Onward: Polychrome Coif, Beginnings

For my next project, I have decided to create a polychrome coif, in part to have done the "trifecta" of late 16th century English embroidery: Monochrome, Polychrome, and Sweetbagges.

I have two main inspiration pieces: 1967-125-1, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and 64.101.1258, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have been fortunate enough to view both of these in person, and they represent the style I most enjoy- lots of flowers and bugs, with gilt braid vines.

Below are some sample motifs I've drawn to use on the coif. I've selected motifs prevalent in many of the polychrome examples I've looked at. There's a gillyflower, honeysuckle, rose, lily, and violet, along with a strawberry, peapod, butterfly, snail, and bird. Each motif measures about 1.75 inches square, which is taken from the Met coif motif sizes.

I need to put these on the coif pattern and arrange them. Although the Philadephia coif repeats on the x-axis, the vast majority of coifs are symmetrical along the y-axis, so I will keep the common, common, and make mine bilateral.

Adventures in Smocking

I have long loved the look of really good smocking, but I've always been intimidated by the pleating involved, prior to the actual embroidering of the smocking. After a conversation with Baroness Rainuillt at Pennsic (who's smocking leaves everyone else in the dust!) I decided to give it a try. Her Excellency recommended that instead of marking out all of my pleats ahead of time, I "eyeball" it, and do parallel rows of running stitches. This seemed to turn out fairly well.

Making the pleats:

Halfway through:

Finished!

I used a 3.5 oz linen ground fabric, and the smocking is done with 120/2 linen thread. I put a waistband on it, but I have yet to wear it!

This gave me my eighth competency for Athena's Thimble. This is a very simple honeycomb smocking- while working on this piece, I came across some much more ornate designs, with banded rows being worked in different stitches. Maybe next time!

Finished Sweetbag!

Wow, it's been a looonnnnng time since I've updated! Pennsic came and went, and it was Good, and then the semester began, and it's been a bit busy.

Here are pics from the finished sweetbag:

Side 1:

Side 2:

The edges are covered with a 5-strand fingerloop braid, and the handle is a 7-strand braid. I chose to use multicolored braids after examining several extant bagges. To be properly finished, this bag also needs a drawstring, pulls and tassels. I just haven't had the stomach to do that- it means punching holes through my embroidery, and I just haven't the heart. ;)

It's lined with a carnation silk- I didn't have any grosgrain silk available, so I tried to keep the color consistent with historical examples.

I have noticed that the bagge has begun to "torque" a bit. This is in keeping with extant examples- one of the side seams is clearly visible in the pictures, and one is twisted slightly behind. I'm supposing this is due to the z-twist action of the Elizabethan ground stitch, which pulls the ground fabric slightly to the left as it is being worked, even while on a frame.