Variations on a Holly Theme

          "Again at Christmas did we weave

The holly round the Christmas hearth;

The silent snow possessed the earth,

And calmly fell our Christmas eve"

Tennyson

Many of you will recognize this holly motif from a coif at the V & A Museum. (acc no. T.25-1975).  It's been dated between 1590 to 1600; silk and silver-gilt embroidery on linen.  There are at least two coifs featuring this holly motif in a repeat fill pattern.  Unfortunately, I have photos of the 2nd coif, but didn't record where it came from.  

On the V&A coif, all 3 leaves are filled with a simple blackwork running stitch motif.  On the 2nd coif, the top center leaf has a heavy center vein worked in silk.  It doesn't appear to have a fill stitch and I can't make out what stitch comprises the vein, but it looks like Chain or Van Dyke.  I can't post a pic of it on my blog since I didn't take the photograph.  If anyone knows of another coif with this holly pattern, please let me know via a comment or email (kservello@comcast.net)

For the Holly Pocket Ornament shown at the top, I used Au Ver a Soie's (silk) 109 perle and 945 gobelin and #4 gilt smooth-passing wire on a sandy colored 40 ct. linen.  Stiches used are Outline, Blackwork fill and Reverse Chain.

On the Holly Mini-Pillow, above and left, I decided to try 50 ct. linen - I wanted to see how difficult it would be to stitch my delicate fill pattern on 50ct.  It's wicked-close and I don't think I would try it on a large piece, like a coif, unless I was only filling a few spot motifs with it. The same threads were used as the first ornament.

Here you see how I chose to fill the holly berries. I couldn't see how they were filled on the V&A coif, so I decided to fill them with reverse chain stitch.  I think it came out very nicely.

I made these in 2008.  Looking at the V&A coif again today, I realized the  goldwork stitch in between each holly motif looks like the cross variation of Guilloche stitch.  Anyone else care to comment?  I've ordered a hi-def pic of it so I can see it better.

Here's the third variation, actually my first attempt.  I used French knots to represent the upper holly berries.  I should have filled the area in more with berries, but, in "real life" it doesn't look as sparse in that area, probably because the branch looks longer on camera due to the curve in the linen.  I also used Fr. knots to fill in the 2 meduim holly berries below, with and outline stitch around them, which looks very nice - it makes them look raised.  Today I'd choose Spiral Trellis stitch.

And The Stockings Were Hung.....

 Lo, Now is come the joyful’st feast

 Let every man be jolly, 

Each room with ivy leaves is drest,

And every post with holly. 

George Wither 1660

Today many of us, myself included, pine for Christmas celebrations of the long distant past when we imagine life was simpler and therefore enjoyed more fully.

The world has become more worldly.  There is more of dissipation and less of enjoyment.  Pleasure has expanded into a broader, but a shallower stream, and has forsaken many of those deep and quiet channels where it flowed sweetly through the calm bosom of domestic life.

It may surprise you to find that the previous paragraph was written by Washington Irving in 1820.   The concept that previous eras were simpler and therefore enjoyed more fully isn't a new one.  In fact, it goes all the way back to Homer and probably beyond.  The excerpt above is from one of Irving's Christmas stories in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, which tell of Geoffrey's Christmas holiday spent in a quaint old English manor house, where Squire Bracebridge has brought back the customs of Merry Olde England.  It's a fun Christmas read for anyone interested in old English traditions, not scholarly though, since Irving has romanticized them.  But, all the more fun for it!

 Christmas stockings are my theme today -  not an element of the Elizabethan's Christmas celebrations -  and mine are admittedly very Dickensian.  However, the embroidery on them is Elizabethan.

The main pattern on the first two stockings is taken from a portrait, circa 1540, titled Portrait of a Lady in White by Moretto da Breccia and housed at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.  I have also seen this blackwork motif on an English sampler, dated 1661, included in Louisa Pesel's book Double Running or Back Stitch.   At the time of publication, the sampler was in the private collection of Mrs. Clement Williams.

I worked the blackwork bands using one strand of Soie d'alger silk thread on 35 ct. linen.  The motif is mirror imaged on the burgundy stocking, giving it a very different look from the gold.

After the embroidery was completed and I had selected rich fabrics to go with them, I drew a very elongated stocking pattern because I felt it would go with the Dickensian look of the velvet, cording and tassels. 

The decorative rolled hem - the same used on some of my scarves - is the antique hem stitch from Therese deDilmon'ts book on Needlework.  However,  I added an additional pulled thread detail from the same book.  No instructions were given on how to do it, but a clear photo of the technique 'in process', on page 465, is enough for the experienced embroiderer to work it out.

For the last stocking, I decided to use one of my samplers for its original purpose.  The sampler is a reproduction available from the The Scarlet Letter.  The original was worked circa 1625, and probably intended as a record of patterns.  You can read about the dating and history of the sampler in the Sept / Oct 1993 issue of Piecework Magazine.




For the stocking, I used the same reversible stitches as the original sampler, with Soie d'alger threads on 35 ct. linen.

I simply took a section of the sampler and used it for the stocking band, adding the holly leaves, from another band, at both the top and bottom.  These stockings, stitched over 15 years ago, were my first attempt at adapting old patterns for my own use.

On First Looking Into Hatton's Herbal Handbook

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace

As I have seen in one autumnal face...

John Donne (poet 1572-1631)

Recently a friend recommended I look into a book by Richard Hatton, titled "Handbook of Plant and Floral Ornament from Early Herbals, published by Dover.  For those of you who aren't aware of this book, it's a compilation of woodcut and engraved illustrations from early herbals.  The preface best states the author's intent... 'The object of this publication is to render available to designers and plant-lovers the best of the engraved drawings of plants which have made the Herbals of the sixteenth century famous.'




Many of the early herbals are costly to purchase.  I would recommend this book as a very economical way to add the best of the early herbal illustrations to your personal library.  My edition, printed in 1960, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the first edition, published in 1909, under the title of The Craftsman's Plant-Book.    I paid around $10 on Amazon for my used copy. Check out used copies on Amazon here

Included are over 1200 illustrations culled from sixteen different herbals printed from 1530 to 1614.  Hatton includes a list of the chief herbals used and references the original work under each illustration.


It's a wondrous design resource.  Many of the illustrations are works of art in themselves and could be used with little or no modifications to create a pillow cover, picture, etc.


The curving vine shown on this Ivy-Leafed Crowfoot is splendid.  A nice delicate design, I can see it worked in colored silks (creme and greens) and goldwork.

A wonderfully autumnal illustration showing nature's abundant bounty.  It could be used 'as is' for a William-Morris-y effect or pruned if something lighter was desired.

This lily of the valley slip is just delightful.  

What a perfect representation.  

It would be lovely worked in speckling technique.

If you've not already done so, I hope I've inspired you to look into early herbals and use the illustrations in your needlework designs.   

Early 17th Century Block printing on Linen for Embroidery

I looked around a bit more on the Victoria & Albert museum site and found some other linen pieces that the V&A states were block printed.   I've listed the Accession no's below for your reference.

The very early pieces (14th century) were from Germany and Italy, although in the notes it states that by the last quarter of the 15th century this process was also being used in England.  I don't believe these early pieces were intended for embroidery.  They appear to be just decorative fabrics and remind me a little of today's Toil de Jouy fabric.  This is a small sampling, and in my mind, doesn't rule out the possibility that embroidery patterns were also being block printed ( V&A's term) onto linen for embroidery.  I'd need to research it further to make a conclusion.

The early 17th century pieces in my list are for embroidery, and they are from England.  The V&A is terming it "block printing" on piece T.174B-1931, although if you read the descriptive plate photographed with the coif, there it states that it was printed from engraved plates.  Curiouser and curiouser...

Here's the list of pieces at the V& A:

Acc No.         Title                    Origin           Date

1745-1888     Printed Linen     Germany     1350-1400
7027-1860     Printed Linen     Italy            1350-1400
T.21-1946      Coif                   Britain        1600-1629
T.174B-1931 Linen              England         Early 17th c.

Exciting Update about Trevelyon 1608 Miscellany

Thomas Trevelyon embroidery patterns now available online!



The other day I posted about the Trevelyon 1608 Miscellany reprint available for $750 from Folger Shakespeare museum in DC.



It appears that the museum has now made this book available to view online.   It looks like there are over 600 pages.  Each of the Folger's online pages has about 50 pages from Trevelyon's book.  Folger's page 7 is where the embroidery patterns seem to start, though there are some scattered amongst the earlier pages.


 Check out the link below (copy & paste it into your browser):



http://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/view/search?sort=Call_Number%2CAuthor%2CCD_Title%2CImprint&search=Search&q=trevelyon&QuickSearchA=QuickSearchA&os=300

You can download pages by bringing up the page you want, then clicking Export in the upper right hand corner.  Or there's an option to use them in a presentation format.  Ok, I'm rating high on the geek-o-meter bc I'm so excited by this I can hardly type!

Enjoy!

Sir Christopher Hatton's Shirt

Being the story of how Sir Christopher Hatton's shirt came to be in my closet.....
Long ago and far away, before the invention of the internet, I found a super bargain on Brooks Brothers' clearance rack- a very fine Irish Linen shirt.   I took the shirt home and carefully tucked it away.  I had plans for it, but it took 7 more years for events to take place making it possible for my plans to come to pass....


It had all started ( even further ago and longer away) with a book.  Blackwork by Mary Gostelow.  In this book is a very faded picture of a portrait of Sir Christopher Hatton, painted in 1589.   I've included a much clearer pic here, from the National Portrait Gallery in London.  Hatton is wearing a smock with pomegranates and flowers embroidered on the cuffs and collar.  I fell in love with the design but it was nearly impossible to get a feel for the entire design from the copy in Gostelow's book because it was so faded.
 I was also working under the misunderstanding that all linear blackwork is reversible and counted.  So I was trying to chart a reversible, counted version of the design, and failing miserably because it needed to be done in surface embroidery to get the smoothly curving lines.  In 2002 I took a class from Catherine Jordan that opened my eyes to the fact that all linear blackwork isn't necessarily counted or reversible.   


Then a few years later, the internet had progressed enough that museums began to include "zoomable" versions of portraits on the internet. 


At last  I had all the knowledge and tools I needed to create my shirt.


Embroidery worked in DMC 6 stranded cotton, using one strand.  Stitch used is Outline.

Pomegranates & Peas Purse - Speckling Stitch

***Please Note:  A kit to make this purse is available on my etsy shop, Baroque Embellishments.***

I designed this purse for a class I taught for a Mid-Atlantic Regional meeting of the Embroiderers' Guild of America (EGA) few years ago.



The inspiration came partly from a jacket at the V&A museum in London, Accession # T.4-1935,  (click here to go to jacket at v&a)  which features the pomegranate (I've seen the same pomegranate on another Elizabethan piece, I think a coif) and partly from the engravings published by Peter Stent in the 17th century.  I loved the pea pods in his engravings, which looked a bit Tim Burton-ish to me.  The book is out of print, but available used from Amazon.  The title:  A Book of Flowers, Fruits, Beasts, Birds, and Flies: Seventeenth-Century Patterns for Embroiderers Printed and Sold by Peter Stent  

Here's a picture of the Peter Stent engraving that inspired me.  Check out the wicked looking strawberries.


By the way - the Met museum has a copy of this book that you may look thru in their prints and rare books room.

 I used Kingston 50 ct cream linen, and black silk threads in various thicknesses, from Mulberry Silks in England.  Motifs outlined in Outline stitch, and shading done in speckling technique.  Paillettes (the gold sequins) are from Access Commodities and are real gold.

The vine is Plaited Braid Stitch done in #7 Tambour thread (a non-tarnish metal wire that's very pliable).  I typically use #4 Gold Passing thread (real gold), but the Guild requested that I use imitation gold to keep the cost down.  Here's a close up of the vine.











I outlined the entire purse in Heavy Broad stitch, which is nice for hiding the seams on the purse construction, as you can see here.