Embroidery & Bliauts
So, I'm in the middle of a very tight deadline regarding painting silk banners for Her Highness for Coronation... So - what does that mean I find myself doing? Fanaticizing about NEW costuming projects I could be doing! (Quite silly I know!) Well, OK, it's not exactly a new idea -- I’m back to fanaticizing about a 12th century bliaut, which is an idea I’ve been fussing with for quite a while.
I’ve actually been doing sample embroidery bits for the project quite diligently for 18 months now! I have 21 different embroidery fibers tested :-D (I showed them off last weekend at Pounce/The Northern Oaken Craftsperson Fair, which was my promise to myself ‘cause I didn’t really do anything costume-related at Pennsic this year. PLUS Your Wardrobe Unlock’d will soon be publishing my article on them :-D). You’d think I’d be closer to actually choosing one to use for the bliaut, wouldn’t you? :-S I keep hoping I’m going to magically find a silk fiber that combines the ease of sewing with a twisted fiber with the vibrant shine of a flat silk, and is the perfect size such that the stitches just fade into the background leaving only the impression of the design. Oh, and that it’s perfectly soft to touch, lightweight on the ground fabric and malleable, lightfast, waterfast and OK to dry clean. I don’t ask for much. ;-) Besides, I’m obsessed and I keep ordering new embroidery floss to play with ;-) In fact, I just bought 4 more brands after talking with Serai… Sadly Eterna is pretty much out of business… but Serai’s description makes it sound like their MiniTwist might actually have been that perfect fiber… so I’m crossing my fingers that http://www.threadexpress.com/ (who btw ships INCREDIBLY slowly, so now I have to wait *whine*) actually still has the 4 colors I want in stock. *concentrated HOPE*
Of course, after doing so many samples already, I REALLY need to face the research issue that’s been a problem since the beginning: that I have not been able to find extant pieces from near the time period (3rd quarter of the 12th century) that are stylistically similar to the trim depicted in the various cathedral sculptures (Saint-Loup de Naud, Chartres, Angers, Notre Dame de Corbeil), much less any such pieces that were used to decorate clothing (preferably secular clothing, as long as I’m dreaming the impossible dream ;-) ) There ARE extant embroidery pieces from near the right time period; but they are figurative embroidery, showing scenes - so not really applicable for the highly geometric trim seen on the sculptures. This lack of evidence could suggest that my hypothesis that the sculptures are depicting embroidery is wrong; but given the general scarcity of evidence, I am hesitant to discard my hypothesis based only on that argument.
I ought to be able to use the extant figurative embroideries to answer some of my research questions, like, “what type of silk thread was used (flat or twisted, and if twisted how tightly twisted)?” except I can’t find any books telling me this info! *grumble!* I’m lucky to get the info that it’s silk thread on a linen ground! I don’t really think that these heavily encrusted altarpieces/etc. can really be considered a good source for the materials used for garments; they’re just the only available extant source. *sigh* Do any of you know if the silk embroidery floss would’ve been twisted or flat? Most of the photos in my embroidery books just aren’t good enough for me to have a reliable sense of the sheen of the silks - so without seeing them in person I really can’t say which of my test samples best replicates the look. I can only say they all look extremely different from each other. I can’t say what look is actually trying to be achieved because photos aren’t reliable and my physical access to early embroidery fragments is limited :-(
On the other hand, it occurred to me yesterday - I am not LIMITED to visual sources to answer my questions. I just vastly PREFUR visual sources. This is because (a) I am a very slow reader, especially of non-fiction (and for me medieval literature counts as non-fiction, ‘cause even when it’s fictional I have the worst time parsing it!) and (b) I have been looking at fashion images for so long that “reading” them is second nature to me. So, I pulled up that go-to source that you’re not supposed to use for proper research (e.g. Wikipedia) and looked up 12th century French literature. OMG - it turns out that there is a HUGE number of works written in French between 1100 and 1250 (taking the 75 years before and after my preferred date of 1175). Just from the works listed on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_French_literature there were 62! Even filtering down to just those written (roughly) between 1160 and 1195 we’re still talking 28 works (books/romances/plays/etc).There may be a dearth of visual images - but there is a real plethora of textural ones!! Happily, some of these jillwheezul has already read and made the clothing notes available on the 12thcenturygarb yahoo list (Thank you!!) - but surprisingly, no one’s done that for Chrétien de Troyes works yet or the Lais of Marie de France (both of which I already own :-) - in fact, I actually started highlighting all the textile references in Chrétien de Troyes in highschool (uh… 20 years ago…) I just got distracted and only got through Erec and Enid before moving on to the next bright-‘n-shiny thing :-S
So that’s my new costuming project; Reading medieval romances, and taking notes on the fashion references :-) It’s got to be more interesting then tackling either Courtly Love Undressed or Weaving Narrative: Clothing in Twelfth-Century French Romance both of which keep defeating me every time I try to read ‘em. Not that I expect to find the answers to what sort of silk thread was used in the medieval romances; but you never know what answers are lurking if you don't look! :-)
I’ve actually been doing sample embroidery bits for the project quite diligently for 18 months now! I have 21 different embroidery fibers tested :-D (I showed them off last weekend at Pounce/The Northern Oaken Craftsperson Fair, which was my promise to myself ‘cause I didn’t really do anything costume-related at Pennsic this year. PLUS Your Wardrobe Unlock’d will soon be publishing my article on them :-D). You’d think I’d be closer to actually choosing one to use for the bliaut, wouldn’t you? :-S I keep hoping I’m going to magically find a silk fiber that combines the ease of sewing with a twisted fiber with the vibrant shine of a flat silk, and is the perfect size such that the stitches just fade into the background leaving only the impression of the design. Oh, and that it’s perfectly soft to touch, lightweight on the ground fabric and malleable, lightfast, waterfast and OK to dry clean. I don’t ask for much. ;-) Besides, I’m obsessed and I keep ordering new embroidery floss to play with ;-) In fact, I just bought 4 more brands after talking with Serai… Sadly Eterna is pretty much out of business… but Serai’s description makes it sound like their MiniTwist might actually have been that perfect fiber… so I’m crossing my fingers that http://www.threadexpress.com/ (who btw ships INCREDIBLY slowly, so now I have to wait *whine*) actually still has the 4 colors I want in stock. *concentrated HOPE*
Of course, after doing so many samples already, I REALLY need to face the research issue that’s been a problem since the beginning: that I have not been able to find extant pieces from near the time period (3rd quarter of the 12th century) that are stylistically similar to the trim depicted in the various cathedral sculptures (Saint-Loup de Naud, Chartres, Angers, Notre Dame de Corbeil), much less any such pieces that were used to decorate clothing (preferably secular clothing, as long as I’m dreaming the impossible dream ;-) ) There ARE extant embroidery pieces from near the right time period; but they are figurative embroidery, showing scenes - so not really applicable for the highly geometric trim seen on the sculptures. This lack of evidence could suggest that my hypothesis that the sculptures are depicting embroidery is wrong; but given the general scarcity of evidence, I am hesitant to discard my hypothesis based only on that argument.
I ought to be able to use the extant figurative embroideries to answer some of my research questions, like, “what type of silk thread was used (flat or twisted, and if twisted how tightly twisted)?” except I can’t find any books telling me this info! *grumble!* I’m lucky to get the info that it’s silk thread on a linen ground! I don’t really think that these heavily encrusted altarpieces/etc. can really be considered a good source for the materials used for garments; they’re just the only available extant source. *sigh* Do any of you know if the silk embroidery floss would’ve been twisted or flat? Most of the photos in my embroidery books just aren’t good enough for me to have a reliable sense of the sheen of the silks - so without seeing them in person I really can’t say which of my test samples best replicates the look. I can only say they all look extremely different from each other. I can’t say what look is actually trying to be achieved because photos aren’t reliable and my physical access to early embroidery fragments is limited :-(
On the other hand, it occurred to me yesterday - I am not LIMITED to visual sources to answer my questions. I just vastly PREFUR visual sources. This is because (a) I am a very slow reader, especially of non-fiction (and for me medieval literature counts as non-fiction, ‘cause even when it’s fictional I have the worst time parsing it!) and (b) I have been looking at fashion images for so long that “reading” them is second nature to me. So, I pulled up that go-to source that you’re not supposed to use for proper research (e.g. Wikipedia) and looked up 12th century French literature. OMG - it turns out that there is a HUGE number of works written in French between 1100 and 1250 (taking the 75 years before and after my preferred date of 1175). Just from the works listed on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_French_literature there were 62! Even filtering down to just those written (roughly) between 1160 and 1195 we’re still talking 28 works (books/romances/plays/etc).There may be a dearth of visual images - but there is a real plethora of textural ones!! Happily, some of these jillwheezul has already read and made the clothing notes available on the 12thcenturygarb yahoo list (Thank you!!) - but surprisingly, no one’s done that for Chrétien de Troyes works yet or the Lais of Marie de France (both of which I already own :-) - in fact, I actually started highlighting all the textile references in Chrétien de Troyes in highschool (uh… 20 years ago…) I just got distracted and only got through Erec and Enid before moving on to the next bright-‘n-shiny thing :-S
So that’s my new costuming project; Reading medieval romances, and taking notes on the fashion references :-) It’s got to be more interesting then tackling either Courtly Love Undressed or Weaving Narrative: Clothing in Twelfth-Century French Romance both of which keep defeating me every time I try to read ‘em. Not that I expect to find the answers to what sort of silk thread was used in the medieval romances; but you never know what answers are lurking if you don't look! :-)