The Wdzydze school of Kashubian emroidery has something to do with Wdzydze, a well-known tourist village and summer resort located near Koscierzyna. At the beginning of the 19th century, when the history of the Wdzydze school of embroidery was about to start, Wdzydze Kiszewskie was an unknown and dramatically poor settlement. In 1898, a young teacher, Izydor Gulgowski, came there and after one year made his wife, Teodora, do the same. They both decided to take the village out of poverty and at the same time show to the world a unique beauty of the place. They took many approaches to do that, one of which was the art of embroidery. In Wdzydze, the couple founded the first heritage centre in the Polish lands. Izydor was also a Kashubian poet, journalist and commentator, a co-founder of the Kashubian Folklore Association in Kartuzy and a lieutenant of the Polish Army.

Teodora Gulgowska (maiden name Fethke) just before the marriage was interested in the Kashubian design and got to know its usage in embroidery practice in Zukowo where her brother was a rector. Teodora’s interests were undoubtedly related with her art education since she studied painting in Berlin, Germany. That influenced the diversity of patterns and colours of embroideries which she designed for a female team of embroiderers brought to life by her in Wdzydze. Teodora Gulgowska was able to make Kashubian embroideries from Wdzydze get fame that embroideries from Zukowo or Zarnowiec lacked. The works of Wdzydze embroiderers started to appear in cities thus giving the village income that was so necessary. Embroideries were also famous at nationwide and foreign exhibitions of folk handicraft.

The creator of the Wdzydze school of Kashubian embroidery lived to be almost 90 years old and died in Wdzydze in 1951. Already during her life care over the embroiderer team was taken by her niece, Jadwiga Fethke, and later by 2 teachers from Bydgoszcz who settled in the village: Maria Wierzejewska and Stanislawa Barsznik. The tradition was continued by the youngest embroiderer of Teodora Gulgowska who joined the team as a 10 years’ old girl and later was a close colleague of Stanislawa Barsznik – Wladyslawa Wisniewska. Those are her emroideries that illustrate this article and are available to the public in the gallery of patterns of the Wdzydze school of Kashubian embroidery. They are made in accordance with the oldest Wdzydze patterns of Teodora Gulgowska.

The composition of Wdzydze embroideries is even larger, more consistent and richer than embroideries of another Kashubian schools: from Zukowo, Puck, Wejherowo, Bory Tucholskie. Its colour palette is almost unlimited. Also, in the Wdzydze embroidery we can find 7 basic colours of Kashubian embroidery. Apart from these 7 colours it is however possible to notice 10 another basic colours which in particular tablecloths or pillows differ in intensity and hue depending on what threads the embroiderer making the embroidery actually had. Moreover, we can find the beauty of Wdzydze embroideries in a balance of colours and an embroiderer’s skill of matching colours which is best illustrated by the presented works of Wladyslawa Wisniewska in the gallery of patterns of the Wdzydze school of Kashubian embroidery.