A year of embroidery

A part of my golden egg challenge was to feel comfortable with embroidery. So besides the specific golden egg embroidery I have done a lot of other pieces. Some of them are already presented here and some are not. So I thought I should show you, my year of embroidery!

I must say, I'm no longer afraid of embroidery. Nowadays I´m just eager to try more stitches, techniques and patterns. I mostly worked with double running stitch in black twisted silk. The biggest project included a lot of satin stitch. There has been some whitework. Most of the patterns I have tried is late gotic, maybe some early renaissance next! And a new stitch, or maybe a new color!

My year of embroidery started with me playing around a little with different kind of stitches but with the same pattern.  Just to see how different it turned out with different stitches. To try it out a bit. I used cross stitch, Italian cross stitch and long armed cross stitch. And red silk. The pattern is from the patternbook German renaissance patterns for embroidery A Facsimile copy of Nicolas Bassée´s New modelbuch of 1568.

And a flower, made with Italian cross stitch. A lot of errors in it, but just some fun to learn the stitch. The eight petaled flowers is very common during the 16th century. The patternbooks are full of examples of them. In the introduction of the reprint of the New Modelbuch from 1568 it is called The Venedigische stern, the Venetian star. Probably for being prevalent in textiles and carpets imported into northern Europe during the timeperiod from the Mediterranean.

I made a collar with embroidery with a pattern from the same book. I used plate 84, on page 106. Its double running stitch in black twisted silk. This plate came from another source before Bassée printed it in his book, from Schönsperger patternbook from 1523, the first patternbook printed. 

Its a 40 cm long collar-embroidery, not yet used for a collar. I could actually also use it as a decoration on a hood/haube. Anyone in need of a collar?

I made an embroidery for wristbands as a gift for my laurel. The acorn is her symbol.This pattern is also from Bassée´s modelbuch.This is also double running stitch in black twisted silk.

For my household-brother I made a shirt with blackwork embroideries. The stitch is double running stitch, also called holbein stitch. Both the collar and wristband embroideries comes from German renaissance patterns for embroidery A Facsimile copy of Nicolas Bassée´s New modelbuch. The embroidery on the collar is also the same as on the sleeve of the daughter of Jakob Meyer in the painting The Darmstadt Madonna from 1526-28. Its made in black silk on linen. More information about this shirt can be found here.

 

I made a undergollar in linen for myself. The embroidery comes from a painting of Katharina von Bora. Its double running stitch in black twisted silk. I have not found this pattern in any patternbook yet so I made my own pattern from just looking at the painting. The painting is from 1528. More information about the gollar can be found here.

For a friend I made a shirt with whitework embroideries on the collar and wristbands. The pattern for the collar is from Schönspergers patternbook from 1529. The pattern for the wristbands comes from Quentel´s patternbook from 1544. I used white silk on white linen. The stitch is Italian cross stitch. Its a little bit hard to see when its white on white, but press the pictures and it will be a little more visible. More information about the shirt can be found here.

Pattern from 1529

Pattern from 1544

And of course, my Golden egg project embroidery. The embroidery comes from my favorite painting, Portrait of a woman by Bernhard Strigel. The embroidery is on a hood/haube. Its made with double running stitch and satin stitch. On the top there is also a couching stitch.

The pattern is partly made up by me by changing a similar one that I found in a handdrawn patternbook from 1759. Its from Augburg in Germany, the Modelbuch by Johann Tobias and Marcus Luz.

To read more about this embroidery, look here.