The Fill Pattern On One Half Of The Waistcoat Is Finished! Tonight Ill Work On The Other Side And The

The fill pattern on one half of the waistcoat is finished! Tonight I’ll work on the other side and the remainder of the embroidery on the second pocket flap, and hopefully have all the embroidery wrapped up by tomorrow. Then it’s on to construction!

1605-1625 Adam van Breen - Winter Pleasures

(Gemäldegalerie, Berlin)

When I started choosing embroidery patterns for my store, I was really focused on relatively small, simple designs. Things that would be quick and easy for beginners. But honestly... I think I underestimated just how easy the printed interfacing would be, since it's the needlework version of completing a dot-to-dot patterns. They take time, but none of the constant counting and ripping stitches out.

So that meant I've started to get ambitious. Little designs are still great, but what about a few designs that are dazzling from the other side of the room? As a treat?

Maybe just one of Giovanni Ostaus's shirt opening border designs from 1561?

Some fancy chickens and um... tulips? pomegranates? water fountains?

And just for me, a pattern you won't find in any history book, a little confection I made that I like to call: "Strawberry Fieldmice Forever"

That's only like, half of them. I just dumped a whole bunch onto my Etsy.

Interested?

Beginner-friendly historical and fantasy embroidery patterns, right this way!

Back in 2015, I made this skirt for an 1860s ballgown. I wanted to make a daytime bodice to give the gown more wearability outside of formal events, but I had run out of fabric and since the fabric had lived in my stash for years, it had been discontinued long ago.  I had a minor fabric miracle when I discovered some similar plaid taffeta on Etsy! I scooped it up and decided to make an 1850s bodice, since tiered flouced skirts like this were super popular then.

This bodice ate fabric, and I think I used three or four yards in total because the sleeves are massive and multi-layered. There is a black lace/fringe trim on the bodice, which you can’t see very well in pictures but is lovely in person.

The cap and bodice were made to accompany the new ensemble. The cap is made entirely from things found at Walmart, and the materials for the bonnet came from my fabric stash.

I started this project quite some time ago (almost 2 years!) and I’ve finally gotten around to finishing it. I actually finished the embroidery last year, but I didn’t end up finishing the rest of the stomacher until this week. It’s based on an extant example from the V&A dated 1730-40. I copied the embroidery pattern exactly, but I changed the shape of the bottom of the stomacher since I don’t usually costume that early (I usually do ca. 1760.) More photos and making-of are on my most recent blog post : http://mistress-of-disguise.blogspot.com/search/label/18thC%20embroidered%20stomacher

Had a last minute notion to make an Elizabethan-inspired embroidery pattern to celebrate the eclipse. I originally thought of doing a coif pattern, but thought the eclipse would get lost in the folds of the cap, so I ultimately went with a sweet bag. Since it was cloudy throughout totality, I thought it would be fun to incorporate the stars & clouds embroidery from a c.1600 waistcoat at the Bath Fashion Museum. The sun design is inspired by various period illustrations of sun motifs, minus the face they always seemed to put on every sun/moon design because I just couldn't make it not look silly.

I have no idea what stitches I would use for this bag, since sweet bags tend to use all sorts of different stitches. The original stars & clouds design is in blackwork, but I haven't seen any evidence of blackwork used on sweet bags. I'd probably do the background in a black or darkest blue metallic gobelin stitch (also ahistorical, but pretty!), the clouds/stars in silver stem stitch, the corona and rays in satin stitch or plaited braid, and the moon in black detatched buttonhole or some other fill stitch. Or I'd do the entire thing in blackwork except the corona and rays of the sun, which I'd do in gilt, documentation be damned.