embroidery-msg - 1/26/08
Period and SCA embroidery.
NOTE: See also the files: emb-blackwork-msg, P-Emb-Frames-art, emb-frames-msg, emb-linen-msg, cross-stitch-msg, p-x-stitch-art, dyeing-msg, silk-msg, linen-msg, beadwork-msg, 8-P-Stitches-artspan>.
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This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.
This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
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Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
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Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: sclark at epas.utoronto.ca (Susan Clark)
Subject: Re: Period Embroidery--Help!
Organization: University of Toronto - EPAS
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 22:11:44 GMT
Greetings all!
Finally, something I know a fair bit about! I practice blackwork,
Bayeux Tapestry Style, and _opus anglicanum_ (still working on this last
one)
Foropus anglicanum, the best book isA.G.G.I. Christie's
_English Medieval Embroidery_, (Clarendon Press, 1938). There's a detailed
treatise on methods and materials at the beginning, followed by TONS
of pictures. (In black and white, unfortunately)
I learned Bayeux tapestry techniques from a little book callalled
_The Bayeux Tapestry_, by Magnus Rud. the entire tapestry is
reproduced in the book, and it's quite a bit cheaper than the wonderful,
but massive coffee table book (whose full title escapes me).
For blackwork,a good starting point is the Dover book entitled
_Blackwork_--most of it is devoted to modern blackwork, but there is an
excellent historical intro.
Finally, a good general work (if you can find it ) is _A Pictoral
History of Embroidery_ by M. Schuette and S. Muller-Christiansen (New
York, 1964)....lots of plates, and good section on technique. Good
bibliography for raiding....
Good luck!
Regards
Nicolaa de Bracton of Leicester
Canton of Eoforwic
sclark at epas.utoronto.ca
Susan Carroll-Clark
Toronto, Ont.
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: habura at vccnw10.its.rpi.edu (Andrea Marie Habura)
Subject: Re: Period Embroidery--Help!
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 12:53:15 GMT
Another interesting book, for opus Anglicanum addicts: _Medieval Craftsmen:
Embroiderers_, by Kay Staniland (University of Toronto Press, 1991).
The author is Keeper of Costume and Textiles at the Museum of London. The
text is generally very good, but the illos are to die for: photos (both
black and white and--God be praised!--color) of period artifacts. In fact,
the only illo that doesn't show something made in our period is a set of
stitch-instruction diagrams just before the bibliography. Some photos
are high-resolution enough so that stitches may be counted (with the aid of
a magnifying glass). It's expensive, about $18 in paperback, but worth it.
I got mine from Poison Pen Press.
Alison MacDermot
(Needle Jock)
From: Joyce <jmiller at genome.wi.mit.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Gold Thread
Date: 11 Jun 1993 22:10:46 GMT
Organization: Whitehead Institute
Andrea Marie Habura, habura at vccnw12.its.rpi.edu writes:
>that I haven't been able to find a record of these techniques being used
>much in secular embroidery. Ecclesiastical and other formal, absolutely
>(the best or nue' I've seen is from the vestments belonging to the Order
>of the Golden Fleece). Secular goldwork seems to be more along the lines of
>laid cord and similar effects after about 1450. (Someone was kind enough to
>give me a pointer to some Titian portraits that use gold trim; I shall have
>to check them out).
In _The St. Martin Embroideries_, there is a very nice picture of a very
secular 14th century pouch. The figures are embroidered in colored
silks, the background is entirely covered with couched gold thread. The
gold thread is flat gold wrapped around a core (of something), very
similar to the modern "Japanese gold". Note that when couching down this
kind of gold thread, it doesn't actually go in and out of the fabric. It
lays on the surface of the ground cloth, and the silk thread (frequently
red) comes out through the fabric, around the gold thread, and back down
through the fabric. To turn a nice, tight corner with the gold thread,
leave a little slack in the gold, and pull on the silk thread to pull a
little loop of the gold through the ground fabric. The gold loop stays
on the underside, a sort of "reverse couching". Refer to "A Pictorial
History of Western Embroidery" by Schuette and Muller-Christiansen for
diagrams and more info.
Joyce
jmiller at genome.wi.mit.edu
From: jab2 at stl.stc.co.uk (Jennifer Ann Bray)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: period embroidery (to C Kinsey)
Date: 5 Oct 93 09:10:29
Organization: STC Technology Ltd., London Road, Harlow, UK.
I got a query from Cat Kinsey on early period embroidery references,
our mailer had problems with it so I can't reply direct, hope someone
else is interested otherwise sorry for wasting your bandwidth.
anyway back to embroidery, Margrethe Hald in her book Ancient Danish
textiles from bog finds and burials describes embroidered cloth
thought to be a tunic and cape from a danish burial mound in mammen
Birka III die Textilfunde by Inga Hagg describes assorted bits of
metalwork which is more appliqued than embroidered, but it might be of
interest to embroiderers. There are plaited and knotted designs which
look like simple lace, and animal figures resembling stags.
A recent edition of medieval world gave details of some anglo saxon
embroideries featured in last years Anglo Saxon Art exhibition at the
British museum. They were ecclesiastical and combined metal and silk
threads. The article gave far more detail than the exhibition
catalogue, if anyone's really interested I can get the magazine number
and address of the publishers from home.
Anyone out there know of other early (pre norman conquest) embroidery?
From: priest at vaxsar.vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Early Period Embroideries
Date: 5 Oct 93 22:28:23 +1000
Organization: Vikings R Us
Unto the Fishyfolk of the Rialto, particularly tenth century Vikings and other
such suspect Early Period classes, greeting from Thora Sharptooth!
Jennifer of the Vanaheim Vikings writes mentioning the ninth and tenth century
Swedish finds from Birka, the tenth century Danish finds from the Mammen
burial, and unnamed Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical embroideries, then asks:
>Anyone out there know of other early (pre norman conquest) embroidery?
Here is an additional brief listing of extant embroideries from that period in
northern Europe.
Sixth-century Anglo-Saxon: fragment of wool stem stitch on lozenge twill wool
background found at Kempston.
Early seventh century Anglo-Saxon: Complicated loop-stitch embroidery over a
cushion seam at Sutton Hoo.
Mid-seventh century: couched spun-gold cuff trimmings on the overtunic of
"Arnegunde," a Frankish woman of apparent high rank buried at St.-Denis.
Probably Byzantine in origin.
Mid-seventh century Frankish: chain stitch silk on linen, "Chemise of St.
Bathilde," a Frankish queen.
Mid-ninth century Viking: Embroidery (reported in tantalizingly vague phrases)
on the tunics of the queen and servant buried in the Oseberg ship: partly
applique work. Details still unpublished, as far as I know.
Ninth century Anglo-Saxon: "casula" of Sts. Harlindis & Relindis, surface
couching and split stitch in silk and gold thread on linen.
Tenth century Anglo-Saxon: relics of St. Cuthbert including gorgeous
surface-couched vestments in gold thread and polychrome silks on extremely fine
silk net.
Mid-tenth century Viking: gold embroidery thread found with the garment
materials of the man buried in the Gokstad ship.
Late tenth century (?) Viking: Valsgarde Grave 15, Sweden, embroidered edging
for cloak in spun silver thread.
Early eleventh-century Jorvik (York): clumsy chain stitch on small samite
"relic bag."
Contact me for sources....
****************************************************************************
Carolyn Priest-Dorman Thora Sharptooth
Poughkeepsie, NY Frosted Hills
priest at vassar.edu East Kingdom
Gules, three square weaver's tablets in bend Or
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From: salley at niktow.canisius.edu (David Salley)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Contests and "Fanatical Authenticity Police"
Date: 17 Oct 93 12:47:02 GMT
Organization: Canisius College, Buffalo NY. 14208
Nicolaa/Susan writes:
> Regarding the back of embroidery being messy---
> I've gotten around the messy backp roblem by simply
> lining everything. It's period, and you can't grade down what you can't
> see. (I never knot my thread, anyway, so no problem there).
First of all, I'm speaking as someone who does NOT do embroidery, but has
too much experience running Ice Dragon A&S competitions. As I understand it,
the additional problem with judging embroidery is to determine whether the
piece is from scratch or a "kit", the latter having the pattern pre-printed
on the canvas. This is generally determined by checking the back, yes?
- Dagonell
SCA Persona : Lord Dagonell Collingwood of Emerald Lake, CSC, CK, CTr
Habitat : East Kingdom, AEthelmearc Principality, Rhydderich Hael Barony
Internet : salley at niktow.cs.canisius.edu
USnail-net : David P. Salley, 136 Shepard Street, Buffalo, New York 14212-2029
Time Traveller's Etiquette Tip #6: Your senior-most self should speak first.
From: cozzlab at garnet.berkeley.edu ()
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Contests and "Fanatical Authenticity Police"
Date: 18 Oct 1993 18:16:29 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
David Salley <salley at niktow.canisius.edu> wrote:
> [I thought]
>the additional problem with judging embroidery is to determine whether the
>piece is from scratch or a "kit", the latter having the pattern pre-printed
>on the canvas. This is generally determined by checking the back, yes?
No, it's because it's considered chic in several later-period embroidery
styles to have the wrong side look as neat and tidy as the right side.
You can't knot your thread and leave a tail, you have to weave the end
of the thread into the work so it doesn't show. You have to use the
minimum shortest distance in getting behind the scenes from the back
of motif A to the back of motif B. Et cetera. It's a form of showing
off.
Fortunately, it ISN'T PERIOD for Bayeux-Tapestry stitches, which is
what I mostly do. I've seen photos of the back of the B. T. and it
is delightfuly messy.
Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin
Dorothy Heydt
From: sclark at epas.utoronto.ca (Susan Clark)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Contests and "Fanatical Authenticity Police"
Date: 18 Oct 1993 21:19:34 -0400
Organization: EPAS Computing Facility, University of Toronto
Greetings....
Not all embroidery kits involve pre-printed fabric.
(Cross-stitch is a good example, as is many forms of needlepoint)
Furthermore, even when there is a pre-printed pattern, you often cannot
see it if the needlework is particularly thick.
Back-checking, in my (limited) experience is usually used as a guide
to the skill of the needleworker, the idea being that skilled
embroiderers produce neat backs (which is not always true). I'vSeems to
be a sort of "county fair" attitude towards this. (I'd love to
look at the backs of some of the _opus anglicanum_ cloaks in the papal
collection and see what the backs looked like!!!:-)
My point is that back-checking (and not the kind that
Doug Gilmour does :-)....another hockey joke...) is not necessarily
a criterion that a medieval person would have used to judge whether or
not a piece of embroidery was nice or not. They may have or
they may not have. Anyone know?
Cheers!
nicolaa/Susan
sclark at epas.utoronto.ca
From: habura at vccnw02.its.rpi.edu (Andrea Marie Habura)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Contests and "Fanatical Authenticity Police"
Date: 20 Oct 1993 12:31:34 GMT
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
On checking the backs of embroidery pieces: I have the impression that neat
or "sloppy" backs in Period embroidery are dictated more by the style of
embroidery than anything else. In blackwork, the back had *better* be neat,
or the out-of-place threads will show through the fabric and spoil the
regular geometry of the design. Fortunately, most blackwork patterns are easy
to do this way; many can be done so that the back is almost indistinguishable
from the front. On the other hand, the types of embroidery that use gold
thread are not going to be very handsome in back no matter what. In surface
couching, the placement of the couching threads over the gold is paramount,
and the gold has to be couched one row at a time, so the back will just be a
series of short stitches with no particular geometry to them. (Making the back
regular and "pretty" would make the front significantly worse.) In underside
couching, the back will be composed of parallel strands of couching thread
looped regularly with little nubbins of metallic thread. Not sloppy, really,
but hardly attractive, as the couching thread is chosen for durability, not
looks.
I am in the process of compiling material for a class on medieval embroidery.
I will try to answer this question more thoroughly as I go. Look for updates...
Alison MacDermot
From: priest at vaxsar.vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: viking mens clothes at Birka
Date: 30 Nov 93 09:04:41 +1000
Organization: Vikings R Us
Unto the Fishyfolk of the Rialto, greeting from Thora Sharptooth!
Jennifer the Vanaheim Viking writes:
>(If anyone gets enthusiastic enough to reproduce some of the gorgeous
>metal embroidery in the textile finds book I'd love to hear about it)
Do you mean the passementerie, the embroidery, the schlingenstich, the
brocading, or the osenstich? ;>
Dof and I have both made and trimmed garments with passementerie, the knotwork
technique; most of the work has been in craft guimpe, not in metal, but we did
discover that silver-plated guitar wire makes an excellent visual substitute
for "spiralsilber" and makes nice bead-and-loop sets like the ones in the
plates. The straight embroidery is not too interesting (stem stitch, mostly).
I have worked with brocaded tablet-weaving. Neither of us has experimented
with schlingenstich yet, so those silly little hat dingle-balls are yet to
come. I've only tried osenstich once or twice, but Dof has gotten pretty good
at it. So far he's limited his work to tubular pieces to hang pendants from,
but he wants to get some real silver wire so he can make more elegant pieces
and maybe some of those women's hanging sphere pendants. We haven't discussed
making some of the wide flat pieces yet; it might take outside funding. ;>
***************************************************************************
Carolyn Priest-Dorman Thora Sharptooth
Poughkeepsie, NY Frosted Hills ("where's that?")
priest at vassar.edu East Kingdom
Gules, three square weaver's tablets in bend Or
***************************************************************************
From: sapalmer at magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Sharon A Palmer)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: embroidery
Date: 15 Dec 1994 19:19:57 GMT
Organization: The Ohio State University
Joe Cook <joe at imr.usa.com> wrote:
>Greetings from Signore Giuseppe da Borgia!
>
> As an embroidery apprentice, I am always on the lookout for news
>sources of documentation. In particular, I am interested in Italian
>Renaissance, French (12th century and Renaissance) and early English.
> Is there anything interesting out there?
I have been reading Santina Levey _Lace: A History_ ISBN 0-901286-X.
As the title says this is a lace history book, but there is a lot
of embroidery also. Including whitework, cutwork, lacis, and reticella.
There are also good costuming references for the 16th century.
I have really been enjoying this book. I have it from ILL, but
I will have to try and get a copy for myself.
Ranvaig
From: hrjones at uclink.berkeley.edu (Heather Rose Jones)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: More on embr. Tiraz bands
Date: 1 Jan 1995 18:20:11 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
I don't remember who it was that was asking about this subject a while
ago (i.e., whether the bands of Arabic writing found on clothing were
ever embroidered as opposed to being woven in). The January issue of
Piecework magazine has a photograph of an embroidered tiraz band from the
14-15th century (if I recall correctly -- the magazine was at someone
else's house) done in a black double-running stitch (sometimes known as
"Holbein stitch", I believe) on white, with rather angular letters that
appear as outlined shapes. (Oh, I give up on the description -- go buy a
copy of the magazine.) It's only the one example, but I think is exactly
the sort of thing the original question was looking for.
Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn
From: Kim.Salazar at em.doe.GOV
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: CRAFT: Embroidery
Date: 27 Jan 1995 08:44:41 -0500
Organization: The Internet
To the accomplished gentles assembled here on the bridge, a plea for
assistance in a minor matter:
I am looking for a special ground fabric used in period counted thread
embroidery (or a modern equivalent of that cloth). The particular
stitching style I wish to recreate was popular throughout the 1500s
and early/mid-1600s.
The kind of fabric I'm interested in was called "Burato", and was an
extremely fine open weave linen mesh. Burato was first cited by name
in a German embroidery book published in 1530, although pieces that
predate the mention survive.
The structure of Burato is similar to the double weave of Penelope
canvas (an invention of the mid-1800s), but the individual threads are
extremely fine, comparable to those found in muslin or 60-count even
weave linen. There are about 15-20 Burato meshes per inch.
When embroidered in Spanish Stitch (also called double running stitch,