tasneem: I wish to have a fund
Tasneem: where I will have other people who work also on digitalizing.
Tasneem: And we do digitalizing for a lot of thoughts.
Tasneem: And we put them on online
Tasneem: free, like as a free domain for people to access it all over the world.
Tasneem: This is my wish, and this is, I think, how we can do more to preserve.
Tasneem: People at the past.
Tasneem: The knowledge of Tatreez was free to them, and it was available to them. So, Inshallah! This is what I hope to
Tasneem: have a free platform that contain all of these patterns.
Tasneem: and Inshallah may be making an NGO that's really concerned about this.
Tasneem: and making all of this available to all people, so it can be easy for them to replicate and access to.
Tasneem: to do trees, to do their job and to replicate, because this is why it was my struggle when I started. I didn't. When you start you don't want to invest more.
Tasneem: but when you have us committed, you invest more in money, etc. So I was thinking.
Tasneem: I wanted to make things free. So people have more the courage to invest and learn.
Tasneem: and I want to encourage more people and more Palestinian to do more.
Amanne: Yeah, I I hear that. I love that. And I know, okay. So we already said, like, it's extremely important to have the the ability to digitize this and have our history recorded. Also, you do classes, we know. If anyone's interested, they can join one of your classes, but
Amanne: also just curious. If there are any tips and tricks that you could recommend for people who want to, you know, maybe they have one of their grandmother's folds at home, and they want to digitize. How would you recommend? They get started.
Tasneem: So I always really tell them. When you wanna start to do that.
Tasneem: you start by like I'll tell them a free way to do that. Go to Tirazain
Tasneem: and explore the motif from the villages of that Thorpe, and after you scan it
Tasneem: you go back to the thobe and try to match between these type of thing like I remember, I heard a documentary from, I think, Palestinian Museum saying that
Tasneem: some of this lady that have huge experience with Thobe that she took the talk from Beit Dajan, and she spent half an hour just staring at it.
Tasneem: And this is a huge skill. So there you stare at this panel, and you try to recognize the motif from that village, and you miss you match between them.
Tasneem: Then, bit by bit, and what I teach people in my courses is how to do the importance of this motif from Tirazain. And now, one step
Tasneem: and then.
Tasneem: bit by bit, through learning the how to do the digitalizing. It will be easier for you to copy and paste, and because the the Palestinian Thobe, or even the motif, it's built on symmetry.
Tasneem: So with my course, I give them easy tip to do the digitalizing
Tasneem: and to save their like time doing that. So I told them, when you look to the thobe, don't be scared. You are not required to do each square
Tasneem: you require to do. Find. I told them, the unique path, the unique motif and or the replicated motif.
Tasneem: And by recognizing this motif you will understand later on how to do the digitalizing.
Lina : Amazing, amazing. This is so helpful. And I'm sure there's someone listening who is looking to do this. So I'm very excited to see all the different designs that become digitalized, you know, through this as well. You've already shared so much. But is there one or a couple of major life lessons that you've learned from.
Tasneem: It's I will start with saying patience.
Tasneem: I think a lot of close people within my family. They told me like never in a million time
Tasneem: that I will think that you will do Tatreez because I am an impatient. I don't have the vision to do that. And when we thought to do cross stitch at school. I remember that I did not like complete it.
Tasneem: And so 1st patient second thing is to appreciate
Tasneem: like Palestine, to see the beauty in Palestine.
Tasneem: The 3rd thing, and most important.
Tasneem: usually other people like Palestine have
Tasneem: like, because what happened to it has a dark side.
Tasneem: and it has very beautiful sight.
Tasneem: I would say, with the trees, it's a big lesson in how to do something for Palestine without being burned out.
Tasneem: It's okay to enjoy the good part of Palestine, because usually they will tell you
Tasneem: like, when in genocide habit, you have to only
Tasneem: indulge on what is going with the genocide. There is no space for you to feel the happiness. But I would say the big lesson with battery is
Tasneem: as to how a point where you can support
Tasneem: without being burnt out with the process.
Lina : That is beautiful. I love that. Thank you so much for for being with us. This has been such a pleasure.
Tasneem: You too.
Amanne: Before we let you go. Can you let people know if they want to find you? If they want to take one of your classes. They want to grab one of your patterns. How can they get in touch? How can they find you.
Tasneem: So they can find me. With this on Instagram.
Tasneem: And in it you can find the link to my coffee shop. It has a lot of free pattern. There are some paid pattern, but they can go there. And maybe if you want to start with your 1st cheese panel, there are a lot of variety to choose from.
Amanne: Amazing. Thank you. And we'll, of course, link everything stay tuned for more classes from this meme. We're really excited to see what else you create and thank you so much for being here with us today on today's talk, we really appreciate it.
Tasneem: Thank you, too. Thank you, too. I'm very happy to be with you today. It's a big thing I use. I used to dream about it like.
Amanne: Maybe stop.
Amanne: You're like, Thank you so much.
Amanne: Thank you.
Lina : That was probably one of my favorite conversations. Tasneem is so freaking, inspiring, so inspiring. And she actually said a line that I wrote down because it stuck with me. And she said, Imagine being part of a community full of artists.
Lina : I just I that is such a solid, solid line that it just wow!
Amanne: Yeah, I know I
Amanne: I was definitely holding back a lot of teary eyes because everything she said was just so beautifully put. And you know, even you know, we're all in diaspora in different ways. Obviously she's in diaspora, in Jordan, where she's so close to Philistine, and you know.
Amanne: can probably see it depending on where she is. Right. And we are here in diaspora, in the Us. And
Amanne: doesn't matter like still complete.
Lina : Resonates with.
Amanne: Every single thing that she says about being Palestinian diaspora, and you know
Amanne: sometimes not feeling Palestinian enough. And how is like this connection for her, and like, Oh, yeah, I was. I had to be on mute because I was like snapping my fingers.
Amanne: Yes, yes, girl, yes, but everything was really beautifully said. And you know, again, like, we've talked about this before on the podcast with other people. But you know our history. Unfortunately, a lot of it has been lost, and.
Lina : Yeah.
Amanne: Know. It is a very big deal that she is digitizing these traditional historic patterns, you know, like you and I make patterns. But like we make patterns of like our own designs. You know what inspires us, whatever. And that's important, too, to create new art and to create new trees, but it is
Amanne: insanely, insanely, insanely, insanely important to preserve and pass down what came before, because, even you know, even when we're talking to
Amanne: to her, she's talking about like the fact that, like as she's studying these like patterns from these depopulated villages, seeing how you know people migrated to this village and.
Lina : Would inspire.
Amanne: This region set 3. Like all of those things, are so important. You know, we even talk about, you know, post 1948. And what Tetris looks like. Post 1948 versus pre, 1948. Like all of these pieces of the puzzle really matter? So just I mean again. I know we said it to her, but, like
Amanne: bravo! Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! To the fact that she is digitizing and preserving this art. It is a lot of work. And you know, as she said, most of this is free. Obviously, it's like old traditional doves, not her own designs. But it's still a lot of work. So whatever you could do to support her work like you should definitely be supporting her work. Because we need more people to do this type of work. It's amazing.
Lina : 100%. I think one of the things that makes this very, very real is is seeing what's happening in Gaza. And it's not just that, you know. We are getting desensitized to hundreds of people being murdered each day. But it's it's like, I remember the 1st time that they had talked about. You know, the 1st families that had been removed from the registry that had been killed, their entire family lines. Those last names no longer exist.
Amanne: Yeah, like.
Lina : That is what that's what she means when we say depopulated villages. You know some of these villages we don't. We will never know now because
Lina : their names are lost. They haven't been passed down through generations, and so capturing these. These chest panels from these dresses is one way of remembering and continuing to remember. And I don't know. It's just. It's so real now, more than ever, and I'm so happy that we were able to chat with her and hear her story, and.
Lina : like you said, just continue to support the work that she's doing, because it really really matters.
Amanne: Same. Yeah, honestly, when she said she's gonna do a chess panel design class, I was like, I need mighty to sign up for that, because.
Lina : Yes.
Amanne: Honestly. Yes, I design stuff, but there has to be a much more efficient way than what I'm doing, because I'm a hot mess. But that's a whole other episode.
Lina : Let's 1st make sure you can differentiate digitalize versus digitize. Okay.
Amanne: No, it's not gonna happen. It's a tongue, Twister. I can't do it. It's fine. I don't care, anyways, of course. Thank you so much for listening to Tatreez talk. We want to hear about your journeys, so please share your stories with us. At the tatreeztalk@gmail.com, and we might have you on an upcoming episode. Do not forget to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite listening platform and be
Amanne: sure to leave a five-star review. You can follow me @minamanne and Lina @linasthobe and of course follow the podcast @tatreeztalk. We'll talk to you soon.
