Previous Goldwork

I am ALMOST finished with the silk stitching on the Goldwork Master Class Sampler. . . which means I'm almost ready to begin the goldwork.  On the class blog people have mentioned earlier experiences with these stitches.  My previous work with goldwork STITCHES (as opposed to couched gold) was mostly on Jane Zimmerman's Elizabethan embroidery piece, which I took at a class back in 2005.  Jane has a great website where a lot of her patterns and books are available at http://www.janezimmerman.com/ .

Here's a picture of the ALMOST finished piece.  All that's left to do is to attach the spangles. . . which I PROMISE to actually do this month. . .assuming I can find the paillettes.  As you can see from the ruler along the bottom of the photo, this piece is a little larger in scale than some.  The silk work is a mixture of 2 or 3 strands of Needlepoint, Inc. silk, and the gold is a Kreinik Braid.

There are four goldwork stitches on this sampler. . . chain stitch (used as the stems of most leaves), heavy chain (stems of the pea pods), spider web (the peas in the open pod), and plaited braid (the main curved "branch").

Heavy chain caps of pea pods

Spider web peas in the open pod

Plaited braid main stem at right and left 

Chain stitch stem