Crewel Friday

It's been a while. I decided to begin working on the mounds at the bottom and they're taking a lot of time.

I have issues with long and short stitch. I want it to be flowing and elegant. I feel that I'm generally too heavy handed and that my stitching is too dense.  I'm working hard on improving as I stitch the mounds. I've penciled in a lot of guidelines to follow--they really help keep my stitches going in the right direction.

I didn't want them to be left to the last--they're slow going and not as much fun as the colorful leaves.

Crewel Friday

Wow! it's been a long time.  I've been working a bit here and there.  I've completed the central motif and begun the acorns on the left.  They're fun but the dense French knots take forever. 

That also held me up with the central motif--the solid knotted area (dark gray green with a red "vein" down the center.

I have to get back to some Christmas making now.  Once I start on this, I don't want to stop.

Crewel Friday

It's started.  It's a lot of fun. 

I would work on it all the time, except I find crewel can be hard on my fingers--I poked a hole in my right middle finger from pushing the needle. Then I remembered I have this great rubbery thimble to use and it helped a lot--not only pushing but pulling recalcitrant needles through. I tend to use a fairly large needle to help ease the thread, and it's quite easy for the first row, but any subsequent rows in close proximity seem to be tough.  Some of this was done in a hoop, some not, depending on how the teacher classified the stitches.

I like working with the very clear outline. I wish I'd done it in a softer color and perhaps a green.  It shows through some of the paler shades of thread I've used. 

My Chinese fortune cookie fortune from a lunch this week said: "good beginnings is half done." The perfect sentiment!

Crewel Friday

My order arrived with the threads for the main project that is part of the EGA ICC in Crewel. I added them to the threads I'd pulled from my stash. I'm using the teacher's recommended colors after reviewing the colors that were in use in the 17th Century and that could be dyed from the available natural dyes. I didn't see where I could improve on Judy Jeroy's choices (which surprised me--I'm always changing things like this). Follow the link above to see the design--again, I'm using the recommended design. I cut my ground fabric for the project and plan to transfer the design when I get a chance and a quiet length of time to concentrate on it.

While I'm waiting for comments on step 1, I've picked up a UFO, last shown here.I stitched to previous designs by this designer (Loraine's of Capri), but this one gave me fits. (You can see the others here.) I do, however, see improvement in my stitching since last December. Part of my problem with this project was that I did not like the dark fabric showing through in areas using lighter threads. I decided I was okay with the yellow but not in the pink and I ended up stitching pink felt to the ground before stitching over it. I'm much happier. I accomplished a lot last weekend completing the purple flowers, some stems and leaves.

V&A Crewel--Cewel Friday

Talk about inspiration! I got a chance to see some of the items I've seen pictured in books! It was great.The crewel embroidered bed hanging above was housed next to the imported (from India) Palampore below, to show the influence of one on the other. From my reading, the influence seemed to go both ways, with the British sending designs to India that they felt had a proper "Oriental style" (most likely derived from Chinese and Japanese imports). All of the imports, earlier and later, impacted on designs in England. And the Indians took the designs they were given and made them their own. The results are wonderful. Below is more of the painted palampore.The palampore's exotic mounds above compared to the English crewel mounds below.Another crewel piece on display.

The day, and my new crewel book, inspired me to bring out my sampler and rip. (of course I'd packed it!) I'd begun the slit at the top of the bag with "true" buttonhole stitch (as opposed to blanket stitch). I didn't like it. I ripped and then stitched the outer edge (the uncut edge) with a row of split stitch. My first attempt didn't have this row of stitches and the outer edge looked very ragged. Then I began stitching again and I'm much happier. My outer edge is much smoother and the practice with this new-to-me stitch has made it a bit more even. Not as even as I like, but better. This is just one color, something to get me going, and to allow for the cut edge of the pocket opening. And the first sampler is to include buttonhole/blanket stitches.

Crewel Fridays

I've decided to post on my crewel studies, if I have anything to post, on Fridays. I do have something to say today. I feel rather silly, actually.

The book below is one I've had saved on my computer for a while. It's available free several places on the Internet. If you search on Jacobean crewel embroidery pictures, pictures from this book will turn up. I printed it out and brought it home. But it looks so unprepossessing and, well, short, so I dismissed it and hadn't read it. Duh! Sew Now This has a nice post about the book.

Last night I picked it up and in three pages many of the questions I've been asking, about the timing of the embroidery style not fitting what I'd expected, about design sources, etc. all answered, right there. At my fingertips. sigh... Of course, this is now the book I'm reading. I finished the English Domestic Embroidery book. So, if you're at all interested in Jacobean Crewel embroidery this is the book! (read it first)I'm also reading Joan Edwards Crewel Embroidery in England. I read through it when I bought it used back in the 80s, but don't really remember it (Chicago used to have some great used bookstores and antique shops with book stalls--both are rare today. I'm very lucky to have been able to shop back then). I'm really enjoying it--it's a very warm and friendly book. The author puts the embroidery (and embroiderers) in the context of their times--how they lived in the 16th-18th Centuries.
I'd mentioned before that I was thinking of a form for my sampler stitches. I didn't want to do just a line-type sampler in a square of fabric, but something with a form. I've thought from the beginning of doing a pocket. I really like pockets. But I didn't want to get lost in designing...this is about the stitches not the design so much. So I came up with this rather abstracted design. It has a "floral" element and a "leaf" element I can use to show shading and filling stitches. It has mounds that would work for either line stitches or shading and filling stitches. And stems. I could add another central motif if needed. You can probably see all my erasures and redos in the "final." So this is where I am right now. What do you think about this design for a stitch sampler?

Crewel

Nothing to show. I'm reading like mad. I'm still reading English Domestic Needlework--1660-1860 by Therle Hughes. I find my attention wandering and so my reading's slow. My fingers are beginning to itch to stitch so I may begin my samplers. I'm still trying to find a form for them and/or a design. So I'm reading.Today I got an interlibrary loan copy of Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd, edited by Janet Arnold. This is a bit before my time frame but I've always wanted to read it and I think it will be a good grounding. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it. (It's a fascinating book even at first glance.) I'm reading, mostly online, about the dyes and colors they would have had in the 17th Century--below is fustic dyed silk. (from Aurora Silks)
And I'm coming up with more and more questions. Like why, after many years of exquisite fine silk embroidery, stumpwork and needlelace, would there be a fashion for crewel wools. It's beautiful, but seems huge and kind of clumsy next to work like the medieval Opus Anglicanum.

What caused wool embroidery to come into fashion? Why at this time? And who did the embroidery? Was it professionals or perhaps women at home? Middle or upper class?

The other thing I've discovered. I am very (very) literal. So. The Jacobean era is named after King James I, who ruled from 1603 to the 1620s. I assumed Jacobean Crewel embroidery would have it's roots during his reign. If it did, they're deep underground.

So far, I'm not finding examples that I can identify as this style until at least the mid-17th Century(which is why I'm paying so much attention to Therle Hughes's book). This timing makes sense if, as the crewel stitch books all seem to indicate, the designs are derived from imports from India and the Far East, primarily by the East India Company. The EIC wasn't chartered until 1600 and it took them a while to get up and running full steam. I'm adding to my book list.

Moving back in time...

For the last three months, I've been planted in the 18th Century, reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series (so far) in order from book 1 through 7. I finished An Echo in the Bone at the end of last week. It all began when I bought her new graphic novel, Exile, (which views events from the first book from the perspective of a different character than the novel did), and then had the stress fracture in my hip that had me doing a lot of sitting. The books got me through. And made me very happy I live in the 21st Century!

Now I'm moving further back in time, to the early 17th Century. I've begun working on the Jacobean Crewel Independent Correspondence Course from EGA. My book arrived this week. (Is anyone else out there doing this course?)This is the sample project. I have a ways to go before getting there, though. And research to do--I love research. So, this week I've been looking at my crewel books to see what they say about Jacobean design--and where they got their information from (the ether, apparently, they don't list their source material!). I've been looking online for modern designs with a Jacobean flair, investigating natural dyes and what colors would have been available in and around 1600--I've even been exploring what years fall into the Jacobean era.

[It varies widely, I've learned. The Jacobean era is named after King James I who ruled from 1603 until 1625. James 1 belonged to the Stuart family as did his son and successor King Charles I reigning from 1625 until 1649 (until he met an untimely end). The term Jacobean era often refers to the period of both kings. Some take it even further, though, through the period of the Commonwealth (Cromwell and his cronies), through Charles II to King James II, encompassing the years 1603 to 1688.]

I get to do a stitch sampler. I received all three lessons at once so I can plan ahead and I've been thinking of how I want to organize my stitch sampler. A spot or band sampler, a more formal design, or perhaps (my current choice) a booklet with pages to be later bound together. (and, if a booklet, what shape, size, page format...fun stuff!) Or maybe pockets. I really like old-fashioned pockets (the tie around your waist, wear under your skirt type that Lucy Locket lost). So perhaps I could do a series of pockets. To be bound together as a book? Whaddya think?

And I'm thinking of topics for a short research paper. Like where did these designs come from? What influenced them? Were they the same everywhere? Why? What types of birds and animals and insects were depicted? Were the colors used in a realistic manner or not? Lots of fun questions. What items other than bed curtains used this style of embroidery--that's what I think of when I think of Jacobean crewel--bed curtains. (which leads to the question of why did they spend so much time and effort to decorate their bed?)