Out web-walking again, I've stumbled across a treasure trove of books on spinning, weaving, and other textile arts. It includes historical and recent works on lacemaking, embroidery, tatting, knitting, crochet and some other less practiced crafts, as well as ethnographic material, periodicals, and academic papers. I'm sure I'm the last to find out about it, but I share the reference all the same.

This textile-related archive is maintained by the University of Arizona. Its collections are available on-line, with the individual works so distributed either aged out of copyright, or presented with the authors' permission. There are thousands of items - mostly geared to industry and manufacture, but with a healthy smattering of works detailing hand production. Scans are available as PDFs, with the larger books broken out into smaller segments of under 15MB. Not all are in English.

Among the works I found that are of greatest interest to me in specific are:

Whiting, Olive. Khaki Knitting Book, Allies Special Aid, 1917, 58 pages. PDF

This compendium of knitting patterns presents sweaters, wristlets, socks, scarves, mittens, hats, caps, and baby clothes intended in part for troops overseas during WWI, and for the comfort of refugee families displaced by the war. Patterns for knitting and crochet are both included. The socks shown mostly knit top-down, some have a gradually decreased instead of grafted toe. Some of the socks are worked on two needles and seamed. One pair in particular (marked as a pattern from the American Red Cross, p. 13) seems to include a written description of a grafted toe, but it does not name the technique. Directions are a bit more detailed than is usual for pre 1940 knitting booklets. Fewer than a quarter of the patterns are illustrated with finished item photos. Aside from a list of abbreviations in the front, there are no how-to or technique illustrations.

Nicoll, Maud Churchill. Knitting and Sewing. How to Make Seventy Useful Articles for Men in the Army and Navy, George H. Doran Company, New York, 1918, 209 pages. PDF

This book is a bit more detailed than the previous one. It also contains a rundown of standard troop knitting patterns - hats, mufflers, balaclavas (called helmets), mittens, socks and the like. Every project is illustrated either with a photo or a line drawing of the finished product. Instructions are written out in a fuller format than in the Khaki Knitting Book. It also has some valuable bits of instruction including a list of yarn substitutions, plus two full size color plates showing the wools used, identified by name; a small stitch dictionary section,

Of special note are some unusual mittens (including a mitten with truncated thumbs and index fingers - p.68), half-mittens - p. 77, "doddies" or mittens with an open thumb, p. 80, and double heavy mittens intended for seamen or mine sweepers hauling cables - p. 94). The grafting method of closing up sock toes is clearly described AND illustrated, but it is called "Swiss darning" (p.131). I've heard that term used for duplicate stitch embroidery on knitting, especially when the decorative stitches are sewn in rows mimicking actual knitting, rather than being stitched vertically, but I have never before seen it applied to actual grafting. The entire section on socks and stockings is particularly clear and useful. There are even a couple of crocheted and knit mens' ties in the sewing section.

Finally, the sewing section (about a quarter of the book) might be useful to people doing historical costuming or regimental re-creators who are looking to augment their kit. The one drawback is that most of the sewing patterns are predicated on Butterick printed patterns, and the schematics are not provided in the book. Among the offerings are money belts, a chamois leather body protector and waistcoat, various types of shirts and undergarments, pajamas made from heavy blanket fabric, and a book bag (like a messenger's bag).

Egenolf, Christian. Modelbuch aller art Nehewercks un Strickens, George Gilbers, 1880, 75 pages. Note: Reprint of 1527 book. PDF

Ostaus, Giovanni. La Vera Perfezione del Disegno [True Perfection in Design], 1561, 92 pages. Note: 1909 facsimile. PDF

These are two modelbooks of the 1500s. There are several others in the collection, but they are mostly books of needle lace designs. Ostaus also offers up mostly patterns for the various forms of needle lace, plus some patterns that can be adapted to free-hand (as opposed to counted) embroidery, plus a large section of allegorical plates to inspire stitched medallions, slips, and cabinets. One thing I've always liked are some of his negative/positive patterns. These are designs that if laid out on a strip of thin leather or paper and cut can be separated longitudinally into two identical pieces. There are several of these scattered around the middle of the book.

Starting around page 73 or so there is a section of graphed patterns, a number of which landed in my New Carolingian Modelbook collection.

The Egenolf book also is mostly line drawing suitable for freehand embroidery. Some are pretty cluttered, but some are very graceful. The oak border on p. 32 has always been one of my favorites. There's one plate with a counted pattern, on p. 72.

---. Priscilla Cotton Knitting Book, Priscilla Publishing Co., 51 pages. PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4, PDF5, PDF6.

This books is obviously a seminal source behind many of today's reference books on knitting technique and patterns. Notation is sparse and "antique" with n (narrow) being used for k2tog, and o for yarn over, and other oddities. There's a fair bit of circular doily knitting, but it is of the knit radially and seamed variety seen also in Abbey's Knitting Lace. In fact many of the doilies appearing in Abbey appear to have been adapted directly from this work. You'll also recognize many Walker treasury edging patterns in these pages.

In addition to the stitch texture and lacy knitting sections, there's a bit on "cameo knitting" which appears to be another name for stranding (in PDF2). The section on filet knitting (in PDF3) is relatively extensive, and clearly shows both the strengths and weaknesses of this rarely described style.

---. Priscilla Irish Crochet Book No. 2, Priscilla Publishing Co., 52 pages. PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4, PDF5, PDF6, PDF7, PDF8.

This has got to be the single most complete and eye-popping source I've ever seen on Irish crochet. Not only does this contain an amazing amount of eye candy, it also gives directions on how to create it, offering up pattern descriptions for the individual motifs, the joining brides and grounds, and the working method of fastening the motifs to a temporary backing while the grounds are being worked.

---. Egyptisch Vlechtwerk [Sprang], Holkema & Warendorf, 36 pages.PDF1, PDF2

As an example of the depth of the collection, here's a work on Sprang, one of the lesser known fiber manipulation crafts sometimes mistaken for early knitting. It is in Dutch and appears to be from before WWI, but it is illustrated with photos of finished pieces and works in progress.

These are just a small sample of the hundreds of works available at the University's website. Again, most are on the industrial aspects of the textile arts, from fiber acquisition (including sericulture and sheep raising) through spinning, and weaving, but a goodly number are of direct interest to hand-crafters. Topic lists exist for knitting, crochet, embroidery, cross stitch, lace, tatting, and a multitude of other subjects. Support this valuable resource by visiting and using it. I know I'll be combing through here for years...

Technorati : crochet, embroidery, knitting, lace

My list of future (someday) projects keeps getting longer.

Contemplating our living room, The Resident Male and I have decided that the perfect thing for over the fireplace would be a tapestry. So we went looking at various tapestry reproductions sold on-line. The ones in our price range are pretty uniformly horrible - bad cartoons (the drawing on which the weaving is based), cheap looking materials/bad drape, and garish color choices predominate. I won't even mention the awful chenille surface type and printed things that look more like stuff that along with 8-foot tall inflatable teddy bears are normally sold out of the back of vans parked at busy intersections in the summer.

As we were looking we also saw some of the painted canvases intended for needlepoint. Big ones that encompass scenes or details of historical woven tapestries. The better ones imported from France seem to offer more faithful reproductions of their inspiring works than do all of the modern woven reinterpretations.

Now I've done needlepoint before. It's not my favorite, but technical implementation of the style is not a barrier. Plus I know exactly how long (read forever) it takes to do one of these. My mother did a a needlepoint tapestry reproduction in the early 1970s, working a rendition of this classic bit of canvas:

She did it in DMC embroidery floss, stitching the details including the hunter's face, gloves and tassels, plus the hound, songbird, and hawk all in petite point. It's heavy from all that cotton, but substantial enough (and mounted well enough) to resist distortion or curl. That she did most of it in basketweave rather than tent stitch has helped it keep its shape. The thing is a bit less than a yard wide and a bit more than 4 feet tall. It took her the better part of a year. Maybe a bit more. It's roughly the same size as the one that caught our eye - a reproduction of a French woven tapestry from the mid 1500s (the clothing style is early 1500s, but the weavers may have been deliberately trying to imitate earlier works):

In canvas, even with the full thread kit, this one would be within my price range. Not counting a year or more to stitch it, of course. Will I end up doing this? Will the curtains I described yesterday come first? Will I stay true to knitting, and deaf to the enticements of other needle arts? Only time will tell...

Technorati : needlepoint

No knitting today. It was a happy but hectic holiday weekend here at String, full of family and food. Needless to say nothing beyond the targeted activities was accomplished. Still all are fed and happy, with grandparents spoiled beyond their expectations and back on their grand tour road trip.

Just as all of this was getting underway, I received a package from Long Term Needlework Pal Kathryn. She sent me glossy print catalogs from Bradbury and Bradbury, an outfit that offers reproductions of historical design wallpapers. She's right in that some of their offerings are spot on for our 1912 house. I've not trembled to a halt on any of the offered designs yet (although several are very tempting), but I can say that after leafing through the catalogs I am in the early stages of project lust for something else.

Curtains for our library.

The bulk of the pictures from the catalog are available on line. You can see the type of curtains there that hit me. Plain linen rectangles of simple line, hung from narrow brass rods threaded through the top (or through small brass rings rings). But I don't want unadorned curtains. I want to embroider mine. I happen to have on hand a huge set of counted thread border patterns of various widths at my disposal. Plus a pretty good idea of how to go about it all.

I want to put a pair of curtains on each of my two windows, each stitched with a border parallel to the center and bottom edges. Kind of like this:

If you happen to have a copy of The New Carolingian Modelbook to hand, I'm thinking of doing the full giant repeat of Plate 33 - the daSera grape leaves and flowers meander. Possibly in deep hunter green on natural linen. At four curtain panels to cover two windows that are about 5 feet tall by 3.5 feet wide, yes I'm nuts. So nuts in fact that I have to do more serious contemplation as to whether or not I will have the fortitude to take something like this to completion. But I've already started looking into linens...

Once more Kathryn leads me astray!

Technorati : embroidery

[Repost of material originally appearing on 25 August 2006]

Like socks? Ever hear of the socks shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851? No? You're in luck. The Victoria and Albert Museum never forgets. Their collections are now searchable on-line. A bit of poking around brings up this set of images, socks from that very exhibition, when all things Scots and the latest advances in machine knitting were the rage.

Now don't poo-poo machine knitting. Sock machines of that time required quite a bit of hand manipulation. How about these socks - stockinette, with some openwork, finished off with hand embroidery, from the early 1840s?

Socks too mundane? Contemplate Sara Ann Cunliffe's exquisite cotton lace baby gown, knit sometime in the late 1800s.

White cotton lace knitting too late for you? How about a brilliant 17th century silk and silver brocade jacket, with a thumbnail opinion that it was probably knit on needles and not a frame. What do you think. Cut and steeked? I think so. Even at 17 stitches per inch, I'd love to make one...

Looking for wool? How about an early 1800s baby ensemble that looks like it inspired Debbie Bliss.

There's 19th century bead knitting, too. And (amazing to me) 18th century beaded knitting! Not to mention hand-knitted lace doilies from the Azores (1875-1900); 16th century liturgical gloves, a Shetland shawl to die for (19th century), and lots of other stuff from every era since knitting impinged on Western consciousness.

Of course, if you prefer stitching over knitting, especially Blackwork or monochrome embroidery, there's some well-known examples of that there, too. Also samplers showing motifs straight from early modelbooks. Even an Egyptian piece from the 14th-16th century I've never seen before. I'm in heaven.

Technorati : embroidery, inspiration, knitting

[Repost of material originally appearing 10 August 2006]

My old friend Marian pointed me at a fascinating Web-based resource. The Web Gallery of Art. It's an on-line (sort of) searchable collection of art images from pre-1800. I'm in the middle of thumbing my way through Renaissance-era portraiture, in part to plain old enjoy it, but also with an eye to the embroidery used on clothing.

Now the few folk who visit here may know that in addition to knitting, I'm a sucker for embroidery. Especially counted embroidery from before 1600. My favorite family of styles is often lumped under the term "blackwork," and had a popularity run spanning about 100 years or so, until it morphed into other things and/or fell out of fashion for upper-class clothing, sometime between 1600 and 1630. It did however live on through its descendants (most familiarly some of the bandwork common on early samplers) and peasant embroideries of several regions Through these descendants some of blackwork's substyles have enjoyed little renaissances in the centuries since.

So. What is blackwork?

Not to be facetious, it's monochrome embroidery worked in black thread on white ground. Most but not all of the time. Non-black or multiple colors were occasionally used. Most people think of it as counted work - embroidery that uses the threads of the ground fabric as a foundation "graph".. Again, most but not all of the time. Some sub styles are clearly worked on the count. Others may have been, and still others are clearly freehand drawn. Some people are under the impression that there are clearly defined national or regional substyles, with English work being distinct from say German or Italian. Again, that's partly but not entirely true. If you're unfamiliar with the basics, The Skinner Sisters website has an excellent survey of Blackwork styles available on line.

Here's one of the most famous examples of band style blackwork, worked on the count. It's seen on the sleeves of Jane Seymour, as painted by Holbein in 1536 (you can click on the images in the linked pages to display them in greater detail). Very linear, clearly done both two-sided and on the count in a stitch that today goes by several names - Holbein Stitch, Spanish Stitch, Double Running Stitch. Harder to see (peeking out just above the gold and red units at the edge of the bodice - is a tiny line of blackwork on Catherine of Aragon, painted circa 1525-7 by Lucas Horenbout. Catherine is often said to have introduced the fashion for blackwork to the English court.

Here are heavier outlines, but still very geometric, suggesting a counted ground to me: Pierfrancesco di Jacopo's Portrait of a Lady, dated to 1530-1535. This one, too - Gentleman in Adoratio nby Giovanni Battista Moroni, dated 1560. Moroni's Gentleman wears a style that I associate more with English strapwork than embroidery of Northern Italy. To some extent, these styles traveled via printed pattern books and were international.

These suggest work on the count, but possibly in satin stitch rather than double running or another linear stitch. Bernadino Luini's Portrait of a Lady, 1525. (See. Not all early blackwork is double running!). Also this one - Romanino's Portrait of a Man, 1516-1519. This is the picture that Marian alerted me to, starting this whole rumination. The regularity of the piece leads me to think "counted." The angles of the ends of the leaves makes me think "satin stitch" rather than a solid filling done in another method.

This one - Portrait of a Venetian Man by Jan van Scorel (1520) looks very much like cross stitch is used to form the stitched repeat. It's also done in red. There is no zoomable detail page for it on the website.

Of the most famous types is the inhabited style, in which outlines were infilled with all-over patterns, done on the count. My own forever project is an example of this type, although it's my own composition and not a repro of a historical piece:



Bettes' 1585-90 portrait of Elizabeth shows sleeves that are (at least in part) done in the inhabited style (Link via the Tudor Portraits site)

Yet another sub-style, again outlines done freehand (or drawn) rather than on the count, and accented with metal thread work. The most famous again is in a portrait by Holbein - Catherine Howard's cuffs, 1541. Here's another example of freehand outlines but without the infilling geometrics: the shoulder area of Hillard's portrait of Elizabeth I, 1575-6. Some examples of this subgroup use stippling (tiny scattered stitches) almost like pen-done line shading to provide textural or shadowed interest, or include embellishments like seed beads, pearls, or spangles.

More blackwork using colored threads? Here's Caterina van Hemessen's self portrait, 1548. Although tough to see, I'm pretty sure there are red cuffs and collar bands there. Red was the most popular color used after black. (I wish I could see her coif better)

There were other styles, too. All confusingly lumped together under the modern term "blackwork."

Finally, there are portraits that show things that look vaguely familiar, but not in enough detail to be sure they are related.

• Band stitching, done in gold, with details too small to determine whether it was worked on the count - Jan Sanders van Hemessen's Woman Wearing Gold, (undated, but the artist lived 1500-1556).
• A small collar worn by a man. Looks vaguely blackwork like, but detail isn't very clear. Foschi's Portrait of a Man (1530s)
• Matching(?) bands on chemises of both husband and wife. Lorenzo Lotto, 1523. Possibly freehand.
• More red blackwork? This time possibly on the collar of Charles V's undershirt, in a piece by Bernaert van Orley, 1519-1520.
• Blackwork on edge of chemise? It's so light as to be doubtful. Portrait of Jacquemyne Buuck, by Pieter Pourbus, dated 1551
• An all-over design produced by counted black stitching, or some sort of brocade? Hard to tell. Ambrogio de Predis Portrait of a man, dated 1500

Technorati : embroidery

To recover from the charting series, I present tiny mental vacation in the past. 1972 to be exact. That was the year I embroidered this jacket.



It was well before The Warner Brothers Store and WB characters being available on licensed merchandise. I drew my Roadrunner freehand from cartoons on TV. As you can see by the variant color (the official Roadrunner is blue), my Looney Tunes years were spent in front of a black and white TV.

I had a lot of embroidered clothing back then - a pair of jeans with large phoenix that wound up one leg, starting in flames at the cuff and finishing with a peacock-frilled head on the hip pocket; a blue workshirt covered with wildflowers copied from herbals; and a denim vest done in Shisha mirrorwork. Except for the denim jacket all are long gone, sold while I was in college to pay for books. You might have seen the other pieces if you wandered past the window of the Red Dog second hand clothing boutique in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA, sometime between '75 and '78 (back when the Square was more edgy and gritty than it is in its current Urban Redevelopment/Mall of America glory). I've always wondered who bought my pieces.



My Roadrunner is done in plain old 6-strand cotton floss, mostly in chain stitch. The two-tone tail happened when the store that sold Coats & Clarks embroidery thread dropped it in favor of the DMC line. I ran out of my original stock and had to do the closest color match I could. You can barely make out the blue sig block below the front foot. When I stitched this, the denim ground was the same color blue as that block.

Elder Daughter wears this now (fraying and all), and would kill for the other pieces. They may be long gone, probably discarded from the homes of others, but I still have some of the Medieval history textbooks they funded.

I've finished my Snake Scarf. It's about 58" long, which works. I've used all but about four yards of my fancy yarn. The jury is still out on the edging thing. Perhaps something very narrow in black just to give it a contained, outlined look. Perhaps not. Lots depends on whether I have time to hit my LYS, as there's nothing suitable in stash. Or I may just leave it as it is.

I played a long time with the final section, trying out several ways to do it that preserve the look of the ribbed sections that went before, because the usual way of ending off an Entrelac section lost the directionality of the ribbing. My corners don't exactly match, but that's because the entire piece has a definite beginning and end. If you were to work this idea like a seaman's scarf, with a center third of plain ribbing, and both ends worked out from that ribbing, they would match exactly. Perhaps that's the next step, provided I find a suitable yarn in a color set I like.

I make no claim as to inventing this concept. Entrelac is pretty standard. I've seen recipes for it going back to instructions for sock tops printed in the 1890s or so. Nor is doing it in a narrow strip unique. Quick searches on the Web will surface lots of other people's experiments with directional knitting and narrow scarves. And I certainly can't lay any claims to ribbing, or to using long repeat multicolor yarns in a narrow scarf. However, I can claim the serendipty that happened when I played with all of these concepts together. The trumpet like manner in which the ribbing spreads and curves is (to me at least) both amusing and graceful, and presents a different effect than working this idea in garter or stockinette stitch. I did work out the ribbed treatment for the final end, and have provided my own graph for it.

As far as using this with other yarns since the Kureopatora is now long gone - I suspect that Noro Silk Garden or Kureyon would work nicely, as would some of the Daikeito yarns that are beginning to show up here in the US. (I haven't seen the latter in person, but I've read reports of them on the Web.) What you want is a yarn in which each individual color lasts for about a yard (or more) before shading into the next one. The glorious hand-painted yarns that are hank-dyed in skeins that are about a yard around would NOT produce this wide stripe effect. They'd be lovely, but the color sections would not be long enough to make dramatic stripes like Kureopatora's.

Just to annoy the natural-fiber-only crowd, I do observe that the yarn for this project needn't be a top-drawer luxury product. There are some very inexpensive acrylics that have exceptionally long color repeats. I'm not fond of working with them in general, but if you're thinking of knitting a rugged scarf for a little kid, those yarns might be worth considering.

Enjoy!

---

KUREOPATORA'S SNAKE - A KNITTING PATTERN



Materials

• US #6 needles
• Gauge for this project, taken over 1x1 ribbing, at the midpoint of a section where it isn't particularly stretched out: approximately 6 stitches (3 ribs) per inch
• 30 stitches at widest point
  
• Width of scarf: about 4.25 inches. Length of scarf: about 58 inches.
  
• Anticipated yarn consumption for this size: About 250 yards of a multicolor worsted weight yarn that normally knits in stockinette at 5 stitches per inch.
  

As for working method, this scarf is done in a pretty standard Entrelac edge column technique - think Entrelac project reduced to just the right and left most columns, without the basket weave effect sections between.

Row 1: Cast on 1 stitch, knit in the front, then purl in the back of this stitch [2 stitches on needle]
Row 2: Knit in the front, then purl in the back of the first stitch, K1 [3 st on needle]
Row 3: Purl in the front, then knit in the back of the first stitch, P1, K1 [4 stitches on needle]
Row 4: Purl in the front, then knit in the back of the first stitch, P1, K1, P1 [5 stitches on needle]
Row 5: Knit in the front, then purl in the back of the first stitch, finish row in established K1, P1 ribbing [6 st on needle]
Row 6: Knit in the front, then purl in the back of the first stitch, finish row in established K1, P1 ribbing [7 st on needle]
Row 7: Purl in the front, then knit in the back of the first stitch, finish row in established P1, K1 ribbing [8 st on needle]
Row 8: Purl in the front, then knit in the back of the first stitch, finish row in established P1, K1 ribbing [9 st on needle]

Continue rows 5-8, adding one stitch in each row but doing it to maintain the K1, P1 rib pattern. Keep doing this until you have 30 stitches on your needle.

Entrelac body section:

Row 1: Knit in the front, then purl in the back of the first stitch, SSK. Turn work over so the next row heads back in the other direction. Note that this first row is only 3 stitches long.
Row 2 and all subsequent even numbered rows: Work P1, K1 ribbing as established.
Row 3: Purl in the front, then knit in the back of the first stitch, P1, SSK. Note that from now on this row-ending SSK will be composed of one stitch worked on the previous row, plus one stitch from the dormant stitches on the left hand needle. Turn work over so the next row heads back in the other direction. You now have 4 stitches in the row.
Row 5: Knit in the front, then purl in the back of the first stitch, K1, P1, SSK. Turn work. You now have 5 stitches in the row.
Row 7: Purl in the front, then knit in the back of the first stitch, P1, K1, P1, SSK. Turn work. You will now have 6 stitches in the row.

Continue to work in the manner of rows 5-8, adding one stitch at the edge of each right-side row in the established rib pattern until you have incorporated all of the dormant stitches on the left hand needle. You will again have 30 stitches on the needle. At this point your segment is done. To do the next one, flip the work over (the and begin again from Row 1 of the Entrelac section). Continue adding entire trumpet shaped sections until your scarf is of sufficient length. (Mine maxed out at about 58").

Final section:

Rows 1-25 - work as for a standard Entrelac section. At the completion of Row 25 you should have fifteen active stitches on your right hand needle. The left hand needle should hold the other fifteen stitches. Work Row 26 as usual (marked in blue on accompanying chart).

Row 27 and all subsequent odd numbered rows: SSK, work in established ribbing, ending row with SSK and turn in the same manner as in the Entrelac section.
Rows 28 and all subsequent even numbered rows: Work P1, K1 ribbing as established.

Continue in this manner until you have completed Row 50, and three stitches remain on your needle.
Row 51: Slip, slip, slip, knit all three stitches together through the back of the loop (this is a three-stitch variant of the standard two stitch SSK decrease).

Darn in all ends.

The Kureopatora snake scarf continues. It's longer, but otherwise looks the same. I will probably finish it up tonight and post my how-to thereafter.

In the mean time, here's another of the embroideries that litter my house. This one is another doodle - a sampler in the true sense, done to try out patterns that ended up in my book. It's done in a single strand red linen on a linen ground, at about 15 stitches per inch on linen that's about 30 threads per inch. The long dark band at the bottom was done in long-armed cross stitch. The lion, the knot at upper left, the narrow diagonal band next to it, and the dark band at the left edge were in more standard regular cross stitch. THINK was stitched on the count using chain. The rest of the patterns were worked in double running (aka Spanish Stitch, Holbein Stitch).




The dense rose corner surrounding the lion is original, the rest (except for THINK) all have historical precedent, and are all graphed out in The New Carolingian Modelbook. In general I'm not that fond of this one. Done as a true sampler as it was, placement of the motifs was very haphazard. I stitched whatever I felt like trying out, and if the pattern didn't fit - I didn't care (the leggy grapes are truncated at the bottom edge). I didn't plan anything, and the imbalance of the whole thing reflects that.

THINK ended up hanging in my husband's office for a time. That company he was working for in '89 used the heraldic lion as a logo element, which is why THINK and the lion both ended up on the thing. He's no longer there and has another, better embroidery at work now. THINK along with its obsolete logo has been exiled to the upstairs hallway.

Here's a curious piece that came to me from the same grandparents as my fly bowl (I've been told that it's actually a bee dish, not a fly bowl).



This is an original pen and ink line drawing that appears to depict a piece of stumpwork embroidery. It bears a sigil of the letters HCs (possibly CCS) but has no other signature on it. It hung in my grandmother's library for years, and always held a certain fascination for me when I was a kid. At that time I didn't realize the embroidery connection. At seven I liked the whimsical little animals in the corners, and the fact the central figure was a queen. Anecdotal family tales say the title of this piece is "Queen Esther."

Years later when I began embroidering in earnest (started on that path by the same grandmother), I stumbled across the stumpwork style and recognized the drawing for what it was. I'm torn. I'm not exactly sure if this is a copy of a piece displayed in a museum, or if it's a freehand drawing inspired by that style. I rather suspect the former. There is supposed to be a stumpwork piece depicting Queen Esther n the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, but I haven't seen a picture of it, so I can't say if my pen and ink drawing shows that particular artifact.

Stumpwork (raised or embossed embroidery) was popular in the 1600s, tailing off into the early 1700s. It has enjoyed a couple of minor revivals since. It's characterized by three dimensional effects, and is gaining interest right now, in part fueled by the popularity of ribbon embroidery and Brazilian embroidery, two other more modern styles that also employ three dimensional effects. There are also traditional forms of padded stitching practiced in Thailand and Cambodia that also use heavy stitching on separately embroidered motifs that are affixed to a ground over stuffing.

In stumpwork, much of the stitching is done over raised grounds, separately stitched and sewn onto a backing fabric. These motifs and slips are stuffed underneath with batting or even little wooden forms. Additional raised effect is provided by the inclusion of detached stitching, much of it based on detached buttonhole, hollie point, or other "free" lace stitches. On some pieces, further embellishment is provided by the liberal use of gold and silver threads, sequins, spangles and even beads. Some say that the little wooden forms used for stuffing are the "stumps" that gave the work its ungraceful name, others say that the name is a corruption of the word stamp, as many of the faces of the figures were printed by stamping rather than being stitched. It's heavy and encrusted looking except in its very lightest manifestations, not well suited for wearing. Instead it was employed mostly for decor - panels, mirror surrounds, book covers, cushions, and most especially small chests (cabinets) that were covered inside and out with the stitching.
Creating a cabinet was a crowning glory for the amateur needleworker of the late 1600s. They were expensive to do, required better than average skill, and represented a sort of needlework "graduation" for teens just about done with the course of informal study that passed for most girls' educations at that time.

There are several articles on stumpwork available elsewhere on the web, but precious few pictures of historical examples: This one has a useful bibliography, Janet Davies has some photos of artifacts that show the dimensionality of the stitching on her stumpwork and raised Elizabethan embroidery pages, CameoRoze also offers up an article on the modern revival of the style. In a Minute Ago also offers up a nice round-up of stumpwork and related styles as they are practiced today.

In the mean time my Not Embroidery hangs in my bedroom, where it complements a larger blackwork panel.

In the absence of any knitting progress, I offer up another embroidered tidbit.



This is the last pattern in my New Carolingian Modelbook. It's the same one that the SCA Lady Lakshmi used to make a hat for her friend Mistress Morwenna.

As you can see (in spite of my lousy camera work), my panel isn't centered on the middle of the repeat. Instead I've skewed it a bit to focus on one mermaid, and to show the second bounce center - the twist at the panel's extreme right. This is in part because I wanted to work one full cycle, but was limited by the size of the piece of linen I had available. For the record, this is done on 30 count linen (about 15 spi) using one strand of standard DMC embroidery floss.

This is one of the pieces I entered in the Woodlawn Plantation embroidery exhibition over the years. It won an honorable mention prize (feedback was that the judges didn't like the skewing of the repeat). Amusingly enough, my brazen, bare-breasted mermaids must have offended some sensibilities. The piece was displayed at the very top of the wall in a room with 15-foot ceilings. The prize ribbon was clipped athwart the bosom of one mermaid, and a yellow sticky note was affixed to her sister's.

A few knitting and non-knitting related questions from the inbox:

How did Killer Bunnies go?

Tons of fun. We played as a mixed-age group, with the youngest being 7. We had hoped to get the Red Expansion Pack at Puzzle Me This in Provincetown, but they were out. We settled for Violet, the next one in sequence. The game plays more smoothly if you add them in order because each pack builds on the last, but we were able to use most of the Violet cards anyway.

What size needles did you use for the two versions of your counterpane?

The old version in the heavier cotton was knit on one of my odd size needles, it's a set of old long steel DPNs, they're probably antique 9s - and just a bit larger than standard US #4s (3.5mm), but closer to #4s than #5s (3.75mm). The new piece is knit on 3mm needles, which in some makers' lines is a US #2, and in some is somewhere between a US#2 and a US #3.

Did you finish that embroidery doodle while you were away?



Are you planning on assembling the counterpane in the same way as the last try?

No. These units can be joined in many ways. Last time I butted the triangles together. This time I plan to join squares. My goal is to do the layout shown at the upper right. Last time I used the one at the lower right. Both use some plain solid triangles in addition to the pattern bearing units.



Where did you buy the counterpane pattern?

I didn't. I made it up, starting with a standard spiraled star. I added the outline-like bars to emphasize the motif, and played with several treatments for the ground behind the star. This one like my Mountain Laurel counterpane plays with a textured ground and smooth star, but unlike that piece, plays a bit more with the ground. I also wanted to do a counterpane that was an tessellation of more interest than a flat tiled hex or a plain octagon and hex. That's why there are four units - the center hex, a patterned square, a patterned triangle, and a plain triangle. The layout above is actually an early draft showing how I played with the concept, looking at ways in which I could use the patterned units to extend the lines of the center hexes.

Can you send me the pattern?

Be patient. I plan on posting it to wiseNeedle this year - probably after I've gotten considerably more done on the thing and have a decent representation of the piece's final look. I'd also like to noodle up a complementing half hex and border.

From the inbox:

How did you draw the pattern on the cloth?

I didn't. I have the design drawn out on a piece of graph paper. I'm copying that design onto the fabric, using the weave of the linen as the equivalent of graph paper. Each unit on my ground cloth is a two thread by two thread square. I worked from the graph to establish the outlines in the center motif, then "colored in" the long armed cross stitch background. I worked the first repeat of the lettuce around the edges from the graph, but subsequent iterations of it from the piece I embroidered (much less cumbersome than toting around a book).

Was this stuff actually done on the count in the 1600s?

A vast amount was. There are a couple of caveats though. Some people assert that a minority of counted thread pieces worked on very fine linens used some other method to establish the evenly spaced graph-like appearance. In particular, they suggest that some sort of evenly woven but easily unraveled fabric was placed over the ground cloth, and used as a stitching guide. The stitching was done over the placement aid, and its threads were later removed from the work. Other people suggest that pouncing, either over paper or another fabric was used to produce evenly spaced dots, which were then employed as the spacing mechanism for the ground. I'm kind of skeptical on the pounced dots thing. That's a ton of very smearable dots in a very small space.

Another exception is theorized for other forms of voided foreground stitching. (Yesterday's piece is voided foreground). Some of the panels look more like someone drew the foreground motifs freehand, then filled in the background with the covering stitch. Again I can't confirm or deny this. Some panels (especially those with repeats) look quite precise to me - too stitch-precise and weave-aligned to have been freehand sketches. To my eye, the few pieces that might have been done this way are pictorial panels that have almost a folk-art type naivety of line and motif placement. One of these panels is pictured in Bath's Embroidery Masterworks. While it's not a probability that all voided foreground works were done this way, it's not a impossibility that some were.

I'm sure the total state of research into the origins of voided foreground styles and Assisi embroidery has gnawed into this problem. I haven't kept up my reading in it of late. My long time pal and needlework buddy Kathryn Goodwyn has an excellent article on voided foreground stitching on line (this group of styles is her specialty). She mentions the hand drawn outline variant as a curious offshoot.

Are the colors accurate?

Green wasn't the most popular but it was used. However the natural color, brownish unbleached linen I had on hand wouldn't have been used. A historical stitcher would have preferred a much lighter ground. The accompanying black outlines in this piece are also open for debate. Few pre-1700 pieces employ contrasting color outlining, although most later examples of the style do. The original of this design clearly employs two different colors in the work. Even in the black and white photo of the original (dated 1560-1625), the background is clearly a different color from the outlines. The original also shoed background area behind the lettuce north and south of the main panel as being worked in long-armed cross stitch - something I don't intend to do. (Lettuce isn't a technical term for the extra borders framing the main panel, it's just my own term of reference).

Linen thread?

It is out there. DMC has some. There are linen threads made by other makers, too. But sometimes expedience wins. I'm not doing this piece as a totally accurate historical study. It really is a doodle. I'm playing. I happened to have the Flower Thread on hand, and it worked nicely with the weave size of my ground cloth.

I'm offended. My 11-spi stitching isn't "coarse!"

For me, 11 stitches per inch on 22 count linen is much less fine than the gauges I usually pursue. I prefer the look of stitching on a really buttery thick 50-count linen (that's 25 stitches per inch). Compared to that work, 11 stitches per inch is as large as logs. My doodle is a quick study, again not intended for any purpose other than to let me do some stitching at events, and for the fun of it.

What does the back look like?/Do you use knots?

My backs are relatively neat, not because I'm a fanatic about making them so and not because I believe that that's the way they should be. My backs are neat because that's the way I stitch (historical pieces often have absolutely chaotic backs that would make most modern needlework judges recoil in horror). And yes - heresy of heresy - unless I'm working something that's intended to be totally two-sided, I do use knots. No - if done carefully they don't pull out or show through to the front. Savage me if you must, but I reserve the right to ignore you.



What stitches did you use?

Double running (aka Spanish Stitch, Holbein Stitch, Vorstitch) for the outlines. Here's a double running stitch mini-lesson from the Skinner Sisters website. I could also have used back stitch, a less represented but also historically accurate way to do them on voided foreground works. Long armed cross stitch is less well known than it's X-like cousin with equal length arms, but it's a very useful thing. There's a research article about it here by Christian de Holcombe (another needlework pen pal), but a short example of how to (along with quite a few related stitches) at this site.

Doodle?/What's it going to be?

I haven't thought that far ahead. I'll probably end up mounting this piece for wall display. I called it a doodle because it's an offhand and trivial effort, a time-filler, and bit of life's marginalia. It's not a Big Project, nor a planned project. It's just... a doodle.

Your book is out of print, it's o.k. for me to copy it, right?

No. Absolutely not. Copyright doesn't last until the publisher decides to skip town, or drop the item from current inventory. US copyright lasts 75 years. Even if I get hit by a truck, that copyright is part of my estate and would be owned by my heirs until 2070. Anyone who respects authors, living or dead, should respect copyright.

I'm not an ogre, hoarding rights and royalties (lord knows I've seen almost none of the latter). I AM trying to get the thing back into print. One publisher has turned me down flat in part because his research indicated that illegal copies were being made.

So don't do it, as tempting as it might be. There's more about copyright - in specific your rights as a purchaser, as well as the author's intellectual property rights at Girl From Auntie and Yarnaholic Confessions.

This weekend past we went to a local SCA event. We're not very active in the organization any more, but every now and again it's fun to show up and partake of the day. This particular day was quite warm, and we arrived late - missing the most strenuous part of the planned activities. We mostly sat in the shade and enjoyed various song and story performances. In the evening a very ambitious dinner was served, consisting of dozens of dishes from a recently translated 16th century Italian cookbook.

I keep a small sampler I work on when I go to events like this. Now that I'm up to the easily replicated borders, I rarely stitch on it in between events.



My doodle is worked on even weave unbleached linen, using DMC's Danish Flower Thread. The Flower Thread is a matte finish cotton. In construction this thread is a single strand, as opposed to the more commonly seen multstrand embroidery floss. Having used both, I find that for small pieces, this thread mimics the look (but not the stiffness) of linen thread. I'm working at at the extremely coarse gauge of 11 stitches per inch, on 22 thread count ground. It's quick and easy to see.



All of the black lines in the piece are done in double running stitch (aka Holbein Stitch, Spanish Stitch). You can see the bit in process, where I've established a baseline. All of the "growths" from that baseline are traced out and filled in again as I go along. The background is done in long-armed cross stitch, worked back and forth across the piece to heighten the illusion of a plaited ground. Since I've already done a full repeat of the border, I no longer need to refer to my original printed pattern. Also, because the whole goal of this piece is "quick and portable," I'm not working it in a large rectangular frame. Instead I'm using a plain old 7-inch diameter round tambour-style embroidery frame. My matte finish single construction thread stands up to the hoop's abuse much better than does silk or even cotton floss.

The design is another one from my New Carolingian Modelbook. It's on Plate 74:1. I graphed it from a photo of a late 16th or early 17th century artifact, appearing in Adolph Cavallo's Needlework. (New York: Cooper Hewitt Museum, 1974). What I like about this design in particular is the way the edges of the work pop past the internal border. The meaty branches have an almost palpable vitality, as if they can't be contained by the formal constraints of the stitching. Working a solid background (as was done in the original) heightens the effect.

I've only tried out one repeat of the central design. The historical piece repeated the S-shaped flourish, mirroring it at either end. Since this is a self-contained unit, it can be either mirrored or it can be repeated in the same orientation to make a longer length of patterning. Period embroiders used both methods of composition to construct longer decorative bands.

Well, I did make some progress on Rogue over the past several days. I've finally gotten past the grief of the pocket (my fault); finished the equivalent depth of the body behind the pocket, and fused the two together.



Here you see the area adjacent to the nifty pretzel-terminated side panel, showing off the contrast between that knotwork design and the Little Dragon Skin patterning.



The pocket fusing step went off without a hitch. I remembered to bind off four stitches of the body at either side of the pocket fusing row, again to leave a notch inside which the zipper will be installed. Here's a process shot, with the pocket stitches held on the pink needle, and the body on the silver circ. Because my right-side rows have so much shaping, I made sure to do the fusing on a wrong-side row - all purls in the patterned part.



Progress however has been somewhat less than it might have been because I've gotten two new needlework assignments since Thursday.

First, my mother has asked me to design a needlepoint pillow top for her that incorporates multiple Fleur de Lys motifs in wine, an off white background, and some sort of framing mechanism. She's looking to make a piece on 16-count canvas. This is pretty much a "bring me a rock" assignment (one of those in which your efforts are greeted by the response "Wrong rock. Try again.") Here's my first attempt at just a single motif:



The second was a last-minute request from Wild & Woolly in Lexington, MA to cover a class in sock making. They has a workshop scheduled for March 20th that covers cuff-down socks on two circs and one oversized circ (aka "Magic Loop"), and the original instructor has had a last-minute conflict. I'm the designated hitter for this one. Which means that because my own favored method for socks is toe-up on DPNs, I have to do a bit of brushing up before I can demo and explain those methods to others. If you've signed up for this class, please don't worry. I guarantee that in two weeks I'll be fully confident in the material to be covered.

Katherine asks what subtitled movie I was watching the other day that had me so engrossed I fell into multiple errors on my Rogue. It was Red Beard, the Kurosawa movie starring Toshiro Mifune.

Since Rogue is going so slowly, here's another side trip. This time into the past.

The dress itself is Melton wool, and weighs a ton. Overall it's a rather poor example of SCA costuming, but the underskirt is something I've enjoyed for a long time. It's a blackwork panel I stitched a good [mumblefratz] years ago. It was inspired by a piece from the Art Institute of Chicago pictured in Embroidery Masterworks (Virginia Churchill Bath, 1972). That book was a birthday present from my then and present pal and needlework buddy, Kathryn -?she of the motto "Too many centuries, too little time."



This didn't start out as being an underskirt. When I began the piece, I intended it to be a tablecloth. I was uncertain whether or not I'd just edge around the outside of the rectangle with the motifs, or I'd cover the whole surface with them. As a result, the stitched area is larger than the skirt's opening shows. Some motifs were done as partials to eke out the space.There's a truncated pomegranate at the lower left. The total stitched area is about 20% larger? than what you can see and is hidden by the edges of the dress. I never trimmed the back of the piece, it's still a large white linen rectangle. My assumption was that I'd eventually go back and finish out the stitching as a wall panel. As you note I haven't done that yet.

Instead this?panel has gone on to inhabit four SCA costumes, and was one of the very few pieces I kept during the 13 years I was totally absent from that organization. (When you've got something like this, you can't toss it or let it languish in a drawer when you have need of a nifty outfit). It's the piece I intend to complement with my Forever Coif.

For needlework enthusiasts, this?panel is about 33 inches from point to hem, about 25 inches wide at its widest visible point, and about 28 inches wide at its widest stitched point, counting the motif parts you can't see. The stitching is rather big, especially compared to my coif. The ground is a linen blend tablecloth, with a weave of about 24 threads per inch, and the stitches are worked over 2x2 threads (about 12 stitches per inch). The threads used are perle cotton for the chain stitched outlines, and cotton embroidery floss for the infillings and solid padded satin stitch bud details. The detail shot is rather large. Click on the thumbnail if you want to take the time to download a larger image.

?

I started stitching on a Monday in mid-October. That Friday The Resident Male and I plus a carload of other friends drove down from Boston to the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area to enter the East Kingdom's fall Crown Tournament (see Footnote). He was carrying my favor- another blackwork bit. I've got a picture somewhere that shows the two of us at that tourney, him in armor and me carrying the cloth in an embroidery frame, with only the pomegranate at the lower right finished.

After he won the Crown Tourney and we were slated for an April coronation, I decided I had to wear the panel at that event. I finished the piece out enough for that purpose, meeting my deadline and installing it in the first of many dresses. Don't worry. I didn't lavish all my sewing time on me. I made a linen shirt with a black silk?needle lace edging, and an extremely short black velvet?doublet/tunic thing for The Resident Male to wear over it. Very fetching.One amusing aside -? I got a college research paper on embroidery out of the blackwork?piece, and so received academic credits for the time I spent stitching. We were both still in school, and I was taking sophomore-level Renaissance art history. )

It turns out I was one of the first to introduce the blackwork embroidery style to the East's populace at large. I encouraged embroidery (and women fighting) during the reign and after, writing how-to booklets and teaching classes and workshops. Blackwork became quite popular because of the richness of the finished look, coupled with the ease with which beginners' pieces can be done. Soon it was showing up everywhere. About a year later I was recognized by the Order of the Laurel for counted thread embroidery in general, and blackwork in specific.

Footnote: For those of you familiar with the SCA, that was back in the Five Kingdoms era (AS XI-XII), when Atlantia was a brand-new principality, and the East stretched from Maine to North Carolina. A very long time ago, indeed.

For those of you unfamiliar with the SCA, twice a year the East Kingdom selects a (mostly) ceremonial leader by conferring that honor on the winner of a very big sword fighting competition (other weapons are used, too). The winner becomes King or Queen by right of arms, sitting first as Prince or Princess for five months before ascending the throne for the six months after that. That winner is accompanied by a counterpart or consort on the throne - the person in whose name and honor the fighter fought, and whose favor they carried through the tournament (designated beforehand, of course).

I found a box of stuff I've?been carting around forever. (At least it seems like forever). In it were mouldering reminders of decades past. Including this little doodle sampler I did to hang on my dorm wall:

From the stitching standpoint, I can say it's unremarkable - cross stitch and crewel type stitches, done on muslin ground in standard-issue DMC floss. There's a bit of couched silk ribbon, too. The turquoise ribbon has faded, leaving only the little turquoise fastening stitches, and the bits of matching color cotton down below. It's signed "KEB '74."

As to the sentiment. Like the title says. It was the '70s.

I?stitched it up?over a weekend and had it on the wall by Monday. I think I did it mostly to annoy my first roommate: a gal who managed to arrive at college with calcified attitudes, white kid gloves, and a life-long desire to take two years of college at the most to?find a husband and then drop out. She did manage to do just that and start a family, although not necessarily in the order she would have preferred. I guess she never quite took the sampler seriously...

More on Sontags

My friend Kathryn the costume doyenne, tells me that?the original?sontag isn't really exactly lik