Project the Nexte

I've been pondering my next embroidery project. I had decided to revisit monochrome embroidery ("blackwork") but I wasn't completely enthralled with the idea of doing another coif, although I do love them.

While flipping through Janet Arnold's "Patterns of Fashion 4" I came across Smock T.2-1956 at the Victoria and Albert's Museum. I love these motifs- I love Shoreleyker's designs. AND it would give me the opportunity to use some of the designs from T.88-1925, which is a panel of ink on linen, postulated to be for embroidery. This AWESOME piece has an elephant, a rhinoceros, a turtle, a cockatrice, and all sorts of other lovely creatures.

But I had a problem. With a date of 1620-1630, it's a little too late for my preferred period (1570s). It's also the only example that I know of with these isolated plant and animal motifs. Earlier (1560s-1590s) monochrome embroidered shifts often feature bands of floral embroidery, often with the curved vines that is so common in late 16th century English embroidery. And at least one of them, smock 1979-14 at the National Museums of Scotland, has the floral bands interspersed with the isolated plant and animal motifs.

So my plan is to create a design that uses bands of floral embroidery interspersed with the isolated animal motifs, and work it onto the pieces of a late 16th century English shift.

First step- creating the design.