Medieval Embroidery Adventure! // A Creative Contessa Project Journal

[@urchincreature]

Good job thanks for sharing your project and experience

[@thecreativecontessa]

Thank you so much for watching! Please do let me know if you end up applying any of my lessons learned to a creative project and how it turns out. :-)

[@catherineleslie-faye4302]

Thank you for the tip on making the lily in 3 pieces. I will use that technique when making applique in the future. Purrr... purrr. purrr.

[@thecreativecontessa]

You are most welcome; I hope my lessons learned come to benefit many! The irritating part is that I already KNEW that from my own darned experience! I have an ongoing side project to make enough goldworked, underside-couched fleur de lys to cover a seat cushion or a wall hanging or a gown (in ascending order of number I would need) on which I have been working for YEARS - with the lilies in pieces, a technique I discovered examining the ducal Burgundian pieces that the Swiss pillaged at Grandson and Nancy. So I really, really already knew that. But for whatever reason, I decided to ignore my own experience and wisdom and try it as one solid piece. Sigh!

[@thecreativecontessa]

And also, re: kitty purring: you watched to the end! Thank you! 😀

[@catherineleslie-faye4302]

@@thecreativecontessa you are most welcome. I watch your videos so I can do better portrayals of historical people... I land somewhere between historically correct and cosplaying most of the time so I need all the tips I can get.

[@thecreativecontessa]

@@catherineleslie-faye4302 I have discovered that historical accuracy and authenticity are a bottomless well from whose borne no traveler returns. In truth, think we are all somewhere between historically correct and cosplay (an opinion that may see me strung up in Living History Court)! 😀

[@catherineleslie-faye4302]

@@thecreativecontessa I figure I'm doing well when outfitted as a noble I'm told I look like a merchant... with tiny pearls in the trim on my kirtle I had better be at least gentry even if I am a merchant. At 60 I have started telling those portraying nobles at fairs that I'm gentry, simply because I can't afford the right bling for nobility. Everyday budgets being what they are... along with supply chain hiccups; I do what I can, when I can. The living history court can thumb their noses all they want... I just walk over the folks hand spinning mixed silk and wool yarns and buy a few skeins for later projects... if the living history court doesn't like my mixed fiber hand braided trim on my gowns that is their problem not mine. I'm here for fun.

[@susanpolastaples9688]

Gorgeous fleur-de-lis even with the creation mishaps, And will the 2nd one be from the same source or from Burgundy, Venice, Florence or perhaps Outre Mer aka Roiaume de Jherusalem?

[@thecreativecontessa]

Thank you! As for the next one, I'm not really certain. I've been in a bit of a creation slump for the last couple of years, to be honest, with life circumstances often leaving me with not much energy to actually create. We'll see if I can regain my mojo in the future!

[@elisabethephipps122]

Deciding which stitches to use is quite often my biggest time-suck in the whole process. So many choices!! Colours to use aren't quite a difficult to decide. I really enjoy using chain stitch and detached buttonhole for all the effects I can achieve. Sharing failures, as well as successes, is very helpful. Thank you for sharing your adventure!

[@elisabethephipps122]

Assembling intricate motifs AFTER embroidering is brilliant. I have done so with wool applique, but had not thought to do that with embroidered!

[@thecreativecontessa]

Thank you for watching and commenting! I know that you are an advanced embroideress, so I am honored! In the 15th century in France and the Italies, there seem to be fewer stitch choices commonly utilized for embroidery - topside couching, underside couching and split stitch seem to claim the day on the larger pieces, anyway! Aside from Or Nue, of course, which is a whole new level of pain...But I am considering making that my next experimental project!

[@thecreativecontessa]

It's funny how the people who originated these pieces seemed to have known what they were doing. I need to pay closer attention to the originals - not only for authenticity, but for practical reasons as well! Why reinvent the wheel when someone else already crafted a perfectly fine one? :-D

[@mmcgartland2095]

Inspiration

[@thecreativecontessa]

That is my intention - to inspire people! :-)

[@roisinsquill]

I love doing split stitch. I have been doing heraldic embroidery with cotton thread and they are all filled using split stitch. I am going to try working with silk thread next.

[@thecreativecontessa]

Another fellow split-stitcher! I remember when I first started using silk thread for embroidery and for sewing in general...So many fewer knots and the knots where easier to extract! 😀

[@thecreativecontessa]

And I am actually going to be producing a video shortly with tips on buying silk thread, so hopefully that will be useful in your transition to the addictive world of silkwork. :-)

[@roisinsquill]

@@thecreativecontessa I look forward to it!

[@cerwelt]

Sampler, sampler, sampler. “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it!” I’m not sure if you did any sampling before progressing, but my teachers all say, “do a sampling of everything you’re intending to embroider.” In affect most everything I’ve done thus far in my journey into the world of embroidery is a sampler. I’m guessing the cost of the silk and gold DMC made it cost prohibitive to do much sampling. For your first effort the appliqué is lovely. I imagine you’re journey into making everything medieval is a work in progressive improvement and learning anyway. How many lessons did you learn? Do you journal your process? Take my word for it, the memory is a faulty personal assistant and journals are life savers. You had loads of creative ideas as you were filming. (You might want to write them down for future reference). Can we all say “unwanted advice”? Enjoyed this, my first viewing of your channel. A much older embroiderer, even if not more experienced.

[@thecreativecontessa]

Thank you for the great comment; you seem to have the same self-aware sense of humor as I! 😀 This was certainly not my first attempt at medieval embroidery, but the first mixed media piece I have done (i.e. gold thread and silk in the same piece) and the first that I actually cut out and appliqued onto a garment. Definitely the largest item I have done! As I think I mentioned in the video, I had been working on pieces of goldwork fleur de lys for years with the intention of someday cutting them out and appliqueing them onto a cushion or a wallhanging, but I decided to try something different with this one (doing it as one piece rather than the individual pieces of the lilly), and that was probably the biggest mistake. I did note my lessons learned in a journal (even the little epiphanies I had in the video) and will someday hopefully put those to good use on Lilly 2.0. Biggest takeaways from this project I think: 1.) mark down the pattern of the couching stitches for maximum visual impact 2.) couch gold stitches around edges and corner rather than poking down through the fabric at the end of a line of stitching 3.) make up pieces of the embroidery separately and assemble on the final target (i.e. leaves, roots, blossom, all separate). 4.) layout pattern on ground fabric with plenty of room to cut out pieces and even provide a lip of fabric to turn under when appliqued (to at least have that as an option; having examined more extant pieces of appliqued embroidery, I noticed that there is nearly always some sort of deocrative band of gilt leather ot fingerloop braiding applied around the pattern edges to cover up the cut ground fabric). Thank you for watching and sharing your own experience! ☺

[@ladyjusticesusan]

Mrrrrow

[@thecreativecontessa]

I see you watched to the end, then? :-D

[@yogachick1955]

I tried years ago to have a line of hand painted clothing made in India. I blew up the designs to full size, so they could successfully use the punch and pounce method. Sadly, they just tried to freehand it and I ended up having to repaint EVERY piece.

[@thecreativecontessa]

I have heard of many similar quality issues commissioning pieces out of India, whether fabric, clothing, or armor!

[@JostSchwider]

👍 - _also_ for the YT algo! 😊 P.S.: *_HAPPY NEW YEAR!_* 🎆🎇❤

[@thecreativecontessa]

Danke - Dir auch ein Frohes Neues! 😀

[@Rozewolf]

A lovely project. My zen stitch is the stem stitch. The 'aha' about piecing the project makes a lot of sense. It would also explain how they got 'depth' in some of their embroideries that can't be reproduced if you do it in one whole piece. Looking forward to more videos.

[@thecreativecontessa]

Thank you so much for the compliment! Ha, a fellow stem-stitch enthusiast! There were definitely a lot of interesting lessons learned from this whole process that I shall hopefully be applying soon! As for more videos, I don't know if you have already poked around on my channel, but I do have an extensive catalogue of extant content on a wide array of esoteric subjects. 😅

[@Rozewolf]

@@thecreativecontessa Having just found your channel, I will be checking out your other videos. While my main 'persona' in the SCA is Norse, I have plans for an Elizabethan outfit. This way, I can try out different styles, or ideas to ply my needle.

[@thecreativecontessa]

@@Rozewolf Although my primary persona is second half of the 15th century, I too amd beguiled by the fashions and cultures of multiple eras - you are in good company here! :-D

[@vibecheck7241]

where to buy korean silk threads?

[@vibecheck7241]

and where the real metal threads?

[@thecreativecontessa]

We purchased the Korean silk thread in Seoul at Dongdaemun market, but you can use silk thread from any country, really. :-)

[@thecreativecontessa]

By real metal thread, are you talking about what I used in this project, or the real gold thread, which consists of silk filament wrapped in thin gold foil?

[@vibecheck7241]

@@thecreativecontessa Real metal threads of any metal type assembled by any method not limited to being wrapped around a cord.

[@thecreativecontessa]

DMC offers a very nice metallic embroidery thread in both gold and silver. Craft shops often sell it, and also it can be found readily online.

[@Ashley_tipsyshades]

I wish I'd paid more attention to underside couching before I started my way too big for a beginner embroidery project. Now I'm trying to also take some inspo from Michele Carragher pieces, but I'd also love to maybe throw in some interesting underside couching designs...if I could figure out how to do it and make it look good

[@thecreativecontessa]

My tip on making your underside couching design look good - first sketch out your vision on a piece of paper, then diagram it on a piece of paper to test out options, and then transfer your final couching stitch diagram to your ground fabric. Does that seem like it might help?

[@thecreativecontessa]

Your design will also in part be predicated by the type of fabric on which you are working and the spacing of the weave (because you want to pull the stitches through the gaps in the weave rather that tearing threads apart).

[@kristinafabianova7139]

This was useful, thank you.

[@thecreativecontessa]

Thank you for the comment - I hope you benefit fully from my lessons learned! :-)