A pouch in Or Nué technique

This post is also the documentation I wrote for this piece of embroidery.

A pouch in Or Nué technique

I decided to embroider this pouch because I wanted to show the orders in which I am a member of in a fitting way. I decided on Or Nué, because it was a technique that I hadn’t tried before. Or Nué has always seemed too complicated and hard to learn, but I wanted to try it. I decided to make a pouch because it would be a useful piece where one can showcase embroidery. The two sides of the pouch would give a perfect reason to make two different patterns on one piece. The most important reason is of course the fact that a pouch is not a big item and can be finished in a reasonable time, even when the technique used is time consuming.

The Panache pattern was pretty straight forward, I only used the prettiest heraldic feathers I could find. As the embroidery technique is fairly late period, I could take later period heraldry to take the feathers from. The Lindquistringe dragon is a bit more complicated. I took inspiration from the existing embroidered badge of the Order of the Dragon, now on display in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, to make my own dragon pattern. 

Jelling Wolves/Dogs

After I embroidered the Mammen face embroideries, I did embroidered decorations for ThorvaldR's and Tofa's coronation garb. The original idea was to have black dogs with grey details on Tofa's garb and grey wolves with black details on ThorvaldR's.

We decided to go with Jelling style and I took inspiration from the cup found in Jelling that gave the name to the art style. It can be dated to 958/59.

Here is a line drawing from the original cup:

I changed it a bit to fit the required shape and to make it more dog/wolf -like. I tried to make the dog's ears a tiny bit shorter and it's teeth smaller than the wolf's, but I'm not so sure that it will register, as the difference is only marginal. This is the result which was then transfered on the fabric by tracing it against the light from a window.

I embroidered the animals with spun silk thread on the silk fabric that was to be used to make the garb. I used stem stitch. First the dogs:

Then the Wolves:

And as I still had time, I simplified the dog a bit and mirrored it to form a decoration for Tofa's apron dress. The result:

I wish I had made the dogs bite each other's tails.

The garb was constructed and sewn by Lady Alyna. And here is the happy couple... errr... Their Majesties.

I'm in no mood to write more documentation details at the moment. If you want to know my sources, feel free to ask for them.

Face to face with the Royal Heirs

(Picture by me, 2012)

My friend Sir Thorvaldr, inspired by his beautiful consort Lady Tofa, won the Drachenwald crown tourney this last Autumn. They were in need of some spiffy garb for their time as Their Royal Highnesses and later after the 12th Night Coronation in January. I offered my embroidery services and Lady Alyna would do the sewing.

For the embroidery on the first set of garb we produced I was given free hands. I got to choose the pattern and colors myself. Their Hignesses have viking personas, so I got to do something I have had my eyes on for a while now: The Mammen embroideries.

I have based my work on the embroidery fragment found from a burial at Bjerringhøj, in Mammen parish, in northern Denmark, dated to the end of the 10th century (Hald, 1980, 102).

The original fragment and the pattern based on it drawn by Heather Rose Jones (Jones, 2005)

The original embroidery is in a staight line, so in order to fit it on a round tunic yoke, I had to change it a little by making the smaller faces on the pattern even smaller on one side of the pattern. For Tofa’s Apron dress embroidery I used some artist's freedom and asked Baroness Estrid to design a more female face to be embroidered instead of the very masculine original face.

I transfered the pattern on the tunic/apron dress fabric by first copying the pattern on a thin paper and sewing it on the fabric through the paper with small running stitches, after which I tore the paper off leaving only the sewn pattern on the fabric. This is obviously not the original method of doing it, but I have found it very practical to have the pattern durably sewn on the fabric, not only lightly sketched after the pricking and pouncing method, which works better with smooth surfaced linen or silk fabrics (Staniland, 1991, 31). I usually carry my embroidery work with me and work on it wherever I happen to be when I have time to stitch, so durability is essential.

Pattern on paper ready to be stitched and the pattern on fabric ready to be embroidered 

(Picture by me, 2012)

The original embroidery is done with wool thread on fine wool entirely with stem stitch (Hald, 1980, 104). My embroidery is also done with stem stitch like the original. I decided to make my embroidery with spun filament embroidery silk threads, because not only do I find them more beautiful, but I also happen to have them in stock. Silk was also found in other textile fragments and threads on the same burial site in Mammen as well as in other sites (Hald, 1980, 106). Hence, the material could have been used by the original artesans. 

I chose the colors according to what coloured threads I happened to have. I tried to keep the colors as close as possible to the shade of the wool threads in the original embroidery. Unfortunately, my selection of colors was quite limited, so some of the darker black embroidery is hard to see against the black and dark green wool of the tunic fabric.

Still not finished... (Picture by me 2012)

Because the embroideries had to be done in haste, I’m not totally satisfied with them. In the future I would use thinner thread, although the original embroideries were done with wool thread thicker than my silk. I’m not used to this style of embroidery, so the whole work was learning by doing.

When the embroideries were sewn on the garments by Lady Alyna, they looked much better than on their own, and I could be satisfied with my work.

Finished pieces! (Pictures by me 2012)

Sources:

• Hald, M. 1980, Ancient Danish Textiles From Bogs And Burials, A Comparative Study of Costume and Iron Age Textiles, Publications of the National Museum, Archaeological-Historical Series Vol. XXI.
• Staniland, K. 1991, Medieval Craftsmen - Embroiderers, British Museum Press, London, 4th Ed. 1997, ISBN 0-7141-2051-0

Picture of the original embroidery found on:

• Historical needlework resources - Mammen Finds, http://medieval.webcon.net.au/extant-mammen.html (last visited 24.12.2012).

Pattern drawing:

• Jones, H.R. 2005, Embroidery from the Tenth Century Viking Grave at Mammen Denmark, http://heatherrosejones.com/mammen/index.html (last visited 24.12.2012).

The Bling and Sparkle

In June I managed to get information about Gottfried’s upcoming Laurel elevation in October. I’m so happy that I had the time to make the gift I had planned for that eventuality. There is a portrait of Ottheinrich, Prince of Pfalz, painted by Barthel Beham in 1535. I knew that the gold embroidered collar that Ottheinrich is wearing in the portrait is one of Gottfried’s favourites. I wanted to embroider it for him.

Portrait of Ottheinrich, Prince of Pfalz, Barthel Beham, 1535

Portrait of Ottheinrich, Prince of Pfalz, Barthel Beham, 1535, detail

I studied the portrait in detail, to figure out what kind of embroidery it was. I also took a look at other late period German portraits with embroidered collars. I will write about them later. The gold is obviously couched, but there is clearly a pattern on it, that is a part of the gold surface. I looked at other existing embroideries and decided, that if one would paint a raised (3D) gold embroidery, it would propably look like the pattern in the portrait. 

Raised gold embroidery on a chasuble, Italy 1500, in the collection of Bavarian National Museum on Munich.

(Picture by me, 2010)

So, I drafted a little simplified version of the collar pattern. I had to put it into two pieces to be able to fit it in my embroidery frame. Therefore there is a seam at the neck, but I didn’t think that was a big problem.

I had the gold thread ready, because I was working on another gold embroidery using the same thread. It is gold coloured metal strip wound on a cotton core (since I couldn’t afford the real gold on silk core). Now I know that the thread is a little too thick for this, but it works well enough. Next time I would take much thinner thread. I ordered freshwater pearls and gilded sequins to be added later.

The first task was to make the padded surface, which I stitched on the linen fabric with linen sewing thread.

Linen padding on linen ground.

(Picture by me, 2012)

Then started the most time consuming part of this work, couching in the gold. I had not done raised gold work before and learned quickly, that it is very important to keep the tension on the gold thread constant, not too loose and not too tight, othervice you’ll either get bumps on the surface or loose the crispiness of the edges of the raised pattern. The gold is surface couched in yellow filament silk. I timed how long does it take to make one row of the gold: approximately 15-25 minutes.

 Gold embroidery in progress.

(Picture by me, 2012)

Gold embroidery done.

(Picture by me, 2012)

After the gold was done, I was already on the safe side. I had feared that I wouldn’t finish this piece in time, but in the end I had about three weeks left when I finished it. Sewing on the sequins and pearls was fairly fast job. Then I had to sew the two pieces together and add the gold cord to finish the edges and on top of the seam. The cord is made from the same gold thread by only twisting two threads together while sewing them on. After that I could add the sequins and a pearl on the neck over the seam to make it a continous pattern.

Now was the time for the last finishing touches. I added a piece of linen to cover the back of the embroidery and made two buttons by sewing 5 pearls tightly into a cluster. The buttons were sewn on the collar and the loops were made of the same gold thread twisted into a cord.

Tadah! All of 111 hours of work in one piece:

(Picture by me, 2012) 

(Picture by me, 2012)

The three weeks I had before giving the collar to it’s recipient were spent in a haze. I had to go back to this piece to just touch it from time to time. It’s my baby! I hope to see it soon used on a shirt, which Gottfried will have to make himself.

What I learned from this project: 

- It can be done, it just takes time. 

- Embroidering a raised pattern isn’t as hard as it looks like, but I need to practice more of it. 

- It’s good to keep track of how much time you have put into a piece of work. 

- Finishing touches really make a huge difference. 

And finally, I learned that it is possible not to want to give away something. This is the first time in my embroiderer life, that I have had it hard to give away something. At least I know that my baby got a good home and I have the possibility to see it every once in a while.

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?

A present to my dear friend: A Sweete bag

I haven't posted much for a while, because I have more than one project on the making, and not many of them are ready. But this is. I wanted to give a present to a dear friend. So I spied what color her new Tudor garb will be, and made a sweete bag to match it. This is my inspiration picture:

Then my version of it. A little bit simpler, and the materials are not the same. This is emroidered on silk with fake gold, glas beads and silk thread. The same embroidery is on both sides of the bag.

A close-up of the emroidery:

And the side seam is covered with the same "gold" thread:

I'm very satisfied at the result. I had done beads only once before, and this was my first attempt on Elizabethan gold embroidery. I liked working on this one, and I'll propably do more of the same style later. It took me all together one week to make this.

I haz cookies

At the Crown Tourney I got some cookies. Here it is, isn't it beautiful? This scroll was made by Sayidda Amal binti Hamid and it is based on a 15th C MS from A Stitch Out of Time.

I also got a ring, that is close to a Lindquistringes ring, but not quite. A couple of pictures of the ring in here: Dragon's Den. My ring already lost one of it's eyes, because I managed to drop it and it hit the stone floor cracking the red eye into pieces. :-(

Drachenwald Archery Champion embroidery

This was also a commission from Her Majesty Eleanora von Ratzeburg, Queen of Drachenwald, like the dancing champion badges I made before. This will be attached on a tabbard.

Embroidered on linen with cotton using split stitch.

The pencil is there to show you the scale of the work.

A detail.

I want to stop using cotton now. And I found a good source for silks, so I'll be using my stock pile of cottons to embroider less important things.

Spring Crown Tourney Feast IV - "Fish pie" and cabbage pastries

The third and last remove was "fish pie" and cabbage pastries. The pie was actually apple pie, but some people didn't even taste it because it was decorated with fish! Their loss. The cabbage pastries were the only thing that really was what it's name said, but instead of savory cabbage, they were sweet. Surprize!

(The picture is from a left over pie after transport, so the crust is a little damaged.)

The Fish pie:

Crust (American measurements, because I got the recipe from my friend):

2 cups flour

2/3 cups fat (butter or vegetable)

6-7 table spoons water (cold!)

Cut the fat and flour together, add water. Make the bottom from about 2/3 of the dough, the rest will make the lid.

Filling:

about 7dl apple puree (preferably without sugar, mine was self made)

cinnamon

cardamon

1 dl bread crumbs

(sugar, if you want it sweeter)

Mix the ingredients together, let it stand for at least 20 minutes. Make the crust, fill it and make the lid. Decorate with small fish made of rests of the dough. Bake in 180°C for about an hour or until golden.

The cabbage pastries:

Filling:

cabbage

sugar

cinnamon

cardamon

oil/fat

Cut the cabbage to small pieces, the thinner the better. Fry them in oil/fat on a frying pan until soft. Add sugar and spices to taste. Mix in some oil/fat if too dry.

Dough: (sorry about the Finnish way of measuring in decilitres)

Makes 32 pastries.

1/2l water

40g fresh yeast

1 tea spoon salt

1 1/2 dl (about 140g) sugar

50 g vegetable fat (or butter)

12 dl (about 720g) flour

Mix the yeast to luke warm water. Add salt and sugar and the flour gradually. Finally add the melted fat. Let the dough rise to double size, knead it well and make pastries with the filling. Bake at 200°C for about 20 minutes or until golden.

Spring Crown Tourney Feast III - "Sausages and parsley stew"

This is the second remove. The "parsley stew" was originally ment to be "parsley sauce", but because of a mishap there was not enough parsley on them to cover the dish and I changed the name just before serving. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it.

But first the "sausages":

This was one of the two dishes that caused most confusion, and with a good reason!

These sausages are made of rice pudding in natural sausage casing. The recipe makes about 100 sausages!

2l water

500g rice (porridge type)

3 eggs

1 table spoon cinnamon (fine powder)

2 table spoons cardamon (coarce powder)

1 1/2 dl sugar

sausage casings

Cook the rice slowly in the water for about 30 min (make sure that it won't boil dry), let it stand under a lid for 10 minutes. Add the spices and let it cool down. Add the eggs and mix well.

Fill the rice in sausage casings to make sausages. Tie the sausages with a string, because just rolling them won't be enough since they will not be as firm as real sausages. Cook the sausages carefully in simmering water for 3-4 minutes, be sure to prick them with a needle before and during the cooking. They will burst easily, be careful.

I had my sausages in the freezer for three weeks before the event, and that seemed to do them good. They were much firmer after they were defrosted than before freezing. I warmed them in warm water (70°C), be careful not to break them again.

Here's a picture to show you how real they looked like. The ones on the right are real bratwurst (uncooked) and the ones on the left are my "sausages". No wonder that people though they were real! The texture can annoy some people, but they taste good.

A "making of" picture. It took some time, since I did not have a machine to use, only the old fashioned meat grinder.

"The Parsley stew"

This is my version of a recipe in Platina's De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine, Book VI, recipe 16.

Chicken thighs

white wine vinegar

water

salt

sugar

pepper

ginger

parsley

Cut the thighs in halves at the joint. Boil the meat in 2/3 vinegar and 1/3 water with some salt until done, takes about 30 minutes. Put the meat on a serving dish with some of the cooking liquid and sprinkle the spices on top. There should be enough parsley to hide the meat, something we did not have at the event because of a mistake.

Most of the people really liked the chicken. This was the most asked for recipe after the feast.

Spring Crown Tourney Feast II - "The Apples and fruit puree"

Here is the recipe for the first remove. I'm sorry if the recipes are vague. I lost my recipe notes two days before the feast and I had to cook by memory and taste, not that I would mind doing it. And it is very period, don't you think?

"Apples"

This recipe is a much changed version of a recipe I found in "Take a Thousand Eggs or More, vol II" (This is the only dish I had a precise recipe for, because I sent it to Alyna for them to do the meat balls before the event.)

1kg (2.2 lb) ground beef

100g (3.5 oz) dates, finely chopped

1/2 tea spoon cloves

1 tea spoon black pepper

1 tea spoon ginger

1 tea spoon cinnamon

1/2 tea spoon salt

Mix all together and make balls. Boil them in salted water for about 12-15 minutes, or until done.

The dough:

I don't have an exact amount of dough you need, because I made a lot of it in three batches and it also depends on how thick coating you make. You can start with this amount, it should be enough for the meatballs you get with the recipe above:

2 bunches of parsley

8 egg whites or 5 whole eggs (the color will be better, if you use whites only)

ginger

flour

Chop and grind the parsley very fine and squeeze it to get the green juice. (Save the rests for the chicken dish!) There will not be much of it, but it will give a lot of color. Mix the ginger with some of the flour and mix that with the eggs. Add the parsley juice and then keep adding flour until you get a dough that can be molded around the meat balls with floury hands. Cover the meat balls with the dough and boil them in water. It is best to put the balls in the pot carefully with a ladle and stir it often. The balls tend to stick to the bottom at first, but if you detach them with your ladle, they don't do that anymore during the cooking. They are ready when they raise on the surface. If your dough is very thick, it might need little more time to cook.

The meat "apples" can then be kept cool and warmed up before serving. They are even better the next day when the taste has had time to spread through the dough.

And here is what they really are...

The orange thing in the picture is my "Fruit puree":

Carrots, parsnips and rutabaga, more carrots than others.

salt

pepper

cloves

ginger

cinnamon

Peel the vegetables and cut them to pieces. Cook them in water until soft, drain. Puree the vegetables. Add spices to taste. Serve hot.

People seemed to like these. Some of them did not like the dough, though.