Golden egg project - Tools and materials for 16th century embroidery

The society of the golden egg is a challenge household for the arts and sciences in the Kingdom of Drachenwald, within the Society for Creative Anachronism. The aim of the Society of the Golden Egg is to encourage artisans to increase their knowledge and skills through continuous challenges of at least intermediate difficulty, but which are a personal challenge to the person seeking to join the society. Challengers normally have up to one year to complete their challenge. Im going to recreate a german 16th century embroidery, a headgeardecoration from 1510-15. To read more about my challenge look here. I have also written about my pattern, here. 

A part of my challenge was to learn about materials and tools for embroidery. I was totally new to the subject when I started my golden egg challenge so I really needed the basics. Having a certain embroidery to work with I decided just to look at what I needed for that particular embroidery. So there is a lot of stitches and stuff I don´t look at here. And I have tried my pattern out but not really started with it, so my knowledge might change a bit during the process. I have to write something later about the new experience I´m getting while doing the embroidery...

Here she is, my lovely lady with her fantastic haube. 

 

Materials

Fabric

The embroidery technique determined the choice of fundation fabric.

Linen might be the most common fabric for embroidery, at least in peoples minds. Wool, velvet and silk was also used. Wool that is not wowen to tighly, so that you could still see the threads, are not so easy to find today though. Therefore its more difficult to use it for counted work.

Linen and linen/cotton-blends accounted for the most common materials in headgear for all classes of society in Germany during the 16th century. And considering that it is a haube decorated with what I think is counted embroidery, linen is the material to use. The linen I chose was bought from Medeltidsmode. I chose it because the different threads was easy to see and the weave was quite even. You want an even weave, meaning that the threads in the warp and in the weft are as many in both directions. Also, you want a fabric that is not too tightly woven, because it´s a lot easier to count the threads if you can see them clearly.

During the 16^th century materials would have been processed by hand. Fabrics would have been handwoven, made by handspun threads. The wealthy households purchased ready-made materials, or hired the service of craftspeople. The woven structure of the linen provided the guilding grid for the needlework. The threads are somewhat uneven due to their handspun production. In addition, the weave struction is rarely uniform. Weave, quality and colour of the fabrics defined the rank of the wearer. I will write some more about that later, as my project also contains research about the wearers. It´s easy to forget that the empty base fabric was already very expensive, before the embroideres even started with their work.

Even though the fabric is linen, the thread is silk. 

Silk

Silk is a naturally made product. The quality of the filament depends on the silk worm-race, diet and the climate. The final quality of the silk also depends on the processing of the raw material and the care and skill of the workers who made it.

Spun silk is made from broken cocoons and leftovers and spun into a thread much the same way that wool or linen is spun into threads. It has a soft shine to it.

Filament silk is the fiber itself, reeled straight off the cocoon, sometimes referred to as reeled silk. Filament silk is glossy in a totally different scale than spun silk. Spun silk is also weaker than filament silk. The individual strands are long and strong. In spun silk they are shorter. 

During the 16th century german renaissance, they must have used both filament and spun silk? I mean, there must have been residues from the cocoons back then too, that they could make into spun silk. Right? No left-overs at all when you are dealing with a material this expensive. So, both. What did the lady in my painting use?

Did someone in her household sew the garment for her? Or did she do it herself? Well-born ladies could have done the embroidery by themselves. Did she? She has a lot of embroidered clothing. So, maybe she didn´t? The readymade garment could be sent to a embroideres that made the embroidery. Where did they get their silk from? Did they have the money to buy the silk first, or did the silk come with the order? Italian or chinese silk? The embroidery on a haube is easier to make before the garment is put together. Does that mean that the person making the embroidery put the garment together also? Or did the piece arrive as a decorated piece of fabric for someone in the household to put together?

Embroiderers of this time bought their silk as loosely spun floss, in both natural color and dyed. Silk floss was also prepared into fine cord by winding silk filament tightly around a silk core. Is this maybe what the white string could be made of? Or is it a couchingstitch? The black around it might suggest a couchingstitch...

Spangles

The white dots in some of the flowers and also placed here and there all across the headpieces I chose to enterpretate as spangles.

Embroidered work could often be embellished with round or tear-shaped spangles, which were particularly favored on apparel and accessories where the movement of the wearer would enhance their reflective qualities.

Stitches

My guess is that the black outlines are made with double running stitch in black silk and that the flowers and the squares are made with satin stitch. So are the green parts. The back piece with the pearls is not included in this project, but who knows, maybe I get to that part also...

Pictured above is my stitch- and colour tryout. I have not really got the colours right yet...

Counted satin stitch

Counted satin stitch, or Glattstitch in german and plattsöm in swedish, is a popular form of embroidered decoration on household linen and on linen garments as chemises, collars and coifs. According to the introductions to the reprint of the New Modelbuch satin stitch is often worked in a geometric pattern and the patternbooks are full of examples of this. Silk was valuable and to save silk the thread is worked as much as possible on the surface and the bottom look nothing like it. Generally, very little thread is wasted on the back side of the fabric, where it is hidden from view. Not like today when there is as much thread on the back side while using this stitch. 

I heard that the embroidery might be made with brick stitch. But why brick stitch? Instead of just plain satin stitch? Satin stitch and brick stitch is very alike. What is the difference really?

Brick stitch is a form of satin stitch where the stitches are offset with half a stitch and have the same length of the stitches. Satin stitch is tailored to the area you want to cover, and can vary in length.  

So, when to use what?

Brick stitch were common between the 13^th century and 15^th century in Germany. Therefore it´s just a bit to early for my embroidery. And the pattern does not feel like typical brick stitch to me. Having the same length of the stitches makes brick stitch very good for geometrical designs. This embroidery is not geometrical in that way. And I don´t understand how to make the flowers with brick stitch. So, I decided to make my embroidery with satin stitch.

Its not uncommon that the satin stitch is outlined using a straight stitch like back stitch or double running stitch. This helps containing the satin stitch within the pattern. And as the painting has black outlines around the flowers, it helped me decide to use satin stitch together with double running stitch. 

Double running stitch

A counted double running stitch creates a solid outline. Designs worked in this stitch are reversable, looking the same on both sides. In the patternbook Eyn new kunstlich boich of 1527 Peter Quentel uses the name spanish stitch for the first time. England adopted it as a term, but were also calling it true stitch, because of the identical both sides. In the 19^th century or early 20^th century the stitch were labeled as Holbein stitch after the german artist Hans Holbein whose portraits often include double running stitch as decoration on clothing.

It is difficult to say with certainty that pieces were or were not counted. My guess is that the embroidery is made with double running stitch and satin stitch, but who knows? It is possible that a careful use of double running stitch may create an embroidery that look the same on both sides. But I have not been able to do that, my ends are clearly visible. Many collars were lined, for support, so why be extra careful to make it reverse when no one is going to see it?

According to Amy A. Wojciechowski could items that appear to be double running stitch on the surface may in fact be done in a back stitch. And I guess I agree with her, this could also be done in back stitch but when in a painting it is not possible to know for sure. I, as a not that skilled embroiderer, thought it would be easier to get it even when using counted double running stitch, so I will. 

Couching stitch
Couching stitch, läggsöm in swedish, is when you put your embroidery thread on top of the fabric and stitching it onto the work. It was used during the middle ages, especially with costly embroideries. With this technique costly metal-thread were saved for the front side of the fabric and nothing ended up on the backside.

If you use the technique with the support of, for example, linen threads, relief patterns will arise.

My guess is that the white thread is couched down with black thread. A small part is visible in the lower left corner of my picture above. It´s done a bit sloppy though, I need to make it with a little bit more effort.
 

Tools

Skilled workers have always had their specialized tools of their trade.

Frames and sewing-pillows

The existence of embroidery frames, known as tents, can be found in inventories and pictorial evidence. The evenness and quality of stitching is improved when the base fabric is held taut and fixed. Sewing-pillows were essential tools for fine work, whether by seamstress or embroiderers. They supported the fabric, which could be pinned onto it, or secured at one end and held taut to run a gathering thread, or whip hem.

I have a big frame, not made to use for this kind of embroidery but I´m looking forward to try it out to see if it works! Pictures will be presented here later.

Woodcut from an italian book from 1532, showing different way to transfer patterns, when not doing counted work, to the fabric. Here you can see the embroidery-frames. Published by Alessandro Paganino. 

Needles

A rounded end allows the needle to slip between the threads of the base fabric rather then pierce and split them. A bigger needle can be good. A needle that is larger than the linen weave helps to push open the space between the linen threads. This increases the size of the hole through which the embroidery threads has to pass, and reduce the friction on the fibers. According to Patterns of fashion the stock of John Wilkenson, merchant of Newcastle, 1571 included ”xiil clowtes of talier needles”. Pins where also important tools.

I have used a needle with a pointy sharp end in my tryouts. But this information comes from my embroidery books and I will try it out, see what I like best.

Books about embroidery often focus on the english styles. But Germany was early printing pattern books for embroidery and there are a lot of these preserved!

See my blog post about the seeking of my pattern.