Greenland Boots - Leather Applique?

Here's one of the neat things I saw on my trip to Austria.  On June 16th I visited the Museum in Palais, a small museum in Graz.  The permanent exhibit features status symbols from Styria and the temporary exhibit focused on shoes.  This pair of boots from Greenland caught my eye.

I took a closer look at the colorful band of embroidery.  I expected some sort of cross stitch, but a closer look revealed something more interesting.

Unfortunately my close up picture is blurry, but what's going on here is that the blocks of color are actually little rectangular bits of applique, presumably made from different bits of colored leather.

The dark marks are the stitches holding the applique down.  I'd never seen this type of embellishment before and was very impressed with the craftsmanship.

So I've been in Austria for the past seven weeks

Just got back from Austria.  I was a teaching assistant on a study abroad program for the university.  It was tons of fun.  I'm still recovering from jet lag.

While I was there, I was able to visit many wonderful museums, which have given me inspiration for new beading and sewing projects.  I've posted most of my pictures at my Graz 2013 Super Happy Fun Blog, but I'll be posting some pictures of clothing, paintings, and beadwork here to analyze them from a crafting perspective.

I miss Graz.