Friday, January 18, 2008

Comment Followup - Eliz Sweet Bag Project

The class was focusing on an early 17th C sweet (swete) bag. A picture can be found here.

While the class was not doing an exact reproduction, we were trying for the essence. The petals of the rose were started near the center with a bar. Then from this bar we did detached buttonhole. You could have done trellis stitch or hollie point so long as after the first couple rows the edge was detached and long enough to curl. In the last row we added in a piece of purl pearl - or you could have whipped the edge to add the purl pearl. If we had wanted to add additional petals they would have been started the same way and made smaller or completely detached and then added as you would in stumpwork.

The Burrell Collection, from which this piece was chosen, has a number of beautiful stumpwork pieces. Most of them were done in a satin or long/short stitch. Not quite sure why when they were contemporaneous pieces.

Hope this helps

3 comments:

Racaire said...

Thanks for the link :)

MeganH said...

Hi Sabrina,
I would like to do the pink rose pictured at
http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=604811961&context=set-72157600455734204&size=l

Your comments above to talk about a slightly similar rose, although with fewer layers.

I was wondering if you could please give me some advice?

I was hoping for a little further explanation on "so long as after the first couple rows the edge was detached and long enough to curl"

I have had it suggested that the petals were wire edged and curled that way -
that the petals were buttonhole edged all the way around and then whipped onto the ground at their bases (this is from Romilly), whereas yours start with a buttonhole bar.

This seems to be two different approaches?

Sabrina said...

There are lots of different approaches to stumpwork. Some differences are design based and some reflect the different eras. Your rose is much later 17th C than the one we were modeling.

Your rose - base is probably stitched down with last couple rows completely detached. As layers are added they are either done with a intial bar attachment and a couple tacks or completely detached and then attached after. Since they have an added finish on the edges they are probably wired too.

Hope this helps.