Date: Sunday f 20, 2012
Embroidery Textiles
Many rich mediaeval textiles were ornamented by designs, which usually show interlaces and animal forms, and sometimes conventional floral ornament. Patterns originated in 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 "tree of life" pattern. This consists of a little conventional shrub, sometimes hardly more than a "budding rod," with two birds or animals advancing vis-a-vis on either side. Sometimes these are two peacocks, often lions or leopards and frequently griffins and various smaller animals.
Whenever one sees a little tree or a single stalk, no matter how conventionally treated, with a couple of matched animals strutting up to each other on either side, this pattern owes its origin to the old tradition of the decorative motive usual in Persia and in Byzantium, the Tree of Life, or Horn. The origin of patterns does not come within our scope, and has been excellently treated in the various books of Lewis Day, and other writers on this subject.
Textiles of Italian manufacture may be seen represented in the paintings of the old masters, Orcagna, Francia, Crivelli, and others, who delighted in the rendering of rich stuffs, later, they abound in the creations of Veronese and Titian. A "favourite Italian vegetable," as Dr. Rock quaintly expresses it, is the artichoke, which, often, set in oval forms, is either outlined or worked solidly in the fabric.
Almeria was a rich city in the thirteenth century, noted for its textiles. A historian of that period writes, "Christians of all nations came to its port to buy and to sell. From thence... they travelled to other parts of the interior of the country, where they loaded their vessels with such goods as they wanted. Costly silken robes of the brightest colours are manufactured in Almeria." Granada was famous too, a little later, for its silks and woven goods.
About 1562 Navagiero wrote, "All sorts of cloth and silks are made there, the silks made at Granada are much esteemed all over Spain, they are not so good as those that come from Italy. There are several looms, but they do not yet know how to work them well. They make good taffetas, sarcenet, and silk serges. The velvets are not bad, but those that are made at Valencia are better in quality."
Marco Polo says of the Persians in certain sections, "There are excellent artificers in the cities, who make wonderful things in gold, silk, and embroidery.... In veins of the mountains stones are found, commonly called turquoises, and other jewels. There also are made all sorts of arms and ammunition for war, and by the women excellent needlework in silks, with all sorts of creatures very admirably wrought therein.
Marco Polo also reports the King of Tartary as wearing on his birthday a most precious garment of gold, while his barons wore the same, and had given them girdles of gold and silver, and pearls and garments of great price. This Khan also has the tenths of all wool, silk, and hemp, which he causes to be made into clothes, in a house for that purpose appointed, for all trades are bound one day in the week to serve him." He clothed his armies with this tythe wool.
In Anglo-Saxon times a fabric composed of fine basket-weaving of thin flat strips of pure gold was used, sometimes the flat metal was woven on a warp of scarlet silk threads. Later strips of gilded parchment were fraudulently substituted for the genuine flat metal thread. Often the woof of gold strips was so solid and heavy that it was necessary to have a silk warp of six strands, to support its wear.
Gold cloth was of varying excellence, however, among the items in an inventory for the Earl of Warwick in the time of Henry VI., there is allusion to "one coat for My Lord's body, beat with fine gold, two coats for heralds, beat with demi-gold."
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Embroidery Interlacings Surface Stitches And Diapers
... exception of Darning, Satin-stitch, and some stitches presently to be mentioned, practically to the end of the stitches, deserving to be so called, generally in use. By combining two or more stitches endless complications may be made, and there may be occasions when, for one purpose or another, it may ...
Embroidery Tools A Word To The Worker
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... worth writing about, and the book, when written, would not be worth the attention of students of embroidery, needleworkers, and designers of needlework to whom it is addressed. It sets forth to show what decorative stitching is, how it is done, and what it can do. It is illustrated by samplers of stitches ...
... virgin." The unicorn and virgin, with a hunter in pursuit, is quite a favourite bit of symbolism in the middle ages. Another interesting piece of German embroidery in South Kensington is a table cloth, worked on heavy canvas, in heraldic style, long decorative inscriptions embellish the corners. A liberal ...
Embroidery Buttonhole Stitches
... buttonhole-stitches, gathering them to a point at the base, then another five, and so on. Repeat the process, this time point upwards, and you have the first band of the pot shape. Characteristic and most beautiful use is made of buttonhole stitch in the piece of Indian work, where it is outlined with ...
... way the work is done. There are many degrees in the frankness with which this convention has been accepted, according perhaps to the coarseness of the canvas ground, perhaps to the personality of the worker. The animal forms at the top of Illustration 6 are uncompromisingly square, the floral devices ...
... the thread down with the left thumb, put the needle in again at the hole through which you brought it out, take up of an inch of stuff, and draw the thread through, that gives you the first link of the chain. The back of the work (18) looks like back-stitch. In fact, in the quilted coverlet, (as in much ...
... only is shown. The appropriateness of couched cord to the outlining of inlay or of applique is seen in the two examples. In the one (A) it defines the clear-cut counterchange pattern, in the other (B), being of a tint intermediate between the ground and the ornament, it softens the contrast between them. ...
... produce. The thread should not be drawn too tight.
13. CREWEL WORK AND CREWEL-STITCH. You begin Stem-Stitch (G) with the usual half-stitch. Then, holding the thread downwards, instead of proceeding as in crewel-stitch (A) you ...
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44. DARNING DESIGNED BY WILLIAM MORRIS. In the case of large leaves, veined, the veining should be worked first, the stitches between them radiating outwards to the edge of the leaf. More accomplished work in darning is shown ...
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Embroidery Embroidery In Relief Stitching Stitch
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Embroidery Embroidery Materials
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Embroidery Feather And Oriental Stitches
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Embroidery Figure Embroidery Stitches
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Embroidery Herring Bone Stitches
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20. HERRING-BONE SAMPLER.
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... conspicuous. On this same sampler it does so very deliberately in the case of the broad stalk. The rather sudden variation of the colour shown there in the leaves is harmless enough in bold work, to which the process is best suited. One may be too careful in gradating the tints, timidity in this respect ...
Embroidery One Stitch Or Many Stitches
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Embroidery Plea For Simplicity
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Embroidery Quilting Stitches Stitching
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Embroidery Rope And Knot Stitches
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... according to the work it is put to do, and produce results which it would be difficult to describe and pedantic to find fault with. Even short, however, of such individual treatment, the mere adaptation of the stitch to the lines of the design removes it from the normal. It makes a difference, too, whether ...
... planned and crisply drawn like that, and you may use what stitch you please.
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Embroidery Stitch Groups Stitches
... are called long-and-short and plumage stitches) serve admirably, as does also darning and laid-work, and for gold thread, couching. French knots do best for small surfaces only. The stitches most useful for purposes of shading are mentioned later on. No sort of classification is possible until the number ...
... married was And afterwards divorced, when virtuously, Although a queen, yet she her days did pass In working with the needle curiously." Queen Elizabeth was also a clever embroiderer, she worked a book-cover for Katherine Parr, bearing the initials K. P., and it is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. ...
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