C17th embroidery

This is one of a series of papers about Early Modern English sweet bags. Each paper presents a detailed description of the specific features of a different surviving embroidered bag. This paper describes the general construction of sweet bags, followed by details of item’s construction. Then it goes into detail about .materials, design layout, motifs, and stitches of this bag, with photos illustrating the observations.
This bag, MFA 43.1082, is a tent-stitched and raised work sweet bag with basically the same design on each side, though one side has a red borage flower and the other has a borage of red and blue petals. Some of the unusual, perhaps unique aspects of this sweet bag are summarized here.
The way it mixes gilt and silver elements in the details is rarely seen to this extent. Also possibly unique is the normally blue borage flowers colored red on one side and mixed red and blue on the other. An uncommon but not unheard-of characteristic of this bag are flower stems worked with a couched metal bullion thread instead of a loopy stitch worked with passing thread. The petals and leaves on this bag were all worked in a variety of metal and silk threads, made into raised elements and, in some places, two layers of raised elements. It is one of at least 21 surviving bags with such raised elements, out of at least 215 surviving square drawstring purses of the English Early Modern period.

This is one of a series of papers about English embroidered items from the late 1500s to the mid-1600s.  This unlined, assembled man’s night cap such as those worn in 16th and 17th c. England, is strewn with acorns worked in speckled blackwork and gold thread. The brim is folded up and topped with gold bobbin lace. The ground fabric is a pale linen, embroidered with black silk thread accented with gold thread. One thing I found very interesting is the way the Plaited Braid stitch started, and clear evidence on the inside about how the original embroiderer moved from motif to motif.

Cushion cover LACMA M.88.102.1 is a late 16th to early 17th century embroidery with some apparently unique characteristics. This illustrated paper describes the cushion’s construction, materials, design layout, motifs, and stitches.
This piece provides an exciting new insight into embroidery technique combinations in use in England during that time period. The beginning of the Stitches section describes how this piece combines two polychrome silk techniques and a diapered blackwork technique, something not found in any other examples I’ve seen. Then the Stitches section proper examines a new stitch that I have yet to find published elsewhere.

An analysis of a complex stitch used in 16th and 17th Century English Embroidery which critiques previously published work (Grace Christie, Samplers and Stitches) and offers a mode of working which is closer to original practice for the first time in 400 years.