Wednesday, July 14, 2010

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 

8 comments:

  1. Oh, absolute MEGA congratulations on finishing this project. I know how many stitches are involved - and it looks just wonderful!

    Go you! I hope you are very proud!

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  2. It's gorgeous! What a great job you've done stitching it!

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  3. Martha,
    Your Zimmerman piece is fantastic! This is in my stash somewhere. I may have to dig it out.

    (Thanks to Megan for pointing me to your post!)

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  4. I happened on your website by accident. You have truly done a fantastic job with my elizabethan embroidery project - it was always my favorite class to teach. Have seen so few of the projects finished.

    Have two requests: (1) May I know who you are please? (2) Will you email me at Janedz@aol.com and attach a good resolution copy of your piece for my student's work page.

    Jane

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  5. Ladies,
    Thank you so much for your kind words. Jane, I'm sending you an e-mail directly with a scan.

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  6. Positively lovely. You have stitched it so beautifully,

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  7. This turned out great Martha~ your plaited braid is perfectly perfect! So what did you do with this? Did you frame it, or make it part of a bigger something??? rachael

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  8. Rachael,
    It's not QUITE done! Yup, still a UFO. All that's needed is to attach the spangles (which I need to find). Then I'll get it framed.

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