Avant Garbe: So I finally pulled out the embroidery kit I bought so long ago that I can’t even remember when I got it (at least 6 years? 8 years?) for a blackwork coif – the Elizabeth Coif from Reconstructing History. (Note, I would never normally recommend a Reconstructing History pattern. However, these were created by Laura Mellin who is an expert in Elizabethan embroidery, and RH is just the distributor).
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While this is totally outside of my wheelhouse of crafts – I have very little patience for hand sewing with scrupulous detail – I always enjoy reading articles that document projects like this because there’s always a useful tip or trick in them that I can take for my own crafting adventures. In this article, it's the pyrex dish light box. The phone light under the upside down glass dish is genius. Normally I trace over references straight from my computer screen, because I often do not have access to a printer, but this method would work brilliantly for tracing hand-drawn designs or references. I also admire that this craftsperson cites their research, and admits when their research is lacking. I think that this is something that CMU doesn't police as much with designers that I’ve been thinking about recently. Like when we were told to bring together research imagery, it's more about what we feel from the images, and we often ignore the context. But ignoring that context is potentially ignoring the cultural significance or that imagery. That’s kind of tangent from the type of research this person is doing, but it's what it made me think about.
Right off the bat, I love the way in which this article was written. The language is so informal that I feel like I am reading a friend’s text messages and it makes this more bearable. To be completely transparent, I had no idea what a coif was when I started reading this and had to Google both an image and a definition. Watching the progression of this garment absolutely amazed me. She back stitched those flowers so beautifully. Meanwhile I tried to back stitch a straight line this past Thursday and completely messed it up (I still have no idea where I went wrong either.) The best thing I can do with embroidery string is make a friendship bracelet. Then there is someone like this blog writer who has not embroidered in eight years, and she can just whip up this stunning accessory from practically nothing. I love it. Costumers astonish me.
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