Friday, November 30, 2007

My First Medieval Needlecase


After many years of not doing much in the way of needlework except wishing I was doing needlework, here is my first effort. I rummaged in my needlework box and found a piece of 22 count cotton canvas which I embroidered in brick stitch using six strands of DMC floss. The pattern is from www.wymarc.com; it is based on an embroidered 14-15th century German bag at the V&A Museum. I chose DMC cotton floss because I have lots of it and if I bungled it then I wouldn't be out much money. Next time I plan to use silk.

Here is the link to Machteld's Historical Embroidery Page instructions for finishing seams. I used the same DMC embroidery thread as for the needlecase. The embroidered braid technique looks pretty but is not very fast. I will try finishing seams with fingerloop braid next time and see which I like better. Here is the link:

http://machteld-embroidery.blogspot.com/2007/04/finishing-seams-of-14th15th-century.html