Date: Sunday f 20, 2012
Embroidery Information
Embroidery is usually regarded as strictly a woman's craft, but in the Middle Ages the leading needleworkers were often men. The old list of names given by Louis Farcy has almost an equal proportion of workers of both sexes. But the finest work was certainly accomplished by the conscientious dwellers in cloisters, and the nuns devoted their vast leisure in those days to this art.
Fuller observes, "Nunneries were also good shee-schools, wherein the girls of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work... that the sharpnesse of their wits and suddennesse of their conceits (which even their enemies must allow unto them!) might by education be improved into a judicious solidity." In some of these schools the curriculum included "Reading and sewing, threepence a week, a penny extra for manners." An old thirteenth century work, called the "Kleine Heldenbuch," contains a verse which may be thus translated,
"Who taught me to embroider in a frame with silk.
And to draw and design the wild and tame
Beasts of the forest and field.
Also to picture on plain surface,
Round about to place golden borders,
A narrow and a broader one,
With stags and hinds lifelike."
A study of historic embroidery should be preceded by a general knowledge of the principle stitches employed.
One of the simplest forms was chain stitch, in which one stitch was taken through the loop of the stitch just laid. In the Middle Ages it was often used. Sometimes, when the material was of a loose weave, it was executed by means of a little hook, the probable origin of crochet.
Tapestry stitch, of which one branch is cross-stitch, was formed by laying close single stitches of uniform size upon a canvas specially prepared for this work.
Figure 39
EMBROIDERY ON CANVAS, 16TH CENTURY, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM
Fine embroidery in silk was usually executed in long smooth stitches of irregular length, which merged into each other. This is generally known as satin stitch, for the surface of the work is that of a satin texture when the work is completed.
This was frequently executed upon linen, and then, when the entire surface had been hidden by the close silk stitches, it was cut out and transferred on a brocade background, this style of rendering being known as applique. Botticelli recommended this work as most durable and satisfactory, it is oftenest associated with church embroidery. A simple applique was also done by cutting out pieces of one material and applying them to another, hiding the edge-joinings by couching on a cord.
As an improvement upon painted banners to be used in processions, Botticelli introduced this method of cutting out and resetting colours upon a different ground. As Vasari says, "This he did that the colors might not sink through, showing the tint of the cloth on each side." But Dr. Rock points out that it is hardly fair to earlier artificers to give the entire credit for this method of work to Botticelli, since such cut work or applique was practised in Italy a hundred years before Botticelli was born!
Sometimes solid masses of silk or gold thread were laid in ordered flatness upon a material, and then sewn to it by long or short stitches at right angles. This is known as couching, and is a very effective way of economizing material by displaying it all on the surface. As a rule, however, the surface wears off somewhat, but it is possible to execute it so that it is as durable as embroidery which has been rendered in separate stitches.
In Sicily it was a common practice to use coral in embroideries as well as pearls. Coral work is usually called Sicilian work, though it was also sometimes executed in Spain.
The garments worn by the Byzantines were very ornate, they were made of woven silk and covered with elaborate devices. In the fourth century the Bishop of Amasia ridiculed the extravagant dress of his contemporaries. "When men appear in the streets thus dressed," he says, "the passers by look at them as at painted walls. Their clothes are pictures, which little children point out to one another. The saintlier sort wear likenesses of Christ, the Marriage of Galilee, and Lazarus raised from the dead." Allusion was made in a sermon, "Persons who arrayed themselves like painted walls" "with beasts and flowers all over them" were denounced!
In the early Dark Ages there was some prejudice against these rich embroideries. In the sixth century the Bishop St. Cesaire of Arles forbade his nuns to embroider robes with precious stones or painting and flowers. King Withaf of Mercia willed to the Abbey of Croyland "my purple mantle which I wore at my Coronation, to be made into a cope, to be used by those who minister at the holy altar, and also my golden veil, embroidered with the Siege of Troy, to be hung up in the Church on my anniversary."
St. Asterius preached to his people, "Strive to follow in your lives the teachings of the Gospel, rather than have the miracles of Our Redeemer embroidered on your outward dress!" This prejudice, however, was not long lived, and the embroidered vestments and garments continued to hold their popularity all through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
It has been said on grave authority that "Woman is an animal that delights in the toilette," while Petrarch, in 1366, recognized the power of fashion over its votaries. "Who can see with patience," he writes, "the monstrous fantastical inventions which people of our times have invented to deform rather than adorn their persons. Who can behold without indignation their long pointed shoes, their caps with feathers, their hair twisted and hanging down like tails,... their bellies so cruelly squeezed with cords that they suffer as much pain from vanity as the martyrs suffered for religion!" And yet who shall say whether a "dress-reform" Laura would have charmed any more surely the eye of the poet.
Chaucer, in England, also deplores the fashions of his day, alluding to the "sinful costly array of clothing, namely, in too much superfluity or else indisordinate scantiness!" Changing fashions have always been the despair of writers who have tried to lay down rules for aesthetic effect in dress. "An Englishman," says Harrison, "endeavouring some time to write of our attire... when he saw what a difficult piece of work he had taken in hand, he gave over his travail, and onely drue a picture of a naked man unto whom he gave a pair of shears in the one hand and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end that he should shape his apparel after such fashion as himself liked, sith he could find no garment that could please him any while together, and this he called an Englishman."
Edward the Confessor wore State robes which had been beautifully embroidered with gold by his accomplished wife, Edgitha. In the Royal Rolls of Edward III., in 1335, we find allusion to two vests of green velvet embroidered respectively with sea sirens and coats of arms. The tunics worn over armour offered great opportunities to the needleworker. They were richly embroidered, usually in heraldic style.
When Symon, Bishop of Ely, performed the ceremony of Churching for Queen Philippa, the royal dame bestowed upon him the gown which she wore on that occasion, it is described as a murrey-coloured velvet, powdered with golden squirrels, and was of such voluminous pattern that it was cut over into three copes! Bridal gowns were sometimes given to churches, as well.
St. Louis of France was what might be called temperate in dress. The Sire de Joinville says he "never saw a single embroidered coat or ornamented saddle in the possession of the king, and reproved his son for having such things. I replied that he would have acted better if he had given them in charity, and had his dress made of good sendal, lined and strengthened with his arms, like as the king his father had done!"
At the marriage of the Lord of Touraine in 1389, the Duke of Burgundy presented magnificent habits and clothing to his nephew the Count of Nevers, among these were tunics, ornamented with embroidered trees conventionally displayed on their backs, fronts, and sleeves, others showed heraldic blazonry, while a blue velvet tunic was covered with balas rubies set in pearls, alternating with suns of solid gold with great solitaire pearls as centres. Again, in 1390, when the king visited Dijon, he presented to the same nephew a set of harnesses for jousting. Some of them were composed largely of sheets of beaten gold and silver. In some gold and silver marguerites were introduced also.
Savonarola reproved the Florentine nuns for employing their valuable time in manufacturing "gold laces with which to adorn persons and houses." The Florentine gold lace was very popular in England, in the days of Henry VIII., and later the art was taken up by the "wire-drawers" of England, and a native industry took the place of the imported article. Among prohibited gowns in Florence was one owned by Donna Francesca degli Albizi, "a black mantle of raised cloth, the ground is yellow, and over it are woven birds, parrots, butterflies, red and white roses, and many figures in vermilion and green, with pavilions and dragons, and yellow and black letters and trees, and many other figures of various colours, the whole lined with cloth in hues of black and vermilion." As one reads this description, it seems as though the artistic sense as much as conscientious scruples might have revolted and led to its banishment!
Costumes for tournaments were also lavish in their splendour. In 1467 Benedetto Salutati ordered made for such a pageant all the trappings for two horses, worked in two hundred pounds of silver by Pollajuolo, thirty pounds of pearls were also used to trim the garments of the sergeants. No wonder Savonarola was enthusiastic in his denunciation of such extravagance.
Henry VIII. had "a pair of hose of purple silk and Venice gold, woven like a caul." For one of his favoured lady friends, also, there is an item, of a certain sum paid, for one pound of gold for embroidering a nightgown.
The unrivalled excellence of English woollen cloths was made manifest at an early period. There was a fabric produced at Norwich of such superiority that a law was passed prohibiting monks from wearing it, the reason being that it was considered "smart enough for military men!" This was in 1422. The name of Worsted was given to a certain wool because it was made at Worsted, a town in Norfolk, later the "worsted thread" was sold for needleworkers.
Ladies made their own gold thread in the Middle Ages by winding a fine flat gold wire, scarcely of more body than a foil, around a silk thread.
Patches were embroidered into place upon such clothes or vestments as were torn, those who did this work were as well recognized as the original designers, and were called "healers" of clothes!
Related Products And Free Videos
Hobbies Crafts Articles
Embroidery Interlacings Surface Stitches And Diapers
... into the stuff, the dark is surface work only. There is no end to such possible INTERLACINGS. Those on the sampler do not need much explanation, but it may be as well to say that A starts with crewel-stitching, B and C with back-stitching, D with chain-stitching, E with darning or running, F, G, and H ...
Embroidery Tools A Word To The Worker
... not time to do much, should be satisfied with simple work. The desire to make a great show with little work is a snare. Ladies make protest always, "There is too much work in that." Well, if they are not prepared to work, they may as well give themselves up to their play. There was no labour shirked in ...
... enough to show the stitch quite plainly. The examples of old work illustrate always, in the first place, some point of workmanship, still they are chosen with some view to their artistic interest. In other respects Art is not overlooked, but it is Art in harness. Design is discussed with reference to ...
... accompanied by his wife the Queen Emma, and the chief nobles of his kingdom." This royal present was "a purple cloth worked with gold and set with jewels for St. Awdry's shrine," and the Monk Thomas assures us that "none other could be found in the kingdom of the English of such richness and beauty of ...
Embroidery Buttonhole Stitches
... a clear cut line, as in the case of the solid leaves. The stitch may be used for covering a ground or other broad surface, as in the pot shape (J) on the sampler, where the diaper pattern produced by its means explains itself the better for being worked in two shades of colour. The simpler forms of the ...
... the material. They have their reward in producing most characteristic needlework. The diapered ground is satin-stitch upon coarse linen. The filling-in patterns used to such delicate and dainty purpose in the marvellous work on fine cambric which competes in effect with lace, though it is strictly embroidery, ...
... to follow the contour of the design, working chain within chain until the leaf or whatever it may be is filled in. This stitch is rarely worked in lines across the forms, but it has been effectively used in that way, following always the lines of the warp and weft of the stuff. Even in that case the successive ...
... 54. REVERSE COUCHING. The value of a couched cord as an outline to stitching (satin-stitch in this instance), in which the singularly well-schemed and well-drawn lines of the ornament are given with faultless precision. This is a portion of an altogether admirable frame to an altogether foolish ...
...
11. CREWEL-STITCH SAMPLER. 12. CREWEL-STITCH SAMPLER (BACK). Crewel-Stitch proper is shown at A on the sampler opposite, where it is used for line work. It ...
... to require. Mention has already been made of darning a propos of canvas-stitch, and there is a sort of natural correspondence between the mecanique of darning in its simplest form and the network of open threads which gives to rectangular darning, like the German work in Illustration 45, character which ...
Embroidery Direction Of The Stitch Stitches
... subtle change of tone results. You get, not only variety of colour, but more than a suggestion of form. That is the second point to be considered.
83. MEANINGLESS DIRECTION OF STITCH. The direction taken by the stitch always ...
... a skilled needleworker. The fact is, you can only make out all the world to be designers by reducing design to what all the world can do. And that is not much. There is a point of view from which it does not amount to design at all. The study of design forms part of the education of an embroidress, not ...
Embroidery Embroidery In Relief Stitching Stitch
... of the same colour close to the underlay, so that the stitches may not show. They are then brought back to the side from which they started, sewn down, and returned again, and so backwards and forwards to the end. The crossing threads make a sort of pattern, and it is a point of good workmanship that ...
Embroidery Embroidery Materials
... it should be of the best. Poor satin is not "good enough to work on," it looks poorer than ever when it is embroidered. Satin should be stretched upon the frame the way of the stuff, and it should not be forgotten that it has a right and a wrong way up. If it is backed, the linen should be fine and smooth, ...
Embroidery Feather And Oriental Stitches
... stitch in four. It is usually worked horizontally, though shown upright on the sampler, Illustration 27. Like feather-stitch (see diagram), it is worked on four guiding lines, faintly visible on the sampler. Stitches A, B, and C are worked in precisely the same way. Bring your needle out at the top of ...
Embroidery Figure Embroidery Stitches
... least of loyalty to the art she has chosen to adopt. Wonderful and almost incredibly pictorial effects have been obtained with the needle, but that does not mean to say it was a wise thing to attempt them. The result may be astonishing and yet not worth the pains. The pains of flesh-painting with the ...
Embroidery Herring Bone Stitches
... leaf on one side and working down to it on the other. There is here just the suggestion of a mid-rib between the two rows.
The working of G on herring-bone sampler. The stitch at G on sampler, having the effect of higher relief ...
Embroidery Inlay Mosaic Cut Work Pattern Patternwork
... pattern, are there identical. You cannot say either is ground, each forms the ground to the other. And from the mere fact of the counterchanging you gather that it is inlaid, and not onlaid. Prior to inlaying in materials which are at all likely to fray, you first back them with paper, thin but tough, ...
... the scope of practical work. Long, loose stitches want sewing down. Some compromise has to be made between art and beauty. The problem is to make the work strong enough without seriously disturbing its lustrous surface, and the solution of it is "laid-work," at which we arrive thus almost by necessity. ...
Embroidery One Stitch Or Many Stitches
... in voiding even when their work was on a small scale necessitating fine lines of voiding. In work on a bold scale there is no difficulty about it, and it would be remarkable that it is so seldom used, were it not that the uncertain worker likes to have a chance of clearing up ragged edges, and that voiding ...
Embroidery Plea For Simplicity
... price. We do not find that Orientals reject the productions of the power-loom which they would do if they had the artistic instincts with which we credit them.
89. SIMPLE STITCHING ON LINEN. It results from our conditions of ...
Embroidery Quilting Stitches Stitching
... 69. QUILTING, DONE IN CHAIN-STITCH FROM THE BACK. A cunning way of padding is first to stitch the outline of the design, and then from the back to insert the stuffing. You first pierce the stuff with a stiletto, and, having pushed in the cord, cotton, or what not, efface as far as possible ...
Embroidery Rope And Knot Stitches
... the right, put your needle under the stretched part of it. Turn the needle so as to twist the thread once round it. That done, put the needle in again about where it came out, draw it through from the back, and bring it out where the next knot is to be. For large knots use two or more threads of silk, ...
Embroidery Satin Stitch And Its Offshoots
... radiating lines (C, D, E), working in those instances, as in the case of A, from the centre, first from left to right and then from right to left.
36. SATIN-STITCH SAMPLER. ...
... charm of shading in embroidery is not the roundness of form which you get, but the gradation of colour which it gives. This may be very delicately and subtly got by split-stitch, which renders that stitch so valuable in the rendering of flesh tints. But the blending of colour into colour which is universally ...
... used the needle in some form. In England, it is said that the first needles were made by an Indian, in 1545, before which time they were imported. The old play, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," is based upon the extreme rarity of these domestic implements, and the calamity occasioned in a family by their loss. ...
Embroidery Stitch Groups Stitches
... are most suitable, crewel for long lines especially, and rope stitch for both curved and straight lines, for a boundary line, buttonhole is most emphatic, for broader lines, herring-bone, feather, and Oriental stitches answer better, ladder-stitch has the advantage of a firm edge on both sides of it. ...
... the East, and, through Byzantine influence, in Italy, and Saracenic in Spain, they were adopted and modified by Europeans. In 1295 St. Paul's in London owned a hanging "patterned with wheels and two-headed birds." Sicilian silks, and many others of the contemporary textiles, display variations of the ...
... "Clement le Brodeur," who furnished a cope for the Count of Artois, and in 1316 a magnificent set of hangings was made for the Queen, by one Gautier de Poulleigny. Nicolas Waquier was armourer and embroiderer to King John in 1352. Among Court workers in 1384 were Perrin Gale, and Henriet Gautier. In the ...
... consisted in leaving the main ground in the original fine rib which resulted from weaving, while in the pattern these little ribs were split open, making that part of a different ply from the rest of the material, in fact, being the finished velvet as we now know it, while the ground remained uncut, and ...