Rain and Embroidery

This is about Rain, but not the wet watery kind you may be thinking of. Its about the store called Rain. My niece Genae spent some time in Cape Town recently and while she was here I visited her at work one day at the Rain store at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town.

Rain produces handmade, eco-friendly bath products and accessories.  It provides work for many local women in South Africa who both gather the natural ingredients for the products and also hand manufacture the products and packaging. There are lovely naturally fragranced soaps, hand creams, bath salts and so on to choose from, but what caught my attention were the hand stitched and hand embroidered items.

Much of what is on offer in stores these days is mass produced and imported from other countries. It was particularly heart-warming to see these handmade items and know that they were stitched locally in South Africa.

Bath mittens, blankets and slippers are hand knitted or crotched.

The woollen slippers are then felted.

Sachets and other bathroom accessories are decorated with hand embroidery.

 

I saw the simple embroidered daisy motif you can see in the photo below on a few items in the store. Its a double lazy daisy stitch worked in a soft white thread and it looks really stylish. It was very nice to see hand embroidery on high end products like these.

I'd forgotten my camera at home the day I visited the store, so Genae specially took these photos and sent them to me so I could share them with you here. Thanks Genae!

You can find out more about Rain and its products here.