Finishing things that should have been finished long ago.

This project has been going on for some time, since I put it down many times to do something else. I had wanted to make a present for Freiherr Gottfried for his Baronial investiture, but I didn't have enough time to finish it before the said event. His Lady, Baroness Magdelena got her present at the investiture, but he got his quite a lot later...

So What to make for a landsknecht? Not much to embroider there. He had some time ago finally got his coat of arms registered, so I decided to make him a banner with his arms on it. I managed to do some research on the subject, with Gottfried's and Magdelena's friendly assistance (He did not yet know about the project at that time).

A heraldic banner:

Landsknecht banners were very big and they look to be very thin as well. I think silk painting would be a better way to make them, but there are examples of heraldic banners made with embroidery or applique, so I felt it safe to stitch it, and so I did. I was a little worried about the weight of the seams, though. Would they effect the way the banner flyes?

An embroidered and appliqued heraldic banner at the Museum of Miltenberg, Germany. More information to follow soon.

(Pictures by Annika Madejska, 2011)

An embroidered and appliqued heraldic textile at the German National Museum in Nuremberg, Germany. This is an example of a medieval original textile of unknown origin. It was regarded as Charlemagne's flag before it was sewn into a tabard during the 19th century

(Pictures by me, 2012)

On to the planning stage! So, how was his coat of arms? HOLY COW! Couldn't he pick any more unstitchable arms? Well, I can do this. I hope.

                   

So. I started with ordering some samples from Silkkikauppa.fi, since I don't know much about silk and needed to touch the fabric to decide what type would be best. (Nice service from them, by the way. Unfortunately their site is only in Finnish.) They didn't have the colors I needed of the fabric I picked (Crepe de China), so I ordered enough of white and dyed it myself. I used modern commercial dyes.

The grey was tricky, since I had to figure out how much of the black dye I should use to get a light grey, but I managed to do it, to my great surprize.

It was horrible to cut the silks into so many small pieces. I had no idea if it's going to work at all. I stitched the top part together with the halberd on it first, that wasn't too bad... I had drafted a paper pattern of the banner to know how the background should be constructed, and stitched black and yellow striped strips of required lenghts. The seams are sewn with back stitch and seam allowances layed flat with whip stitch. The sewing thread had to be switched from black to yellow everywhere where the fabric color changes, to have the right side of the banner neat. The seam allowances have to be folded on the black side of the seam, or it will show through the yellow.

The strips were then connected into a rectangle, the top part was added and the Griffin was sewn on. That was an adventure in itself, since tracing the animal on the very thin silk was not easy at all, and I almost run out of fabric since I wanted to cut him as one piece. (That is why his other leg is smaller than the other.) The Griffin was first sewn on with a running stitch, then the edge was sewn on the background with whip stitch, the running stitch was removed and the background cut out behind the Griffin. After that I secured the cut seams on the background fabric and sew the edges on the griffin again with whip stitch. The detail lines on the Griffin are painted. I had thought of stitching them with thin strips of the black silk I had saved from cutting the seam allowanses, but in the end I got lazy and ditched that idea. Then it was "only" cutting the edges streight and hemming them. Due to the strip construction, the edges are on bias, so this was not as easy as it sounds like. The final measurements: 2m x 2m.

The finished banner:

(Picture by me, 2012)

He finally got the banner over a year after his investiture, but I hope it was worth the wait. He seemd to like it. And the banner got it's first test the next day, when it was first used in a very windy weather and then someone had removed it from the tent where it was put to be safe in case of rain and it got drenched during the night. Well, no ripped seams or bleeding of colors as I had feared, so all is well.

Here you can find a picture of me with the banner.

Golden Roses

I embroidered some leaves. That means I embroidered 12 names of the beautiful Roses of Drachenwald so that other people can sew these leaves on the Order of the Rose wall hanging.

Here they are still all in one:

Here are some of them in detail:

The Garden of Earthly Delights

I spent last weekend in Miltenberg at the Garden of Earthly Delights event. It was an arts and sciences event where sca artisans showcased theid work and shared knowledge. I met many new and old fiends from all over Europe, learned new things and got to teach other people on the fine art of embroidery. Merry time was had by all. I sincerely recommend this event in the future for all who want to share knowledge on A&S and meet like minded artisans.

This was my table. I got to choose my table first from all available tables, and choose one in the corner where there was light due to a huge window. After I put my display up, someone moved three big piles of chairs right in front of me, so I was kind of hidden in the corner. But I had light to do some embroidery, so I didn't mind.

Katheryne's Pouch

I had the opportunity to give this present to Katheryne in person, when she visited the Garden of Earthly Delights event. That is the best part of this - giving the final product away and making someone happy. It was nice to have an excuse to give her something. ;)

Here is first a picture of the second finished embroidery (as always, click to have a closer look.):

A detail, I'm very happy about the way the pelican turned out. Unfortunately the shine of the white silk doesn't show well in pictures:

The finished thing, both sides:

Embroidered with silk on linen, split stitch and laid work. The upper part of the pouch as well as it's lining are silk. The cord is also made with silk. I run out of silk thread, so I could not make nicer finger loop braiding cords. Some tassels would have been nice as well, but it'll do without them. The size of the pouch is about 15x22cm

Let's put the gear on reverse.

I had a discussion with a friend of mine about the reverse sides of embroideries. He was upset, that people were looking at the backsides of embroideries to determine the quality of work. His oppinion is, that one should not judge the backside, because surviving period embroideries usually have a very messy backside. I would like to discuss this.

What we can see, when we look at the backside of an embroidery? Sometimes it is "messy" with threads going here and there and knots sprinkled all over. Sometimes it is almost as neat as the right side of the work and no knots anywhere. Which one is better? And is it at all relevant?

The reverse side can tell a lot about the embroidery. How are the stitches really made? Is the work done systematically or has the embroiderer jumped from one corner to another? Is there excessive use of thread where no-one can see it (waste of money!)?

But is a messy backside a flaw? If the right side is beautiful, why should we be concerned about the backside when we know that medieval people were not? Of cource, if there is too much material on the backside of the work, it can make a difference on how the embroidery appears on the finished piece.

It all comes down to one question: Which is more important factor, authenticity or craftmanship? If authenticity is more important, we should indeed try to make the backsides of our embroideries messy! If craftmanship is considered to be the more important factor, we should also take a look at the backside to give us more information of the actual work process.

Is a neat backside better? In my oppinion it doesn't matter. I try to keep the backsides of my embroideries neat, but that is just the way I like it. And judging the work by it's backside? The judging criteria include many things. The quality of the work is only one of them. And the backside of an embroidery is only one little piece of the thing called the quality of work.

So by all means take a look at the backside of an embroidery, if it is not covered. But do not judge a work by the appearance of it's backside!

A preview for you

Here is a peek of what I'm doing at the moment. I had a very lazy summer, but now I'm working again. I'm embroidering a heraldic pouch. It'll be a present again, this time for Mistress/Mistress Katheryn Hebenstreitz. The first side is finished, and it bears her device. On the other side will be a pelican in piety surrounded with a laurel wreath. I decided to use my old style on this, because I wanted to have a work to calm my mood and make me happy. (Embroidery Zen...) Silk on linen, split stitch and laid work, 15x15cm.

What do you think? Should the stems be a little thicker?

Die Schultüte, the old German tradition

My daughter will go to school tomorrow. First day, first class. She is very excited, as you may well imagine. When we moved to Germany, I learned about an old German tradition of a big bag, cone shaped, that one gives to a child on their first school day - die Schultüte. It was traditionally filled with candy and toys to make the school taste sweet. Nowadays there is more school things and toys than candy, but the tradition lives well and good. So this immigrant mom made one for her own child. They are used only one day, so these bags are usually made of cardboard and paper. What do I do? Shall I cut and paste a DIY kit which are sold everywhere? Nope! I bought a brown cardboard cone, and embroidered a cover for it! Here are the pattern and the finished Schultüte.

Serious business, this photographing thing. (Picture taken with an empty schultüte, she'll get the filled one in the morning.)

I boldly ripped the pictures from free colouring page pictures that I found from the net. As the fabric I used an old baby bed linen, that gave me a ready made nice border on the open edge. The weave of the fabric was too tight for embroidery, so I had to fight to get the needle through with every stitch. Annoying. I used split stitch and running stitch with some old fake silk threads that I had once bought from a flea market. The unicorn and the fairy's tiaras are embroidered with fake gold surface couched with white sewing thread. Every fairy princess has her own colouring.