Sigh. When last you saw Aethelflaed, I was about to start unpicking the back of her riding dress.
It’s done now. As regular readers of my blog know, I don’t unpick unless I really can’t avoid it and I’m sure I can do better. If I have no idea what to do differently, I leave well alone until I can come up with a Plan.
Well, I have a plan now. I’m changing up which silks I use, going for something redder and with less blue in it. Here’s hoping that the border still works, but that would be a serious trial to unpick (as though a panel of straight split stitch weren’t already a trial!).
You can tell I’m not entirely sure of myself, however.. I have worked her gauntlets first!
You may recall I designed them as mittens, rather than gloves with fingers, because I could not imagine that fur lined mittens weren’t a thing for a noblewoman riding, and besides, it let me escape doing her hands. I will have to do hands for Rahere and Julian, but until then, I’m ducking it.
I gave the gauntlets a narrow border of yellow, thinking of a silk or metal braid that might have been used as a trim.
Then I decided to make sure she was shod. Practical brown ankleboots, with extra reinforcing down around the heel. I’m not sure whether stirrups were in use at this point, and in any case, I think it’s a detail I don’t need to add at this stage.
And now I really can’t put off that dress any longer!
My most long term readers may recall that when I first started this blog, it was for accountability, in a sense.
I had plans for a two-panel embroidery inspired by the book “Nefertiti Lived Here”, by Mary Chubb, and with Life the way it is for all of us, I thought the only way I would keep at it was if I’d said, in public, that I was going to do it.
Well.
Some twenty-odd years later, that two panel project turned into 27 embroideries, 117 watercolours, and A Book!!
You may think I’d have nothing left to say, given how much I wrote on this blog as I was making the pieces, and when someone said “Why don’t you write a book?”, I rather wondered about that myself.
But it turns out that with the distance of having done a lot of other embroidery since, and a lot of painting, and a lot of thinking, there’s actually a lot to say. Not about the technical aspects; there are plenty of books of technique that as specialised books have the space to explain techniques in detail. But as someone who developed their own approach to design and design development, what I can do is share some of that approach.
The Embroiderers Guild have now published “Dreams of Amarna – Stitching An Egyptological Adventure”, and it is available to buy from their webshop now. It is copiously illustrated, with photographs by the wonderful Bernard Rose, showing embroideries and paintings, all done by me. I am thrilled to bits, and I hope you will love it, too!
Now, although the starting impulse for the Placidus panel is the Pisanello painting (and I will be saying more about that in another post), it is also Elizabeth Goudge’s story, woven around an imagined version on an ancient wall. In the book, “The Herb of Grace”, the painting is already in the air, in your mind as you read, long before the mischievous young twins start pulling wallpaper off the pantry wall to reveal an ancient fresco.
So although I’m not intending any humans other than Placidus himself to be in the painting, the family dogs are definitely going to be in there, and I am starting with Mary the white pekinese.
And here we go again – the sketchiest of outlines, a piece of gauze, and the sort of breathless pause you take when you Definitely Don’t Want To Ruin It.
As you can see, the stitched version isn’t the same size as the source photo, so I can’t quite lay the gauze over the top to find where to stitch, but I can compare the shapes I’m creating. The black thread (good grief, I’m using black thread!!) is a fine silk, as used on the woodpecker.
The grey thread here in the highlights is from a gorgeous variegated silk eight strand thread. I think I may have bought it for “Leaving The Tyne“, but to be honest, at this stage I have no idea! It’s going to be useful, though, because I have several shades to pick from within a single length..
And I am already startled by how well Mary the Pekinese is looking.
The mane and tail didn’t take too long, and the horse is looking bright and neat. I think the image as a whole is working so far (thank goodness, it’s an awfully time-consuming technique to end up dissatisfied with!), so I’m happy to keep going.
I might be able to get back to the tussocks soon, but in the meantime, close ups.
I chose to do a short standing mane for this horse, rather than the flowing locks for William’s horse, but gave it a little quiff of a forelock as well.
I was trying to create the effect of flying strands crossing over in the tail, but instead I’ve got a kink in it. I might have to do something different there, but until I’ve worked out what, I shall leave well alone!
I have another problem.
I’m not happy with the colours on her dress, there’s something a bit “off”, not the atmosphere I’m looking for. So yes, I’m going to have to undo the dress.
I want to make Aethelflaed’s horse contrast with William’s in more than just colour, so instead of doing dapples, I’m just going to have the horse smooth of coat and light of colour.
I got a little adrift earlier with the horse’s eyes, and I’m a bit unsure about whether I have enough of the lighter blue, but I think it’s going to work reasonably well. I can probably add more if I need to when the whole thing is finished and I am trying to balance the whole thing.
Here we are, then, with the horse filled in and the eyes more Opus-style. I get rather the feeling that this horse may be the “getting there under my own steam” steed, but it’s a bit of a ham, high-stepping, head up, adding to its rider’s mystique.
That, of course, is no bad thing. A ruler of the early medieval period needed to have some grip on self promotion, as well adjudicating when their people turned to them, choosing when to make peace and how to make war. Aethelflaed must have understood how to craft her presentation, for the benefit of Mercia as much as herself.
The Irish Chronicles mentions of Aethelflaed are full of superlatives, so my depiction needs to offer some impression of that glowing prestige, reaching across the Irish Sea.
Even if her brother Edward the Elder’s chroniclers don’t mention her at all. Jealous, much?
I thought I rather fancied tackling plaited braid stitch again, using the same variegated thread as for the chain stitch fernery. However, when I gave it a go, it turned out to be a poor thread for the stitch – too floppy, and too easily pierced. It’s not obvious, but there’s a glitter thread running through it, which interferes with the cohesion of the strands. Oh well, I’ll find somewhere else for the plaited braid stitch!
After some thought, I had a go at Mountmellick Thorn stitch.
That’s better. And this one isn’t going to be an all-over pattern like the fernery. Instead,I’ve done two vaguely treelike shapes, back to back, with Hungarian Braided Chain (I’ll get a braid in there somewhere!) providing the ground level.
Then I felt that maybe it would be useful to work the same Mountmellick Thorn stitch but at different proportions, so that I have a comparison. That’s in progress.
I’m also trying to work out how to line and assemble them neatly. I’m intending to use my little hand cranked Jones sewing machine, but as I’ve managed to bruise a couple of ribs and interfere with picking up that sort of awkward and heavy weight, I’m a bit unwilling to promise a prompt finish here!
I am going to start rereading the book again, at some point soon, but in the meantime, since I’ve rediscovered my “Vision of Placidus” notebook, I know that one of the birds I was going to include is a woodpecker.
I’m going to have to go to the shops and find some more gauze soon, as well, but while I can squeeze an animal in to the existing fabrics, I will do so.
I’ve commented before, I think, that getting a readable and workable design drawing onto gauze is a non-trivial exercise, but this opaque white line (a Posca pen) is pretty much the best I’ve found so far, and it also allows me to help myself by putting a few extra emphases on the lightest parts.
It’s amazing how quickly these little animals go, once I have a chance to get started. In fact, I was so entranced by how Woody was growing that I didn’t stop to take photos. In fact, I barely stopped to draw breath.
So this photograph shows a single afternoon’s work. I’ve used mostly fine silk threads, although his red breeches are a soft perle, and some of the white is probably cotton. As for approach – I simply tangle my stitches together, feather stitch variations, Cretan stitch variations, the occasional chain stitch or straight stitch. What I’m hoping is that the tangle of stitches will create a subtle variation in colour that will help the whole thing feel alive when it’s viewed from a reasonable distance.
I didn’t have much I wanted to add, in the end. A few highlights, filling in the wings a little, and then really the woodpecker is done. I may add more when it comes to assembling the piece (remember all those seed stitches I added to the View of the Excavation once I started assembling the Dreams of Amarna panels?), but that can wait until I know what is being balanced with what.
I have been thinking, on and off, since I was asked about it after my talk, that assembling Placidus may prove to be an exceptionally challenging process. The panel I envisage is going to be about five foot by four foot, and I have a horrible feeling I’m going to be propping it against a wall or slinging it from hooks or even emulating one or other of the great Impressionists by somehow arranging a slot in the floor to drop it into while I tackle the top.
Maybe I shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to finish this one…!
Now the thing about Opus Anglicanum is that it’s lots of very small stitches, so you maybe don’t see so much of Aethelflaed, but apart from occasional periods of Life getting in the way, she is making progress.
I’ve started on her horse. It’s going to be a grey – what you see of it, what with her riding dress and all! – so with a wave of my artistic licence, shadows and details are going blue.
I have time to wonder what she’d call her horse – all the names I can come up with tend towards the Norman French (Blanchemain, Blanchefleur), and that’s a good couple of centuries too early. So I’m looking for something Brythonnic, or Welsh (although the Mercians weren’t on reliably good terms with the Welsh, so maybe not..). Welsh would suggest something with “gwyn” in (for “white). Moving to Old English, “hwita” is “white”, but “aedre” is “stream”, and then suddenly you have a name starting with the same syllable as the rider’s. And that is the sort of thing you find in retellings of myths as a way to bring the two close together in the mind.
I would like to have a small pencil bag to take sketching, and I’ve been finding myself in the evening, fidgeting because I can’t concentrate on the complicated stuff and my crochet has fallen so far out of my head that I am contemplating pulling the whole lot out (most of one sock, from rib to the beginning of the toe) and starting again.
And yet I would like my hands not to be idle.
I’ve just taken a pair of side panels out of a skirt, so I’ve pressed one of those panels and drawn some rough fernlike curlicue things on the fabric in chalk – just freehand, nothing complex, no attempt at evenness, just a sense of balance and an all over pattern.
Then I went rummaging for a thread that would live happily on the fabric. This is quite a heavy thread on a cardboard spool, and I’ve not the vaguest idea where it came from. It varies from a very dark teal to a lighter version of the purple of the fabric, and it’s going well so far.
Strictly speaking that thread is on the heavy side for the fabric, and I may find that coming back to bite me, but for now, my little homage to the “Fernmania” that brought you the scrolls on custard creams is going well.
When I’ve done the whole length I will need to decide, do I line it with the other side panel or save that to make another bag with? Little drawstring bags are always useful, after all….
I’m on to the next layer of stitching now, changing the granularity of the colours, changing the balance of colour, trying to really see what my source is showing me.
I’m not quite sure where this refusal to do detailed planning drawings has come from, but for these Animal Vignettes I simply don’t. Partly, I think, because once the first layer is in you can’t see the details you want in the second layer, partly because I have become engrossed, if you like, in the challenge. When it works, it can work phenomenally well, and even when it doesn’t, as Hebe Cox puts it in her book about embroidery design, it has the virtue of spontaneity!
The owl is proving quite tricky. I’m not seeing the shapes and their relationships as well as I might, and I’m struggling to get the colours nicely combined.
However, I am also being reminded that in this way of tackling my stitching, I expect not to get it right first time. There are iterations, tacking from my stitching to my source and back again. Staring, stitching, trying to analyse the image, find the shadows, find the highlights. In fact, treating each fragment rather like a painting en plein air. Well, I’ve said before that if I fall into any artistic tradition, I’m an impressionist!
I’m not at all sure about this one. I think it’s done as far as I care to take it at the moment, and it’s certainly much better than it was. The fine layer of stitching – single strands of stranded cotton in a tangle of feather stitches and fly stitches – has made a considerable improvement on the breast, providing a contrast with the wing and some of the stitched shadows under the body. But I’m not sure that it’s right, I’m not at all sure that it’s finished, and I may very well find myself doing a new version of the owl later on, either because it’s too big for where I want it to sit in the final piece, or because I decide it’s got too much wrong with it and will draw the eye.
But then, this whole project is partly inspired by a fifteenth century masterpiece, and the anatomical exactitude of fifteenth century animal representations isn’t exactly perfect, so maybe my flaws of observation will contribute positively to the atmosphere?
