Over the years, I have come across the names of hundreds of medieval embroiderers. A couple of names can often be found in papers on medieval embroidered textiles. Sometimes, a whole list is provided, for instance, of those people who worked on embroidered textiles for Duke Philip the Good in AD 1425. Read more
This week’s tutorial: beaded needle minders with historical motifs. I have always been fascinated by historical samplers! When I lived near Rotterdam many years ago, I became a textile volunteer at a local museum in Maasland. They had a stunning collection of beautiful historical samplers. I had permission to reproduce them when Read more
German medieval embroideries are often characterised by a composite thread not seen elsewhere: gold gimp. This is a relatively thick piece of string wrapped with a thin thread of membrane gold (gilt animal gut wrapped around a linen core). Was this a ready-made thread? Did the embroiderers make the thread themselves? Is Read more
This blog post is taking way longer to write than I intended. Sorry, I fell down a rabbit hole. And then another one :). I will find myself in both holes in the state library in Munich on Friday. What happened? As always, I think I have seen the same Read more