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.

on to new things

Pennsic was fantastic! My classes went well, and of course I took classes every day. Two are particular favorites. My favorite class was Viking Civil Engineering. We learned about period measuring methods, and then laid out a scale model of Trelleborg - a ring fort in Denmark. We laid out the circular wall, the roads that cross in the middle, and one of the buildings. Everyone took turns measuring, and in the end, it was exactly right.

It made me want build a real model of the whole fort.

My other favorite class was learning to set up and weave on a warp weighted loom. Now that's a loom I could learn to love! 

The first day we set up the warp:

The second day we threaded the heddles and wove some cloth:

We only wove a simple tabby, but it felt like such a wonderful accomplishment. I had expected setting up a warp weighted loom would be more difficult than a rigid heddle loom. It was easier. Well, maybe not easier, just different. And very easy to understand. We made some mistakes along the way, before we understood how to add the warp threads into the tablet weaving (see the wider spaced threads?) but it worked, and we learned from the mistakes. My next piece I will weave with my handspun thread.

Recently, I've started to explore some Pueblo socks. These look like nalbinding, but are different from other stitches. Some people think they are Coptic stitch, but they are different. So, I've started making samples to see if I can reproduce them. Today I bought some cotton thread to start the samples. On my next post I'll show you what I make, and then you can draw your own conclusions.

Preparing for Pennsic

My favorite thing to do at Pennsic is to teach and take classes. While some classes may be better than others, I always come home energized and itching to start a new project.

When I was Mistress Brid's apprentice, she had me keep a book of quotations that inspired me, for whatever reason (not just related to fiber arts). As I am gathering together my supplies for Pennsic, I thought it would be nice to share a few sentiments I found:

"There is no better teacher than the process of teaching itself."

"General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students."

"General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher, and your fellow students."

These quotes are from a Corita Kent, an artist who taught at a small college back in the 1960's. She did amazing graphic arts work, with a social responsibility message. I was lucky enough to see an exhibit of her work a while back at The Tang, a small museum in Saratoga Springs.

So, if you are going to Pennsic, don't forget to take time away from the battles and shopping to take a class. And if you happen to be one of the many amazing teachers, you have my heartfelt thanks. I am looking forward to learning new things!

Medieval Style Knitting

One of my goals for this year is to knit something in a medieval style. This has taken a lot of thought and practice. I decided I wanted to make a small bag. First I looked for some appropriate inspiration.

 Then I started knitting on smaller and smaller needles.

I worked my way down to size 0 as I played with various colorwork designs. Here are a few of the things I made:

The "white" mitten was knit on size 1 needles, the grey sock (my own design) was knit on size 0 needles.

While I was knitting, I was designing my pattern. I decided to base my idea on an embroidered bag that included large versions of arms. I plotted out my arms and my husband's arms, and then experimented over and over until I was happy with the surrounding images.

 The problem with this idea is that both of our arms include 3 colors. I have not found an example of medieval knitting that includes more than 2 colors per row. Perhaps I should have stuck to embroidery! But I am persevering. I am using size 000 needles. I started by practicing carrying the colors around the row, using cotton crochet thread. It was terrible to work with at such a small scale, and I quickly switched to a lace weight wool/silk blend. I played a bit longer, and have now started my actual bag.

You can see the start of my arms on the cotton sample at the top of the photo. I've gotten fairly competent at keeping the threads untangled. On the actual bag, I have knit a plain band for the top and I'm ready to start adding the designs. Check back at the end of the summer and I will show you how far I have come.

The book is out!

Perhaps this proves how busy I have been. The day I had long been waiting for came and went, and I never told the news. On a day back in April I came home to find a package in my mail box. Volume 11 had arrived! I am so pleased with how it turned out. And besides my article, the others are equally interesting. I've really been enjoying reading it when I can grab a spare minute.

 


I hope you will find it interesting, too.

Happy Spring!

Washington DC has its cherry blossoms festival, Rochester, New York has its lilac festival, but my city has the Tulip Fest.

        

This year the city of Albany planted 137,000 tulip bulbs of every color and variety imaginable. This weekend people come together from all over to admire the flowers, eat tasty food, listen to good music and enjoy wonderful crafts. When the weather is this good, the crowds are thick:

"But what about your crafts?" you ask. I've been making slow progress on my little spinning experiment, working on several Kingdom and baronial projects, and doing a little teaching,  but mostly I've been busy at work. Hence no time to blog. But this is a day for me - so I thought I would take a few minutes and show you a few photos. I'll write about my projects very soon. In the meantime - happy mother's day to all mothers!