. . . So, how's your quarantine been going?

Apparently COVID is not over yet (in spite of such high hopes in June and July). . . but I'm certainly getting out more and more.  So is what do you say when greeting someone you haven't seen since pre-COVID?  Do you ask for a quarantine recap?

It seems to me there are two basic types COVID copers (i.e. those who cope):  One has been a productive wonder -- every nook and cranny cleaned, multiple projects completed, tons of stitching complete (and probably framed and hanging on the wall).  Alas, this is not me.  I'm in the other category -- of folks almost paralyzed by the shut downs -- lots of TV watched, lots of books read, but nothing really accomplished.

I'm not sure why I haven't been itching to stitch, stitch, stitch.  But I haven't.  So, having confessed, I will begin documenting what very modest progress I have made.  Maybe that will get my fingers moving.

I won't have as many pictures as I'd planned as I stitched, since many were lost when my 2-year-old i-Phone died without backup.  Drat drat, drat.

So....here's a picture of my pastoral panel from May of 2020:

The most recent additions at this point are the little red and white snake and the frog;   

The snake is stitched in straightforward detached button hole (DBH), but compensating for the wavy bottom area was tricky and didn't end up as smooth as I would have liked.

The frog is also basically DBH, but has a tweeded look because it is worked with two different colors  threaded in the same needle.  He's outlined in yellow, with some additional body detailed also in yellow.  Not only does the "tweed" technique create an interesting look, but I find it is somewhat easier to get a nice even thread tension.  

I am currently pondering whether to add eyes to both little critters. . . . maybe just little French knots. . . or would a frog have more bulging eyes?  The problem with both, or course, is if the test eye(s) aren't very successful, they can be hard to remove without disturbing the underlying DBH base.    

I Saw the Bacton Altar Cloth

Way back in pre-Covid February, 2020 DH and I spent a rainy week in London.  One highlight of the trip was the chance to see the Bacton Altar Cloth, then on display at Hampton Court. 

Research has recently confirmed this altar cloth as having been created from a dress belonging to Elizabeth I, making it the only known surviving piece of her clothing.   Even better, this gown was also immortalized in the Rainbow portrait of Elizabeth.

In its long history, the gown was given to Blanche Perry, one of Elizabeth's favorite ladies.  Blanche, in turn, had ties to Bacton, and at some point the dress (or fabric from it) was given to the local church where it was transformed into an altar cloth, which was used for many years, and eventually rediscovered and hung on the church wall.

Several of my own photos are posted below.  But there is LOTS of interesting info on youtube with many great professional photos, and focusing on such topics as the discovery of the cloth, the research process establishing the cloth's provenance, the portrait in which the original dress appears, and even a project that recreated the dress. 

Here are what I think are the best links: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjai9PoRMo8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD1Fy1WGqLk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYgnv7l7dX0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkdTqkXvgpc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAKa53evBSM

Below is a sampling of my own photos.  As often true in museum settings, you could only get so close. . . and VERY frustratingly, it was impossible to see the small details including exactly how the stitching was done.  I spent about a half hour viewing the cloth and chatting with two other ladies I met there (both obviously stitchers as well). 

Although from about a foot away, the stitching seems to have a lot of dimension and texture similar to various detached buttonhole stitches, large scale sample of two motifs displayed with the cloth indicates most of that dimension was created with many, many, many tiny straight stitches.

It was a wonderful treat to see this rare survival in person.   Perhaps there are other unrecognized pieces of historic costume still out there to be discovered.  And hopefully by the time they're found and ready to be displayed, we'll all be able to jump on airplanes again and go see them ourselves.

With Apologies to Historical Purists

Another small section complete!  A special hurrah since this is a section I've stewed about.  In the original this little stem alternates -- sort of at random -- between ceylon stitch in gold and in ceylon stitch in green silk.  But to my eye that looked really messy. . . so I've adapted again, and done the stem entirely in gold.  I think it works OK.

Here's the stem in process . . . representing one afternoon's work:

And here is the completed stem.  If you look carefully you can see that up towards the top -- near the second pear -- I switched between a 3 and 2 stitch width.  Further down the stem as it widens out, the individual stitches become spaced a little further apart.

I do not have a very good photo of the original,but here's a sort of fuzzy picture of the stem in question.  I think you can at least see how in my mind at least, the alternating green silk and gold creates a rather messy look.

Like Stampeding Snails

Some more very modest progress. . . at a constipated snail's pace . . . but progress nevertheless:

Some fancy footwear done in tightly packed cable chain stitch:

A blue and white butterfly, with detached button hole body and wings of detached buttonhole over silver return:

And, finally, a leaf filled with alternating green silk and gold metallic in cable chain:

So What Exactly IS That?

Going back to the photo ending the previous post (copied below), you can see an odd shape between the two pears.   It's shown really clearly on the traceable pattern sheet.   My question has been, "what exactly is that?"

It doesn't really look like a leaf. . . or a pear. . .  To me it appears very blob-like, which bugs me.  I don't have a good high-res photo of the original piece, but the photo I do have looks pretty much like the traceable pattern.

So what to do about it?  If it were possible, I think I'd make it into a nice leaf shape, but I can't figure out how to do that without leaving a fair amount of the existing outline visible.

The stitching instructions refer to it as a pear.  So maybe it's a pear. . .or could be a pear.  A little sketching on the traceable outline resulted in the following that creates pear-like shape that also covers all the indelible lines.  Here's the new pear drawn in water erasable marker over the blob shape.

And here's the stitched shape, outlined in dark brown to match the other pears (my addition for consistency among my trio of pears) and filled with alternating rows of silver and gold Van Dyke.

So my piece has a trio of pears.   Onto the next problem.

A Pair of Pears

New year. . . same slow stitching pace, I'm afraid.

But some stitching has been done.

This week's accomplishment is the second "woven" gold leaf.  The photo below shows the two pears together.  Both use the same technique -- laid parallel linen threads with the working threads worked over and under as shown in the second photo.  The pear on the left is stitched with gold thread alone.  In the smaller pear on the right, the working thread consists of gold thread plus one strand of colored silk. 

Some Modest Progress

Not much stitching around here recently.  And most sewing I have done has been new curtains for the kitchen and miserable hemming of t-shirts.

I do have some very modest progress to share.   Over the last month, various elements of the upper branch on the pastoral panel have begun to take shape!