Tudor Embroidery in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

 Cynthia Jackson is a teacher with vast background and experience in historic English embroidery. This year I  have been taking an online class from her on Tudor Embroidery. We had 10 weeks of class and there were 5 projects for us to work on. All of the projects are based on historic sources. Some of the techniques were ones that I had a bit of experience with but others were completely new.  We stitched pieces on wool, silk file and finally velvet. 

I like the look of velvet but it is not nice fabric to work on. If you press it wrong, it flattens and will never be the same again but the surface is so lush that occasionally it is worth it. I finish Christmas stockings and refuse to work with velvet. Velveteen looks a bit different but is so much easier to work with and does not crush.

After we stitched some of the motifs, we cut them out  (that is enough to make you nervous) and applied them to the velvet.

This is a stylized flower and leaves. First we stitched it on linen and then cut it out and applied it to velvet with some added flourishes and spangles.

For the next we created twisted cords and applied velvet leaves and berries.

Then we stitched a flower and leaves on black velvet with gold threads.

This marigold is adapted from the Bacton Alter cloth. It is athought that the cloth was made from a skirt that was gifted from the wardrobe of  Queen Elizabeth to her lady-in-waiting, Blanche Perry. Later it was made into an alter cloth  that was used for many years in the parish church. The original is stitched on a cloth of silver so must have been sparkly and fabulous when it was new.

The last project was a rose and leaves that were stitched on linen and then cut out and applied to velvet. Gold stems tie the pieces together. Stitching on linen is easy and works well but then cutting little pieces out without cutting the stitching threads is a bit harder.  For the final degree of difficulty add velvet fabric. Velvet slips and crushes but gives a really rich looking background. I decided to stitch one set of flowers in yellow and one set in pink. 

The yellow rose is on a piece of antique blue/purple silk velvet that was not easy to work with but I like the color. The fabric did not like the prick and pounce powder nor the water color lines on it that were used to transfer the pattern.

The pink rose is on a piece of dark teal silk velvet.