merry England

We were in England (mostly London) for a week. Just enough to whet the appetite, barely time to scratch the surface of the things to see and do. Our first day we stretched our legs after the long and lovely train ride from Glasgow. We enjoyed St. James's Park,

 
walked around Westminster, across the bridge, along the river to the next bridge, up to Trafalger Square,

and eventually back to the hotel.

The next day it was off to the British Museum, where I fell in love with the Lewis Chessmen. Yes, I've seen photos and reproductions. That is nothing compared to standing in front of the real thing.

  

 What I didn't appreciate until I saw them in person is that every one of them is completely unique, and they all have personality.

Shears (50BC-50AD) from Hertford Heath

Another highlight of the trip was seeing a play at the Globe. We saw Twelfth Night. 

And equally wonderful was the view that greeted us as we left the theater. 

Friday we were off to Westminster Abbey and the V & A. I would have liked to spend all day in the V & A, but I am happy with the time we got. I spent quite a long time with "my" beloved Coptic socks (Egypt 300-500). We practically had the gallery to ourselves.

This is nalbinding, not knitting.

I also drooled over the Tristan and Isolde quilt (Florence c. 1360-1400). I love the fish and faces.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg of wonderful things to discover:

 

The next day we climbed to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral (520+ steps), and were rewarded with spectacular views and a serenade by the bells.

You can see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge in this photo. The trip was certainly over long before we ran out of things to explore.

My secret embroidery project

 I've been quiet for the past month or so, because I was very busy making a laurel cloak for my friend, (now Mistress) Vibeke.

All of her friends embroidered a set of leaves and mailed them to me. It felt like Christmas every time I opened an envelope. Every leaf is a treasure. I spun the gold thread for the couching and stems and assembled it all together. These are my leaves:

They are based on the designs of Neolithic and Iron Age spindle whorls.

Vibeke was very surprised.

Happy Holidays

New Year’s Eve, and the holidays are almost over. It really has been a lovely season. We began, earlier in December, taking family to a Christmas concert, full of laughter and sing-alongs. Then, the weekend before Christmas, we had our traditional visit to New York City, to be part of the hustle and bustle, lights and decorations. Not to mention good food, and of course the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We spent the entire day at the Met, including the extended evening hours, which gave us plenty of time to explore at a leisurely pace. We visited our old favorites, and took in several special exhibits, including Gilded Age furniture, and an exhibit of house-shaped vessels from Central and South America. This was one of my favorites:

I love the little dog waiting at the door for scraps!

And then there was the exhibit of 16^th century textile pattern books.

book by Johann Schonsperger the Younger, Augsburg, 1529

The Met has an extraordinary collection of pattern books from the dawn of the print age, and many
samples of period textiles created from the patterns. Needless to say, I spent hours in the exhibit. It clearly showed how the rise of printing influenced textile fashion across Europe. Printers were freely gathering patterns for textile prints and embroidery from Italy, Germany, France, the Levant… and binding them together for the public’s consumption. While some people may be frustrated by how all this borrowing makes it difficult to know the origins of a particular pattern, I find it exciting to think about the “free” exchange of information across great distances, for people (especially women) who might otherwise not have the opportunity to travel so far. Today these books are particularly rare because pages were often removed in order to copy the patterns onto the material to be embroidered. The Libro de rechami (1532), by Alessandro Paganino even illustrates women using various methods to copy the patterns.

I think my favorite part of the exhibit related to a pattern of birds. This was clearly a popular pattern. Here is the pattern, and its interpretation in several different styles:

I was excited to see the lacis artifacts. Since this is a technique I have recently begun to learn, it was fun to see so many period examples all together. I think I will try my hand at one of these patterns.

And then there was the modern lacis. Perhaps I need to make myself a shirt.

 c. 1920 and 1910 respectively

Then, as a little extra treat, we found our way to a little-visited part of the museum, with an exhibit of 19^th century samplers. Here is my favorite, because it was such a surprise.

London, mid-19th century

This piece is only about 3.5 inches square, so you can get a sense of how tiny these stitches are. But, who was this girl who was stitching complex math problems instead of quotes from Scripture?

We ended our trip to New York with a visit to the Central Park Zoo. The weather was perfect, and the animals were particularly active. Here is just one photo for your enjoyment:

embroidery project

It's so nice to have a day off from work. Besides catching up on yard work, and getting ready for an arts and sciences event I am running next Saturday, I found time to finish an embroidery project I have been working on for a few months, off and on.
 Back in the spring, I participated in Artisans Row at Mudthaw. I was lucky to be seated next to Kathryn Goodwyn, who was demonstrating various late medieval embroidery techniques. By the end of the day she gave me some thread and fabric, and off I went to try it on my own. First, I decided to make a bookmark. I chose a counted pattern of laurel leaves, and set to work. I didn't figure on how large the finished piece would be (there are about 7 squares to the inch). I like how it turned out, and I love the weaving technique, but I'll need a very big book to use it.

I was so taken with the technique, I immediately started a second piece, based on a 14th century Swedish embroidery. I love this little horse:

I haven't been able to find a source for the netted fabric, so I guess I'll just have to learn to make the net myself. I'll save that for another day.

Pueblo Shoe-Sock

The Arizona State Museum has in its possession three shoe-socks made by looping thread. They are made of cotton thread, with woven yucca soles. These date from pre-European contact (c. 1100-1300 CE). This past spring there was a flurry of discussion about the socks on the nalbinding yahoo group that I belong to, as people discussed if the stitch used was the same as any known European nalbinding socks. The final suggestion was that they were made using the Coptic stitch. I disagreed, and decided to verify it by reproducing the stitching pattern.

Here is a close-up of one of the socks:

While I did not recognize the stitch by looking at the photo, it became obvious as soon as I started stitching. If you are familiar with embroidery stitches, you will recognize it as the detached buttonhole stitch.

Here are my samples:

Detached buttonhole stitch is on top, Coptic stitch is on the bottom.

Both the detached buttonhole stitch and the Coptic stitch create loops in the same manner, working from left to right, bringing the thread in front of the loop. But that is where the similarity ends. The Coptic stitch places each stitch directly above the stitch from the previous row, creating vertical lines that resemble stockinette stitch. Like stockinette stitch, it curls over at the edge.

The detached buttonhole stitch places each new stitch between two stitches on the previous row. The resulting fabric is more net-like, and it does not curl at the edge.

Do you agree with me? You can see more pictures of the artifacts on the museum's website.

Where does the time go?

It's hard to believe that in just over 2 weeks we will be on our way to Pennsic. I've been working hard to get my class ready. I will be presenting my research on spindle whorls, and hopefully people will be interested enough to give some of them a spin. When I am not working on my handout and outline, I've been making a banner to display by my tent:

These are my arms, which were approved since the last time we went to Pennsic. As an added bonus, I paneled the piece at Northern Region War Camp, and was given competency in applique. The next time I try that technique it will be a much smaller piece! (I received competency for the laidwork pillow as well.)

Also at War Camp, I took a class in spinning flax on the wheel. Happily for me, I was the only student. Henna was an excellent teacher. This was my first experience with a wheel, so I spent a long time just learning to treadle at an even pace. And to keep the wheel moving without thinking about it. It's harder than it looks. I learned how to properly dress the distaff and the correct technique for drafting the fibers.

Although I don't own a wheel, I think I will be able to translate these new skills to the drop spindle. I am anxious to get started.

A & S Project for Pennsic

It has been 3 months since I began spinning thread for the embroidered pillow which is to be a gift to the King and Queen of the Midrealm from the King and Queen of the East. Today I finished. I am very happy with how it came out. Here are a couple of detail pictures:

I like the way the chain stitches and French knots add texture.

The border was adapted from a mosaic design in the Byzantine church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy.

Here is the finished pillow:

All of the thread is my handspun wool. It is embroidered on a linen ground.

What I learned:

• Gotland wool does not make good embroidery thread. That was all I had in purple, so I tried it. It spins a beautiful thin thread, but it does not pull nicely through the fabric. It tended to tangle and/or pull apart. Therefore, there is less purple in the piece than I originally intended. It was too frustrating to work with.

making progress

Just about the only thing I have been working on for the past month is my embroidery project. I am closer to done than not done at this point. Here is how it looks today:

This is what I have learned about the Bayeux stitch so far:

• It is much quicker to execute than I had expected.
• You need to be careful to make sure to lay down enough threads across the ground. They shouldn't overlap, but they should definitely be touching. This becomes especially important once the couching threads are added.
• Do not pull the couching threads too tight. If the long threads are too tight, it pulls the ground away from the edges. If the attaching stitches are too tight it creates gaps in the ground threads.
• The couching threads can be manipulated a little bit to make the ground threads evenly spaced.

Getting the right coverage and tension takes some practice. The king's tunic is better than the queen's. Mistress Briony suggested weaving in an extra thread if there are spots with poor coverage. I will probably need to do that in a couple of spots, but when I added the fold lines on top of the couching it took care of most of the thin spots. Overall, I'm happy with how it is turning out. 

a new project

I have started to work on a project to create an embroidered pillow as a gift from Queen Kiena to the royalty of the Midrealm. Actually, I started about a month ago, spinning the embroidery thread. Because the Mid royalty have early period personas, I decided to model my design after the Bayeux Tapestry. So far, I have finished the dogs. This is the first time I have used this stitch technique. I like it.

I have to be finished before we leave for Pennsic in July. I'd better get back to stitching!