Elizabethan Embroidery Bibliography

I have compiled a list of the resources (books, websites, and journal articles) that I have used as resources for my documentation. This list is not meant to be completely exhaustive of all late 16th/early 17th century English embroidery, and does focus more on embroidery of clothing accessories, as opposed to home textiles.

Elizabethan Embroidery Bibliography

Revised Design

I substituted a pomegranate for the strawberry. The strawberry wasn't visually interesting enough, and I haven't used a pomegranate before. Plus, pomegranates come up frequently in monochrome embroidery, and strawberries do not, although they are often seen in polychrome embroidery. Plus, I moved the grasshopper's rear end. :)

Shift Design

For the design, I am doing a floral band with honeysuckle, rose, borage, a gilliflower, and a strawberry. The designs of the flowers are all hand-drawn by me, using the same templates I created for my polychrome coif. 

When I originally drew the band, I made it two inches wide, based on Janet Arnold's drawing of shift 1979-14. However, my husband pointed out, and I agreed, that the design seemed a bit too wide- and re-examining Arnold's drawing, it does seem to indicate that the design itself, not counting the "border", is less than two inches. I shrunk my design down to 85% of the original, which gives it a width of 1.625 inches, which seems visually to be more accurate.

The floral band will repeat 1.5 times (approximate) on the bodice of the shift, and 2 times down the length of the arm. I chose to do 4 isolated animal motifs, as this is in keeping with my inspiration piece. I chose the owl from Richard Shorleyker's "A Schoole-house for the Needle", as I am a senior member of the East Kingdom's embroiderers' guild, Athena's Thimble, and owl symbol is the owl. The other three motifs- a grasshopper, cat, and turtle, come from textile t.88-1925 at the Victoria and Albert museum. This is a late 16th century English piece that is ink on linen, and is surmised to be for embroidery. (These animals also have special meaning to me, and I like the idea of wearing them close.) The animals are all about 1.25-1.5 inches square, in keeping with the original sizes of the extant shift. I may need to move the grasshopper ever so slightly to the left, so his back end isn't so close to the floral border.

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.

I Won!

So, the past two weekends have been really amazing for me. I won the Athena's Thimble Craftsman Triathlon, and the Founder's Award for the most period Item. Then, this past weekend, I won the A&S Competition at Mudthaw! There were some really spectacular items, so it was really an honor to have one. There are so many talented and knowledgeable artisans in the East!

Here's a pic of my coif on display:

There are so many people who have offered advice and encouragement with this project, and I am truly thankful to have their input and support. :)

Sweet Bag documentation

Here's a link to my revised Sweet bag documentation: link.

At Kings and Queens Arts and Sciences competition, I had a long talk with Sir Mord, also OL, who really helped me figure out what was missing from my documentation. And although I am a constructivist by nature as an educator, I was completely failing to include ANY sort of context in my documentation. While I would reference extant pieces, I wasn't communicating that I understood anything about late 16th century English embroidery, other than "how-to" make it. Which really isn't enough- anyone can be a skilled embroiderer, and know how to do specific techniques. What separates the scholar from the craftsman is a fuller understanding of just why these pieces came to exist, and what meaning and place they had in their society.

It's also why I plan to teach at Pennsic, but not "hands-on". There are some really great videos out there that teach stitch techniques; what is missing is the "why" of Elizabethan embroidery, which I feel able to do.

It's Finished!

And in case anyone missed it, here's the link to my documentation: Polychrome Coifs

Updates, and Documentation!

One of the latest pics:

And a link to the documentation: Polychrome Paper

Thanks for looking!

First pics

I've begun stitching. Before this could happen, I needed to create some exemplars, which involved much stitching, and trying several different color combinations in one flower. This also involved looking at extant items again and again, matching colors and looking at shading. I'm pretty happy with the results so far; the pansy could be bolder, and that may get reworked. I'm trying out gilt silk twist on the strawberry leaves; I'm currently undecided about it. I like working with metal threads in general, but this is very thin, and it's subtle, so I'm not sure if it will be enough. I may complete all four leaves, and judge from there. I also still need to make some exemplars for the insects. I love the ceylon stitch from the Plimoth jacket, but I'm just not seeing it often on the extant piece. My inspiration piece from the Met(64.101.1258)has the caterpillars and worms done in the detached buttonhole, so I'll probably stick with that. I'm also still unsure about the detached buttonlace for wings and pea pods; my husband loves the idea, and we do find it on some jackets, but I'm just not noticing it on the coifs. (Perhaps I'm not looking closely enough.) The coif is outlined in a spring green stem stitch. Many of the coifs I've looked at have green for the outline, like 34.226 from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which has become another "go-to" piece for me.

Preliminary design

After much poring over pics and notes of extant pieces, I went ahead and created my design. The finished coif size will be approximately 9" by 17", which is similar in size to coif 64.101.1258 at the Met, which is my inspiration piece. For flower motifs, I have chosen borage, cornflower, honeysuckle, rose, violet, strawberries and peapods. I also have a few birds, butterflies, caterpillars and spiders (of course). The Plimoth jacket has some detached buttonhole lace on the pea pod coverings, and the butterfly wings. Although I love that idea, I haven't yet decided if I will do it for certain, since I'm unable to see specific examples on extant pieces, although I do respect the work of Dr. Tricia Wilson-Nguyen, who headed up the jacket project. I'm using soie perlee, and I may incorporate some gilt silk twist, but that is also up in the air. I found a medium weight linen in my fabric collection that is approximately 80 threads per inch (after taking 3 square-inch samples) which is higher than some extant pieces, but seems safely in the real of 'not too fine, but fine enough'. I also have a ton of size 14 oes, which I should check the diameter of versus the Met piece, which uses 2.5 mm spangles. I'm thinking the majority of the stitching will be detached buttonhole with return for object bodies, and maybe some trellis and ceylon for the accent animals, since I love the way the Plimouth jacket caterpillars look with the ceylon! The gold rinceaux vines will be with my beloved plaited braid, of course, with some reverse chain on the little squiggles, but I may experiment with some other types when this project is complete.

Here's the preliminary design: