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Embroidery Projects

Project Update 20 April 2008
I've finally completed one border! I now need to draw in the ivy, fill the middle and then do the second border! I had hoped to have this finished for Viceroy Tourney, which is about a month away. I also need to get some rigid heddle weaving done for prizes for the A&S Competitions at Viceroy. I seriously doubt that I will be able to get both projects done in time! I still have a bit of hope though. I am very pleased with how this is turning out so far. I think it will be a very good representation of my work!
Projects Update 8 April 2008
Well I am still working on the second sleeve, for the blue linen dress! I have one complete row of red swirls done and two yellow swirls completed, with the third on nearly complete. The red swirls went really quickly as I completed approximately two per night over the course of two weeks, obviously I had to take a few nights off! Once the red were finished, I quickly started on the yellow. However almost a month has passed between finishing the first yellow swirl and now! The good news is that I did finish the second swirl and much of the third.
I'm hoping to finish at least the third swirl, perhaps the fourth this evening before taking off on vacation tomorrow. I also need to get my next weaving project warped this evening, with Siubhan's help! This will make 4 weaving projects and the embroidery project going at once! I'm not sure what happened. I was very focused on Odo's black diamond twill fabric for several months. Then I noticed that I had missed a broken thread in the warping. When I fixed it, I caused several tension problems. It took me several weeks to get those sorted out, since then I've not been back to that loom.
This is in part due to the fact that, I also started my first tapestry weaving project, the embroidery, and the stress the tension issues caused! Siubhan and I are also working on learning tapestry weaving from Nancy Harvey's video, which is fabulous! All in all, I suppose I am making good progress on the embroidery, especially in comparison to the twill fabric!
As for weaving project No. 4, I am sponsoring my first A&S Competition as ID A&S Minister at Viceroy. For that I hope to weave some prizes for entrants, that is what this project will be. This should also be the first rigid heddle weaving I complete! I'm looking forward to finishing my first project in this medium and hope finishing this project (which must be done by 17 May) will kick start my future progress on the diamond twill. I hope to finish this blue sleeve by then, so I can debut the dress at Viceroy!
Blue Linen Dress
 
                    
This project is a blue linen dress. It is a reconstruction of 7th Century Persian Noblewomen’s dress. The sleeves are embellished with embroidery. The entire dress is hand sewn using undyed linen thread. See below for more details on the embroidery. The cut of the sleeves is based on two 7th Century sleeves I have studies at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum’s  Textile Study Room. One sleeve is listed as Persian or Egyptian, (see all the way at the bottom), the other sleeve is listed as Egyptian.
The embroidery, for the blue dress (above), is based on a 7th Century Persian sleeve and a 5/6th C piece of embroidery that I have been studying at the Victoria and Albert Museum (see below). The border wave design is taken directly from the extant embroidery (see below). The original piece is only 1 1/4“ tall. However, I have made
each of the three sections 1” tall to make it easier to embroider. I have changed the colors, from yellow, red,  green. to Red, green and yellow. I have also changed the elements on which each color is used. This piece uses wool chain stitch, as in the original, see below for embroidery.
                
The original piece, left, is listed as Egyptian or Meospotamian from the 5th or 6th Century. It can be found in Frame number 29 at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Textile Study Room. I chose this piece, because it is older than the time period I recreate. Due to the fact that the Egyptian/Mesopotamian tapestry weaving is so similar to the Persian tapestry weaving, I thought it likely that they would use the same embroidery stitches. When reading descriptions of 7th C Persian women’s clothing. The noble women are often noted as having embroidered and jeweled cuffs on their dresses. I am not yet done with any of my tapestry weaving and I am much better at embroidery. Therefore when I looked to embellishing this dress, and the yellow linen below, I looked to the skill at which I was already proficient.

Gold Linen Dress
    
The gold linen dress I am working on is very similar in cut to the blue line dress above, except I did not add any gores at all. The gold material was much wider than the blue and it was not necessary to add gores at all, greatly saving on the time spent sewing it together. I have finally finished both sleeves, the second sleeve is pictured left.
        The design of this embroidery is purely my own and is based on my newly proposed heraldry ( a green field with purple lotus blossoms within gold roundels). I will be further decorating my heraldry with the gold ivy vines you see here. The lotus blossom design (which I have used purple amethyst stones for here) is based on many 7th C Persian designs I have seen in various silver works. The ivy shape is based off 7th C persian tapestry held at the V&A Textile Study Room.
The sleeve was cut and finished in the same shape as several 7th Century Persian sleeves studied at the V&A Museum below.

    

7th Century Egyptian Sleeve from V&A
 
This is the sleeve on which the embroidery of my sleeves are based.

Reversible Green & Gold Cloak
 
This cloak is green wool, lined with gold wool/cashmere blend. It is based on several stone carvings and silver works the depict women wearing short cloaks with long flowing ties. The ties are made of purple silk dupioni (though it is not at all “slubby” the way lesser quality dupioni is) and are hand sewn together then turned inside out and finished. The Cloak it self is completely sewn and all the seams have been finished. I only need to finish the bottom edge. My current plan is the do a normal hand sewn hem (that is to say fold the fabric over twice and straight stitch it together). This finishing technique can been seen on the two 7th Century Persian sleeves held at the V&A. Although there is not comment in the museum documentation as to whether this was done during conservation or is original. The thread used for finishing these sleeves, seems to show the same wear as the extant sleeve, therefore I have assumed this is the original finishing technique. I will be finishing each edge separately to ensure that the layers hang properly and to allow me to add further embellishments in the future.
Cowl