Ok, I’m going to be a little controversial here, or maybe just show my ignorance… 🙂
I have been looking at the front cover of a book that I own “Three Hundred Years of Embroidery 1600-1900: Treasures from the Collection of the Embroiderers’ Guild of Great Britain” by Pauline Johnstone. On the front cover it shows a close up of a panel owned by the Embroiderers’ Guild, that is mentioned as being possibly a coif. According to the information inside the book, this piece has the accession number EG 79-1982.
I have found another (dreadful) photo of it at here and here.
Apparently it is also included in the book “Treasures from the Embroiderer’s Guild Collection” by Lynn Szygenda, though I don’t have a copy of that book.
In the “Three Hundred Years” book and on the Elizabethan Costume website, it says that the piece features plaited braid stitch. I beg to differ! One assumes that they mean that the coiling stems are stitched in plaited braid stitch – because its certainly not anywhere else. But by looking at the close up photo on the cover of the “Three Hundred Years” book, you can see that it is definitely not plaited braid stitch.
So what is it? Well, with lots of careful studying, that would have of course been so much better in person, looking at the actual piece, and not a photo of it; and with my needle and thread in hand, I think I’ve sorted it out.
It appears to be a variation (possibly) on ladder stitch (aka ceylon stitch), with the ‘rungs’ of the ladder back stitched so that they are grouped together in twos.
I’m not sure that it is all plain and simple ladder stitch/ceylon stitch (some parts DO appear to be, but other parts don’t), because in parts the stitches seem wider and more interlaced than that. So what I propose it is in some parts, is like a heavy chain stitch in that each subsequent stitch goes under two of the previous stitches, rather than just one as you would have in broad (or reverse) chain stitch. Of course, I’m quite prepared to be wrong on that. Actually I’m quite undecided about whether it is normal ladder stitch or a variation…
I’m sorry that I don’t have a close-up photo of the original to show you. Perhaps if you have the book, you can take a look yourself and see what you think. I’d love some other opinions.
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
After writing all that I headed over to Plimoth Plantation, because I sort of remembered that Tricia had seen the panel/coif when she visited the Embroiderers’ Guild on her trip to Britain.
You can find her comments on the “braid” here. Her conclusions are just slightly different to mine.
http://www.plimoth.org/embroidery-blog/2008/10/17/panel/
A friend pointed me to your blog — what an exquisitely beautiful sweet bag side you've done! I've recently finished one, if you'd like to see it at
http://eowynsartifacts.livejournal.com/37508.html#cutid1
I agree that the panel in question is not done in Plaited Braid, but had not spent the time fussing at the photo long enough to figure out what it was. It was indeed puzzling that they kept using the wrong name. I think you are correct that it is a Ladder Stitch with overstitched rungs, and grouping the rungs as you noted gives it that open look I was trying to understand from the photo.
There is at least one sweet bag with Ladder stitch for the stems, done in metal thread, then overstitched in Backstitch down the middle in green silk, V&A 658.1904.
Thank you Melinda, for confirming that I was not going mad, but rather the captioning for the photos was wrong!
I will look up the example at the V&A – thanks for the reference.
Now, Elmsley Rose tells me you are writing a book on sweetbags and also one on flowers. Please tell me more… (Always interested in anyone writing books!)
You may be interested in the article I wrote for Mary Corbet on my self-publishing experiences – though I don't know if that's the direction you're heading down. http://www.needlenthread.com/2009/01/yvette-stanton-on-whitework-and-book.html
I just finished what I hope is the last draft of “Sweet Bags Richly Embroidered: Design and Construction of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drawstring Purses”. Every time the book got over 300 pp long, I would divide it into two books. So far it has “calved” two more books, before the first was complete. I’ve pretty much finished the main book, as of a couple months ago.
I have been aiming at self-publication, and I’ve been chronicling my progress on the drakes-mark Live Journal (named for my publishing-company-to-be).
The first third of the book is filled with photos I took in museums, and I need to get permission to publish them. The middle has lots of illustrations that I have done in Illustrator (stitch diagrams and such), and the last third is “how-to” with photos of the stages of a modern project.
I am fascinated by book design (done a couple proceedings volumes), and like you noted on the other blog, want to do it all myself. But I am an engineer by trade, so my daily job sometimes takes lots of my free time as well. If this is ever going to get published, I need to first see about someone else doing it.
Yvette,
Elmsley Rose just pointed me to your blog. In September, I took a class from Chris Berry, Chairman of the UK Embroiderers’ Guild, at the EGA national seminar. The class was specifically on Tudor style silk and metal work. Chris has taken several close up pictures of this panel and others, and has come to the same conclusion. She called the vine stitch “open Ceylon” with wrapped rungs.
I’ve recently been finishing my class piece, and did my vine with this stitch. In studying one of Chris’s close up photos, it looks like the little leaves at the top of the peapods are in plaited braid, so I’ve been trying to get that stitch down over the last few days. It’s especially tricky when the area changes in width!
Please feel free to see the posts about this piece on my blog: http://juststring.blogspot.com/search/label/Tudor%20Purse. I welcome your comments on this, and I hope you do publish the instructions for your sweetbag!
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Melinda,
I read a bit of your Drakes-mark blog – thanks for pointing me to it. It sounds like your book is huge and keeps getting bigger!
I wish you luck with getting a publisher for it. If you do end up self-publishing, all your work on your proposal will still be extremely useful. It helps you to focus on who your book is for (and to write accordingly) and how it is different from similar works already out there (though in your case, are there any?!) etc.
I’m very interested to see the resulting book. I can completely identify with the process you are going through!
Hi Jeanne,
Firstly, I hope all is well with BJ, and that your time in hospital isn’t completely driving you up the wall!
Thanks for confirming my thoughts on the vine stitch being ceylon stitch with back stitching.
Your purse is lovely, and the class sounds like it was fantastic. You’re right that the back stitching on the ceylo “rungs” really changed the look of it. I think it just adds so much. I look forward to seeing your finished product!
Thanks for your encouragement to publish my sweetbag instructions. It is something that I would very much like to do one day.
Thanks for your kind words – the process does seem to take forever when one must work around a full-time job plus family.
I know that the time spent on the proposal is relevant, whether or not I get a publisher, but it’s not nearly as much fun.
May I presume that the redaction of Plaited Braid that you are using is based on Leon Conrad’s research? Or are you basing yours on Mrs. Christie’s? Or your own version? I admit, once I saw how Leon had figured it out, a light bulb lit in my mind.
Hi Melinda,
I can do plaited braid stitch with Grace Christie’s/Mary Thomas’s instructions, but find Leon Conrad’s to be much easier. It seems much more straightforward and less like you have to juggle threads that only want to do what they want to do!