I got this fascinating book last fall, just before we moved. It shows how to make an amazing array of textures and patterns with a weird mix of super-simple knit patterns and math. Or, in knitters’ terms, it uses short sequences of knit and purl stitches, repeated over and over and over and over – on at least one more stitch than multiples of the length of the sequence.
Which brings in the change ringing – recently I had a chance to participate in a demonstration of change ringing with hand bells at a Society for Creative Anachronism event. Change ringing is also pattern-making with short sequences. Instead of stitches, it uses tones, and repeats by starting each round at a different place in the sequence.
The other element is the Elizabethan whitework sampler, like this one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art – long&narrow, many patterns, one colour. Again, making a series of patterns with repeats of short sequences – this time stitches again, though thread through fabric rather than loops of yarn.
Weirdly, when I googled on “mathematics repeat “short sequences”” looking to see if there’s a name in mathematics for this kind of pattern making, it brought up pages&pages of information on short sequence repeats (SSRs) in DNA replication! Which is intriguing, and a little startling.
But, for now, I’m going to stay out of the DNA rabbit hole, and stick to repeating short sequences in a lovely pale grey merino/silk/yak yarn.
Last year, when I was working on my blackworked half smock, I had a horrible shock when I washed the embroidered panels before assembling the smock – the black thread leaked a dark & murky purple.
Luckily, the purple mostly rinsed out, and the half smock looks OK.
Today, I was sorting through my studio stuff, and ran across a bag of the black silk threads I’d used, and decided to see if I could identify which one leaked dye. There were two kinds – Eterna, and a Chinese hand-dyed silk that I’d bought from Miriam’s at Pennsic (a Society for Creative Anachronism event).
I soaked each one in a small amount of water.
The culprit was the Eterna silk. Within a few minutes, the ten-centimeter length I used ran purple. I was truly horrified – and surprised. Eterna is lovely to work with and has an excellent reputation. Possibly an “off” lot – the ends were tied oddly, and left undyed spots in several places, which isn’t something I’d expect from Eterna. Sadly, it’s no longer in production, so I can’t buy another skein & see if it leaks too.
I’d kinda expected it to be the Chinese hand-dyed silk from Miriam’s! It did leak a faint yellow – when I left a whole skein to soak overnight.
From now on, when I’m setting up to embroider something that will need washing, I’ll test the threads for leaking. And, just to be sure, will treat them with Raycafix, which somehow stabilizes the dye and keeps it from leaking.
In sixteenth century Europe, blackwork was the most fashionable and go-to style of embroidery for linens. The relatively simple materials required – linen, a contrasting fine fiber, and the ability to count threads – saw a veritable blooming of this intricate style of embroidery. Surviving examples include smocks, sleeves, coifs, forehead cloths, the occasional cushion, at least one skirt1, and many, many portraits.
Remaining examples of early medieval designs are highly geometric. There’s a strong resemblance between blackwork and a monochrome Middle Eastern embroidery technique which may have migrated to Europe from Egypt via Moorish Spain.
The example below is 13th-15th century, from Egypt2.
It was once thought that blackwork came to England with Catherine of Aragon, who arrived there in 1501. However, it was in use much earlier. One of the earliest literary appearances of blackwork can be found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written between 1387 and 1400. His description of the miller’s wife’s smock sounds like the classic double running stitch used in blackwork, where the pattern is the same on both sides3 :
Of white, too, was the dainty smock she wore, embroidered at the collar all about with coalblack silk, alike within and out.
Blackwork evolved rapidly to include a wide range of patterns; from intricate geometric repeats to an almost freeform style, lively with critters and fanciful flora.
Like the collar of the miller’s wife’s smock, the geometric motifs are sometimes reversible. A double running stitch and thread counting can permit the pattern to be the same on both sides. This method of blackwork embroidery is also known as Holbein stitch4 because of its frequent appearance in his portraits. It’s one of the few kinds of embroidery that follows the (totally unrealistic) Victorian conceit that embroidery should be as tidy on the back as on the front!
The cuff on the left in the image below5 is from the 1530 Holbein portrait of Jane Seymour. The embroidery painstakingly painted illustrates counted stitch blackwork being used to produce an intricate and delicate geometric pattern.
On the right is the slightly later portrait of Queen Elizabeth’s sleeve (from an unknown artist in 1590). Compared to the cuff, the sleeve demonstrates the evolution of blackwork from the early geometric style to the later freeform style.
The design
The collar, plackets, and cuffs of my linen waist smock are embroidered in the later, freeform style. The design was inspired by the front panels of the smock worn by Europa Anguissola in her sister Sofonisba’s painting The Chess Game6:
The motifs are an adaptation of those on this coif in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston7:
I adapted the design, adjusted the scale, redrew it, and added pea pods & snails for whimsy.
The finishing trim and ties are an adaptation in black of the crisp whipstitched cord edging and ties on the collar of this shirt from the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, which I also used as a model for the cut. I have used the rectangular cut8 of a shirt because, as the half smock only goes to the waist, it doesn’t need the hip width provided by the triangular gores that are used in women’s full-length smocks. The shirt is also shown in the well-loved Janet Arnold tome: Patterns of Fashion 4.9
For my half smock, the ground fabric is white handkerchief linen, and the thread is loosely-twisted black filament silk. The embroidery is mostly executed in stem stitch, with a sprinkling of others – such as spiderweb, stippling, blanket stitch, and herringbone – where the motif suggests it.
Assembly
For the main seams, the individual pieces are hemmed and assembled with a faggoting stitch. The other seams are clean-finished using whip stitch, slip stitch, or flat felled, where appropriate.
The strings at the neck and cuffs are fingerloop braided from buttonhole-weight spun silk. To keep the front panels in line, I made a hook and sewed it in below the placket. It’s made of 18 gauge brass wire, formed with pliers, and work hardened in a tumbler. It fastens with a thread loop, which is less likely to unhook than a matching metal one would be.
Comments Regarding Blackwork and The Internet
Today, April 13th, 2022, searching for “blackwork embroidery” on the web brought up 2,780,000 hits. I included “embroidery” in the search terms because just “blackwork” brings up a lot of tattoo pages, which are sometimes interesting, but usually irrelevant. Many of the “embroidery” pages are also irrelevant to research: touting clothing, commercial embroidery services, supply sales, kits etc. However, if you have the patience to wade through the distractions, there is a lot of good, solid information and research out there. A very deep rabbit hole – easy to lose an afternoon in.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Accession Number 1996.51 [↩]
Victoria and Albert Museum, Accession Number T.112-1972 [↩]
Arnold, Janet et. al., Patterns of Fashion 4 c. 1540-1660, The cut and construction of linen shirts, smocks, neckwear, headwear and accessories for men and women, Macmillan, London, ISBN 878-0-333-57082-1, 2008, p. 17 [↩]
When I entered IRCC 9 I had no idea that I would be spending most of the month of May in Italy! Specifically, on my sister’s farm in Piedmonte, near Cisterna d’Asti. I’m delighted & looking forward eagerly to the trip – and scrambling to finish non-IRCC work scheduled for May before I leave.
This has also reshuffled my sewing plans; initially I had planned to make the gown, based on the Pisa half-gown, first, then the camicia based on the one worn by Laura Battiferri in the Bronzino portrait (the images above), followed by the underskirt, while working on the lace and jewellery when not sewing.
So, as I’m going to be in Italy instead of my studio, I’m focusing instead on what I can take along in a carry-on suitcase. This includes the materials/components for
the camicia
the lace (or lace-edged) cap
the pearl necklace
the belt
All of these involve a lot of handwork and minimal volumes of materials – even the camicia which, though it’s lots of yardage, is fine cotton & folds up small
So far,
I made progress with the preliminary steps for cutting & fitting the bodice of the gown before the trip to Italy came up
completed the assembly of the camicia components, hemming & pleating its collar & cuffs preparatory to smocking
assembled the materials & tools for the other items I’m planning to take along
April working notes
1 April 2019
Muslin for gown bodice:
drafted a basic doublet pattern using the Modern Maker[1] bara technique
2 April 2019
made a muslin from the Modern Maker pattern draft & found some issues with the fit:
too tight – needs at least 2cm added to the girth – actual amount tbd, depending on the thickness of the fabrics
the armhole is too high
the upper chest has a peculiar outward curve as if designed for a pigeon chest. Not sure where that came from – it’s over the sternum, too high to be intended to accommodate the fashionable 16th century flatten-the-girls-upward look. I’ll need to take out 2 or 3cm.
3 April 2019
tried the muslin on again & made the adjustments
drafted a new version of the pattern with the adjustments, a square neckline and side back lacing opening. (Side lacing makes dressing without help possible!)
cut new muslin
5 April 2019
sewed & fitted new muslin
10 – 18 April 2019
tweaked the bodice fit
lowered the armhole
raised the front neck 2cm; the extant garment is described as having a “scollo molto alto” (a very high neckline). This may account for why there is a centre front seam. Without the shaping this seam makes possible the front would stand out from the upper chest unless I took a deep dart or two at the top & one in each armscye, which solution does not appear to be supported by evidence from surviving garments or pattern books.
made the straps a separate piece as on the extant garment
drafted new pattern from adjusted muslin
cut the canvas for bodice interlining ready for final fitting
19-24 April 2019
Smocked camicia:
made a second smocking test swatch
calculated width of fabric needed to gather to a neck circumference of 33cm (~ 13 inches). It needs to be 304 cm (~ 120 inches) wide
cut out camicia pieces (front, back, 2 sleeves, 2 square gussets) by pulled-thread method to ensure all pieces are on the straight of grain. Cut a 30cm (~ 12 inches) neckline opening at the centre front.
narrow-hemmed 30cm of the top edges of the front, back & sleeves sewed them together. I’ve left the bulk of the sewing until the collar embroidery/smocking is complete because it’s hard to tell beforehand how deep/shallow the armholes will need to be.
did a fine rolled hem around the top edge, then narrow-hemmed the neckline opening and the edges of where the cuffs will be
25 – 28 April 2019
discovered that, in spite of being thin & fine, the full width of the camicia is too big to fit in my smocking pleater. Unpicked the seams far enough down to handle each panel separately.
pleated the collar & cuffs of the camicia
re-stitched the seams & bits of the rolled hem where I’d had to open them for pleating.
30 April 2019
photographed & packed handwork items
[1] Mathew Gnagy, The Modern Maker Vol. 2: Pattern Manual 1580 – 1640, self-published
A book on beetle embroidery I picked up yesterday pointed me to a costume collection I’d never heard of before at the Narrya Heritage Museum (hadn’t heard of the museum before, either)!
The book, The Stumpwork, Goldwork and Surface Embroidery Beetle Collection, mentions a Victorian dress from the Narrya collection. The dress is trimmed with net embroidered with beetle wing cases – and manages to be gaudy in spite of being full coverage and made from a somber black silk.
The most interesting thing about it is that the scraps of trim left over from making it came to the museum along with the dress! That’s pretty much unique.
I’d love to hear whether any other collection has a garment and its scraps!
As for the beetle embroidery book, it’s beautiful and it’s set ideas for incorporating beetles in a design for an Elizabethan embroidered jacket or doublet – or maybe a vest – running around in my head.
More on that later, when I’ve finished reading the book & decided what I’m actually going to make…
