Posted by dravon in LiveJournal | Comments Off on Experimenting with and Learning about CutWork Embroidery
Experimenting with and Learning about CutWork Embroidery
Back in August of this year, I did a little blurb for a book on Cut-Work Embroidery, or more specifically on Ruskin Lace.
What’s the difference? One is a form of embroidery arriving in Europe through Greece in the late 15th or early 16th century. It has dozens of names: point coupe’, punto tagliato, opus seissum, Ionian lace, Greek lace, etc. It was from this short-lived (in Europe) form of embroidery that free standing lace quickly evolved. The new lace quickly surpassed this form of lace in popularity and, in Western Europe, it basically died out.
This is where Ruskin lace comes in. In the Victorian era, with the revival of many handicrafts, this form of embroidery was also revived. Fortunately for me, the Victorian women who re-invented the look did so by studying actual early 16th century Greek, German, English and Italian versions of the form. A few of those stunning examples are pictured in the book.
Being interested in this form of embroidery, I sought to teach myself how to do it. What struck me was that the Ruskin Lace didn’t look quite right, as in it doesn’t really look like the earlier stuff even though the forms are the same. I can pull out elements in the 16th century examples and see where they have faithfully re-created the look, but it’s not quite right. I have a copy of Elizabeth Pricket’s Ruskin Lace book. Ms. Pricket is apparently the living heir to the Ruskin Lace artform, though she is now in her 80s or thereabouts. She offers a DVD on how to do the work, so I just ordered that and it arrived yesterday.
And here finally is the meat of this post. I think I’ve figured out why the Ruskin form doesn’t look like the original form. Two main reasons:
(1) The Ruskin form puts a very heavy emphasis on using only even-weave linen cloth. That means their form is dependant on having the warp thread count match the weft thread count. Rather hard to find clothing grade linen made like that! And I can assure you, I had no such restrictions on myself when I chose the fabric for my test teach-myself-punto-tagliato project. Based on the portraits of women wearing this on their collars, or the surviving tablecloth type examples, I doubt the 16th century embroiderers gave this much concern either. So that’s one difference. Again, I doubt it, but I’m not 100% heres-my-source positive on that. Either way, my own example clearly showed that as long as you pay attention, you can make it work. The restriction is a self-imposed one, not one imposed by the form of the work.
(2) One of the really enlightening things that came with the DVD were swatches of the even-weave cloth Ms. Pricket offers. Those threads are HUGE! About 5-10 times the diameter of the individual threads within my sample project. In addition, the threads used to form the fill on the Ruskin form are equally as weighty, ie FAT. That means I can look at a 2×2 pattern and see each individual thread, how it was looped or whatever. Even the mega-close up on the original examples pictured in the book cited doesn’t yield that sort of detail. And I’m not talking about particularly high quality images here. It’s just that the Ruskin threads are that fat. My sample is using regular old cotton machine sewing thread. Lightweight, about the same diameter as the threads within the fabric.
Combine these 2 things and they throw the scale all off, allowing the Victorian recreation version to not look quite ‘right’. Despite this, I think the Ruskin version IS using the correct construction techniques, at least I sincerely hope so since they had actual live examples in their hands and in the nearby V&A from which to base their process. Just throw out the even-weave requirement and use clothing weight fabric/threads and I’m really hoping the end result will fall more in line with the 16th century look that I’m aiming for.
In the 2nd paragraph, I mentioned that this form of embroidery died out IN THE WEST. Why do I say that? One of the classes I’m taking is being taught by a lady who grew up in Soviet Armenia. I found out last week that she got her degree in Embroidery and is a considered a Master of the craft back in her home area. Today, I bring in my 1/4 complete project and the book to share it with her. She immediately recognized it and said it’s still being done today in her home area. She mentioned it going back to the 12th century at least, which then slowly made its way through Greece and eventually into Europe. If she remembers, she’ll bring in her great-aunt’s nightgown or whatever featuring tons of cutwork. I hope she remembers! And even if she doesn’t, I’ll have her again next semester so I’ll be sure to bring it up repeatedly until I can get my hands on that garment!
I was rather flustered when she looked at my really crappy starter-learner project and promptly said I had “very clean hands”, which I think translates to nice work. *blush*
