In Which Our Heroine Blackworks...
I can has blackwork!
For those of you on my flist not familiar with blackwork, it's a type of embroidery that was very common in the Tudor era, particularly during the reign of Elizabeth I. In many period paintings, the black "markings" you see on clothing particularly collars, cuffs and shirts was done in blackwork. Blackwork is a reversible type of stitch which means the pattern appears on both sides of the fabric which is what makes it so tricky. I'm working on a sampler of blackwork designs for an Arts & Science project in my reenactment group.
My other recent project has been to make myself a caul with blackwork decoration. A caul was a type of cap (often worn under other hats) which was usually heavily decorated. I decided to try to do one in blackwork just for fun.
Usually you do blackwork by butting your stitches between the threads of the fabric usually over two. However in my experimentation I learned that even fabrics listed as being "evenweave" aren't. This means that if you take a square inch of fabric it doesn't have the same number of threads going horizontally and vertically. With a little playing I discovered that going over 3 threads in one direction and 4 in the other is about as close to "even" as I can get it. While frustrated at how my early attempts were thwarted, I was pleased at myself for discovering the issue and solution on my own.
Now for pics! The first pic is the pattern I;m using from an awesome book of historical patterns (It's the large one). The next few pics show the main part of what will be my caul and then a close up of the blackwork in progress. The last part is a few of the reverse side.
For the purists, I would like to note that while I have yet to see a caul from period with blackwork, I've seen several blackworked cauls in the SCA and the style of embroidery was used in other headgear including coifs, nightcaps, and I believe I saw an example of a muffin cap as well.
http://pics.livejournal.com/avilina/pic/0003q196
http://pics.livejournal.com/avilina/pic/0003hyy2
http://pics.livejournal.com/avilina/pic/0003kkwh
http://pics.livejournal.com/avilina/pic/0003p6w2
For those of you on my flist not familiar with blackwork, it's a type of embroidery that was very common in the Tudor era, particularly during the reign of Elizabeth I. In many period paintings, the black "markings" you see on clothing particularly collars, cuffs and shirts was done in blackwork. Blackwork is a reversible type of stitch which means the pattern appears on both sides of the fabric which is what makes it so tricky. I'm working on a sampler of blackwork designs for an Arts & Science project in my reenactment group.
My other recent project has been to make myself a caul with blackwork decoration. A caul was a type of cap (often worn under other hats) which was usually heavily decorated. I decided to try to do one in blackwork just for fun.
Usually you do blackwork by butting your stitches between the threads of the fabric usually over two. However in my experimentation I learned that even fabrics listed as being "evenweave" aren't. This means that if you take a square inch of fabric it doesn't have the same number of threads going horizontally and vertically. With a little playing I discovered that going over 3 threads in one direction and 4 in the other is about as close to "even" as I can get it. While frustrated at how my early attempts were thwarted, I was pleased at myself for discovering the issue and solution on my own.
Now for pics! The first pic is the pattern I;m using from an awesome book of historical patterns (It's the large one). The next few pics show the main part of what will be my caul and then a close up of the blackwork in progress. The last part is a few of the reverse side.
For the purists, I would like to note that while I have yet to see a caul from period with blackwork, I've seen several blackworked cauls in the SCA and the style of embroidery was used in other headgear including coifs, nightcaps, and I believe I saw an example of a muffin cap as well.
http://pics.livejournal.com/avilina/pic/0003q196
http://pics.livejournal.com/avilina/pic/0003hyy2
http://pics.livejournal.com/avilina/pic/0003kkwh
http://pics.livejournal.com/avilina/pic/0003p6w2