Complete With Gold Thread
Gosh. Silkwork all done, and metal thread completed too. The experiments with the bordered detached buttonhole stitch with return must have got me a bit fired up, because as well as planning some variations on the brim, I incorporated some changes in the gold metal stitching on the crown. The two roses have a cluster of French Knots at their centres, instead of Eight-Spoked Spiders Web Stitches, and I quite deliberately have not used exactly the same run of lines for each variation.
I have to say that although I commented that my visit to “In Fine Style” showed me that I had not stitched my Detached Buttonhole Stitch with Return closely enough, I would hate to have to sink a metal thread through anything more closely stitched. I was on tenterhooks lest I damage the silk, or the metal thread, or create some sort of obvious flaw in the stitching.
Spangled
The next stage was to add the spangles, since I want everything on this side finished before I turn the fabric over to start on the brim. Tricia says in the instructions that in the light of the experience they had with the Plimoth Jacket, she feels that they should have used more spangles, rather than fewer, and with that in mind she was much more generous with the provision of spangles than she would otherwise have been. I divided my packet of spangles roughly into six (one for each quadrant of the crown and two for the brim), and Spangled away enthusiastically.
Silkwork On Cap Done
I’ve now finished the silk work on the main sections of the Glittering Gentleman’s Nightcap. The next stage is to work the metal thread embroidery, because I want everything on this side of the fabric done before I take it off the frame, turn it over and work on the brim. In the end, I found that the last few bits went quite quickly, perhaps because I had a whole day when I did nothing else and found the stitching speeding up. It’s taken me a while to realise it, but I now think that Detached Buttonhole Stitch With Return is one of those stitches which requires “flow”, which in turn doesn’t happen if you sit down with only time to do one leaf before doing something else!
Up until now, I have tended to regard the Online University projects I have done as a sort of salutary discipline, and worked them exactly according to the instructions (something I rarely do, even when I have instructions!), but during my last visit to a stitching show, I spent some time on Jacqui Carey‘s stand, talking to her, and acquiring her books about Elizabethan Stitches and Sweet Bags. One of the stitches she found, and “reverse-engineered” is effectively the “Detached Buttonhole stitch with Return” which forms so much of the stitchery on this piece, but it incorporates a border within the method of stitching. So I thought maybe on the brim I could used this bordered stitch instead of the standard stitch.
Unsuccessful Trial
In another departure from my usual procedure I decided to practise the stitch first, and it’s really just as well.
Perhaps because Jaqui is primarily a braid maker and not an embroiderer, it took me some time to adapt my way of thinking to make sense of her diagrams. She also shows the stitch as worked upwards, whereas I have worked downwards with this sort of stitch all my life – or at least ever since my first attempt, when I worked the Needlelace Embellished Blouse.
Second Trial Much Better
The fact that version one was worked on felt didn’t help, either, since the needle kept snagging it, and the felt sagged under the weight of the stitching.
So version two was worked on linen, using a mercerised cotton instead of pearl cotton. This time I think I have got to grips with the stitching and the way to create the border. The linen survived much better, but the mercerised thread kept trying to tie itself in knots!
Furthermore, try as I might to work the stitch as diagrammed – upwards and away from me – I kept turning the frame and working it sideways or downwards instead.
I probably will choose to use the stitch for at least some of the areas on the brim, but it will be interesting to see how I cope when I simply can’t turn the frame around!
Last week, not less than three of my assorted interests combined to give me a real treat.
The Queen’s Gallery in London is holding an exhibition called “In Fine Style“. The exhibition uses portraits of the Tudor and Stuart period to show the changes in fashion during the period, and there was a lot of embroidery and passementerie used, so the painters had a lot of scope. I’m interested in painting, too, so I’m always intrigued to see how a painter depicts texture, structure, and colour. Furthermore, major exhibitions these days often have additional events – not just a Private View on opening, but outreach events for schoolchildren, evening openings, tie-in events with other artists. An additional event caught my eye – an evening opening, followed by a recital of the music of John Dowland (contemporaneous with the paintings) given by the lutanist Jakob Lindberg.
Now, I’m an early music girl, so what with the chance to be nose-to-nose with some famous paintings and then to listen to music of the period surrounded by paintings of the composer’s assorted patrons…
I had a great time. There were some very familiar paintings – Elizabeth I as a princess, in a rose-red gown, with sleeves dripping gold embroidery, and a couple of pearl pendants you could swear you could pick off the canvas, van Dyck’s triple portrait of Charles I, Frances Stuart looking seductive in satin, with an entirely superfluous billow of fabric behind her. Familiar in reproduction, and fabulous. But, my goodness, the painting is even better when you can see it for real! Fur, gold thread, damask figured weaves, embroidery, gleaming pearls, glinting gems.
Then there were some unfamiliar ones. Edward IV, who I’ve read described as a blond beautiful giant, six foot tall, charismatic and something of a party animal. The portrait showed me a thin-faced, introspective man with dark red hair and a marked resemblance to the famous portrait of his brother Richard III – I suppose sitting for a portrait encourages introspection. Frances Stuart, in a buff coat like a man’s, her hair dressed to look like a man’s wig. Various unnamed men and women in the fashions of their time, in masque dress, fashionable clothes, clothes to make a statement. One lady wore a beautiful embroidered gown with a silvery gauze overdress set with crystals – imagine how many tiny brushstrokes you would need to bring a single crystal to life!
There were also some real examples – an embroidered jacket (not the Margaret Laton jacket, but very like it), a nightcap, and some gloves. And a Casket. And what a casket. It had a whole grove of needlelace-leaved trees planted on its’ lid, not to mention a horde of people frolicking around the side. And if I’ve learnt anything it’s that my detached buttonhole stitch is nothing like fine enough or tight enough. Sigh.
And the evening wasn’t over yet – after gloating over all that fabulous painted and embroidered finery, the recital! Jakob Lindberg is a great lutanist and a charming and knowledgeable man, so his introductions illuminated the music, and entertained the audience as much as his playing did. Though I did find myself wondering whether the composer had so attentive an audience when he played in the courts of England and Denmark!
Photo And Sketch
Since I finished the Lotus Flower Tile Fragment, I haven’t had a piece for the Dreams of Amarna to work on. I’ve been thinking about several, of course, but in combination with the Online University projects I’m working on and my sudden idea for the Vision Of Placidus, none of them really caught fire.
Then I filled very dull, dreary afternoon – pouring with rain, with no light to embroider by (remind me, it’s summer here in the northern hemisphere, right?) – with the preparations for working the solo version of the Hittite Amulet. He’s going to be worked in or nué – actually argent nué, since I’ll be using a silver thread! – so the first thing to do was prepare the base fabric.
There were two photos from the EES to choose from, one of them rather moody, with the amulet seeming to look out from the black background, and the other, arguably better lit, and full face rather than three-quarter. Guess which I chose?
Yes, of course, the moody, dramatic one!
Ready To Stitch
It’s very hard to trace a picture that doesn’t show everything you know is there. You will see that the lines I’ve traced produce a sketchy effect, not complete detail. That’s because I decided to paint more of the details onto the background fabric to help guide my needle, and the lines were really only there to guide my brush!
It may seem that creating this painted panel is a lot of work that will be completely hidden, but while my other or nué panel, Christus Natus Est, had simple sweeping lines, and the coloured background was merely there to prevent cream calico from grinning through any gaps, the Hittite Amulet is a very much more intricate design. Creating my painted version putting darks and lights in the right places took immense concentration and I would hate to have to concentrate that hard on the design when the execution is going to be so challenging.
Wish me luck!
Lady Catherine’s Slipper
As though I haven’t enough to do, I have decided to do another of the Needlework Nibbles from Thistle Threads.
This one has gold curlicues edged in black and the background and lining are of black and gold silk brocade. I hesitated before deciding to take it on – black is a colour I’m not fond of – but since the gold was there to lift it, and since the various challenges of finishing the Nibbles are very good for me, I went ahead.
First Curlicue
In the instructions, Tricia suggests using brown Micron pen for the main curlicues and black for the ornamental curls. That’s a great idea, but as brown is all I have (from the Glittering Nightcap kit) and my local artists’ suppliers don’t know about Micron I shall simply have to stay alert, especially as the lines have turned out rather faint.
The embroidery in this case seems fairly simple – the golden curlicues are worked in Heavy Chain Stitch, one of my favourites, and the black silk will be worked in Stem Stitch and Split Stitch.
As usual, therefore, the challenge will be in the making up. It will probably take me a week or so, once I’ve finished the embroidery, to gather my courage to tackle the finishing!
Finally Ready To Start
At long last, after much drafting, redrafting, pricking, pouncing, and outlining, the cutwork design I have planned to work using one of the patterns I found in the Azores is ready for me to start the embroidery.
After all this effort – the prick and pounce transfer method isn’t good for a healing tennis elbow! – I do hope I enjoy working it. It is only the second cutwork piece I’ve ever attempted – and the first came by accident in a bundle from eBay!
Making Progress
One of the things that attracted me to the design was the chance to get to grips with multi-ended buttonhole bars. I know that somewhere in my shelves of embroidery books, there is one detailing how these Y-shaped buttonhole bars should be worked, but in which?
I’m going to start by working the external edges, while I spend time rummaging among my references. This will ensure that it will not matter how long the rest of the piece takes, because the edges won’t be able to fray – although in fact I think there is little danger of that. It is a very good quality, firm fabric, and I’m rather enjoying myself.
I’ve even done my very first eyelet, using a bone stiletto from the set Elmsley Rose gave me for a birthday present a few years ago.
Conversion of St Hubert (Image from Wikipedia)
Shortly after I had my idea for a panel depicting the Vision of Placidus, I went to London for a lecture. The Pisanello is in The National Gallery, so after the lecture I took the opportunity, before catching the train home, to go to see the painting in real life. It turns out that St Hubert had a similar Conversion experience, so as well as the Pisanello “Vision of St Eustace” I found a fragment of an altarpiece entitled “The Conversion of St Hubert”…
I eventually tracked down the Pisanello, in the Sainsbury wing, and found it very much smaller than I expected – about A2 in size – which is much smaller than I am planning (about five foot by three foot). It was also just as dark as the reproduction I showed you in the first post about this idea. I sat down on a convenient window seat nearby, and started taking notes of the further research I need to do.
Sketch for the Vision Of Placidus
I will need picture references for
- a horse reined in from a gallop
- a stag with huge antlers
- hounds alert but not moving
- forest flora and fauna
- crucifix
- rocky outcrop
- suitably rich and exotic clothing for the huntsman
I also want to differentiate the vegetation from the background rather more, pull the rocky outcrop away from the background a bit more, and make the crucifix seem to grow out of the antlers rather more than it does in Pisanello’s painting.
Placidus In Pastel
While I was there, I sketched a very approximate idea of the space I want in the picture – the Pisanallo and the altarpiece, and the picture above, are all quite compressed and condensed, and at the moment my idea is to have much more space and “air” in the design.
When I got home I had another go, this time in pastels. Some elements of the pastel work quite well – the horse and its harness, and the crucifix between the deer’s antlers. Others are not so good – the trees in the background are too regularly spaced and too similar in shape, and, like the Pisanello, there isn’t as much space between the stag and the horse as I would like.
I need to be careful, here. If I concentrate too much on creating painted sketches, I might drive out all the stitching ideas, but at the same time, the more I think about the design, the better the chance I have of producing a panel I am happy with!
Silkwork Done
The laid silk satin stitches grew surprisingly quickly, in the end. I think of satin stitch as a very painstaking and tedious technique, but for some reason or other, I found the background of the Lotus Tile Fragment the reverse of tedious. I’m sure that the way flat silk spreads out helped with that, and likewise the increasing complication of working the satin stitches around the lotus flowers.
The horizontal stitches worked beautifully, creating the effect of a flowing stream behind the flowers. It can be hard to introduce enough movement into a design to prevent it seeming static, while at the same time avoiding any suggestion of hectic activity. In this case I think the balance between stillness and movement is reasonably well-achieved.
Outlining Done
Once it was done to my satisfaction, I spent a bit of time searching online for images of other Egyptian representations of Lotus Flowers dating from the Amarna period. I was a little disturbed to find that many of the photos in the search results were from this blog, which made my search a little self-referential, but in the end I decided that I should put an outline in, since most of the Egyptian images were outlined.
I was influenced in this decision by the fact that I really enjoyed stitching this little piece, and I felt that re-stitching it if the outline did not please me would be no hardship at all!
Detail of a Lotus Flower
I used a fine metallic thread, also purchased from Midori Matsushima, and couched it. For the stems I used three doubled threads and couched them – slightly twisting them – using a single doubled strand. For the flowers I used two doubled strands, couched with a single doubled strand. I’m not convinced that the different number of threads made a difference, but believe me, I won’t be unpicking it!
I’m pleased with it. The outlines do make it look a little more like some of the images I found in my search, and they will help the design to maintain its shape when it is overlaid with the gauze portrait.
Pisanello “Vision of St Eustace” (Image from Wikipedia)
Lately I have been re-reading a favourite book, “The Herb of Grace” by Elizabeth Goudge. In it, her fictional family discover in their house – a medieval Pilgrim Inn – an ancient fresco, depicting the conversion of Placidus. It is described as being very like Pisanello’s “Vision of St Eustace”, now in the National Gallery – Placidus changed his name when he converted to Christianity – but with the local wood and its animals forming the background. In fact, so enchanted was the fictional artist by the local wildlife that he filled every gap in the trees with animals, even putting land animals in the sky to fit them all in.
La Dame à la licorne. (Image from Wikipedia)
It is this element that appealed to me, as it is reminiscent in some ways of my favourite textile, in my favourite museum in all the world – La Dame à la licorne, in the Musée de Cluny in Paris. This is a set of medieval tapestries, depicting the mythological hunt for the unicorn, and the set is displayed in a circular room, with a set of steps down into it. When I first saw it, I sat down very suddenly on the steps, and didn’t move or speak for a good ten minutes, which gravely disconcerted my companion at the time. I’ve since dragged various friends and relations there, too, just to give myself another opportunity to visit the tapestries, not to mention visiting the Gobelins Manufactory in order to find out how such tapestries were made!
One day, I would like to create my own panel, linking La Dame à la licorne with the Vision of St Eustace. There are so many textures – the fur and feathers of the animals and birds, the splendid trappings of Placidus’ horse and his own clothes, the forest trees and flowers, and the rocky outcrop where the stag turned to face him. Just think of the wonderful variety of stitches and threads I could use!
Photocopy Mosaic
I have been working on my Azorean embroidery of late.
By this I do not mean that I’ve been actually using my needle and thread. No, I’m not there yet! Remember, what I bought in that enchanting little shop in Ponta Delgada was a pattenbook, in effect. It included no tracings, and no guidance for creating the design I will work from. The design isn’t drawn out, but simply photographed – in each case there is a corner of the finished article showing in the photograph, but not how each section joins on. What is more, I have discovered that there are subtleties in the way the designs are put together. I couldn’t simply run the design around the piece without paying attention!
Tracing Cutwork
In fact I have photocopied and traced, and retraced, and re-retraced(!) the design several times, trying several ways to create the complete circuit of the design, and it has reminded me of just how lucky we are now, with easy access (usually) to prepared designs, tracings, and computer software that can help us assemble the designs we create ourselves.
By the time I finally have the design drawn on that lovely cotton fabric I am so looking forward to embroidering, I will have drawn and redrawn each line at least eight times!
