Simple Stitching

I am nearly at the end of the simple stitching panel.  The designs are now repeats of the ones I have finished.  So, now I am looking for more designs to stitch.  I was trolling through the V&A site and came on this woman's shift from the 1600's that had simple designs stitched on the bodice..

There will be no copyright on this so I am going to re-draw them and stitch them in red silk, I think.

Whilst looking for this I also found a link to an embroidery book that I could download for free on the Project Guntenburg site.

It has some new stitches that I haven't seen before and I love this quote from the book:

In the practice of embroidery the needlewoman has an advantage not now shared by workers in any other craft, in that the technical processes are almost a matter of inherited skill. Every woman can sew, and it is with little more than the needle and thread, which she habitually employs, that the greatest masterpieces of the art have been stitched. The art of embroidery, however, is not merely an affair of stitches; they are but the means by which ideas can be expressed in intelligible form, and memories of all kinds of things be pictured on stuffs.

How times have changed?

Comments

[Queenie Patch]

That woman's shift has some very attractive designs.
Thank you for sharing your finds, Carolyn.

[Carolyn Foley]

My pleasure.

[Rachel]

Hmm. Well, if I have any inherited skill with a needle, it's inherited in part from my Master-Tailor Great Grandfather!