Lady Micheila MacCallum approached me earlier this year to discuss plans for making rose pouches for the princesses of the Mists, similar to the West Kingdom Needleworkers Guild’s rose pouches for queens of the West.  She proposed to complete the first pouch for Peza, and asked if I would complete the pouch for whomever the next princess would be.  Of course, I agreed.  I have since learned that my pouch will go to Oonagh, and since my fighter is on her guard and she is a very sweet lady, I am very pleased with that fact.  Since I managed to slightly overcommit myself with projects due before 12th Night, my time to complete this project is relatively short.  I do have five months until the November 11 due date (Mists Investiture), but I need to get this started now.

I found a lovely Tudor rose pattern on page 24 of Prudence Catesby’s Compleat Anachronist Wrought With Flowers of Black Silk, which she had adapted from an anonymous portrait of Queen Elizabeth I from 1585.  In scouring my copy of Janet Arnold’s Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, I discovered the anonymous portrait from that year on page 28 (plate #38) which had the Tudor rose pattern in the embroidery on the upper portion of the queen’s left sleeve.

The rose is filled with what looks like speckling, which irked me because I do not enjoy speckling, and I do not think it would be appropriate for this project.  I have decided to fill the spaces in the pattern with a variety of blackwork fill designs, a different one for each space.  This technique is not only a favorite of mine, but it is perfectly period of the time, as best exemplified by the panel of white linen embroidered with black silk and gold from 1585-90 in the Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.

Although I will be leaving out the goldwork, I admit to a moment of regret when it dawned on me that I could execute this project entirely in silver metal threads (pearl purl, smooth purl, and bright check) on dark blue linen or, better, dark blue velvet, and it would look spectacular.  However, I am not yet 100% comfortable working with metal, and would not want to present a learning piece to a royal peer.  I have plans to meet with Mistress Francesca to have a bullion seminar in the next few months in preparation for another project; perhaps I can save this idea for a future Mists rose pouch.

My decision is to work the pouch in white-blackwork on dark blue linen.  The thread for the outlines will be one strand of size 16 YLI/Kanagawa buttonhole silk color WHT in outline stitch; the thread for the fills will be one strand of Madeira silk color number 2401: Snow White.  The fabric is Wichelt’s 28 count Nordic Blue.  I am still pondering what I will do for the lining and back of the pouch.  I do know, however, that I want to make the strings and fringes out of 4-strand braided silk, most likely Splendor in blue and white, with tiny silver bells woven into the braiding.  I did that in the past for the top of a bookmark and it turned out lovely.  Plus, I’ve always enjoyed the ability to make my work make noise.

What I learned was terribly important is to use the YLI/Kanagawa silk in outline stitch ONLY.  Because it is so tightly twisted and is relatively thick, when done in stem stitch the end result is a smooth rope lying on top of the fabric, whereas when done in outline stitch the end result is more of a twisted cord.  This confused me as it is usually stem stitch that results in the twisted cord.  Then I took a closer look at the strand of silk itself; whereas most fibers I work with (DMC cotton and just about every other silk I have) are S-spun during production, the Kanagawa silk is Z-spun.  Therefore, when executing a stitch that utilizes the natural twist of the thread to produce a textural result (the twisted cord), I have to do it backwards with this thread in order to achieve the same effect.  Below is how I learned this lesson: I started with the stem of the leaf in stem stitch.  When seeing what it did, I did the outline of the leaf in outline stitch to see if there would be a different outcome.  The difference between the two stitches is remarkable.

Today I finished prepping the linen.  I washed, dried, and ironed it before cutting out enough for the front of the pouch and lightly hemming the edges.  To transfer the pattern, I first drew over the design in my notebook with a Sharpee pen so I could see it through the fabric on my lightbox.  I also drew crosshairs over the design, and stitched matching lines onto the fabric.  This way I would be certain my linen was in the right place during the transfer.  I also pinned the pattern underneath the fabric for extra security.  I then sat it on the lightbox and traced away.  The below picture is the result of that work plus the inked design I used.

I have worked on this project for 13 ¾ hours and have made amazing progress.

Have I mentioned that I simply adore blackwork?  Even with a different color combination than was common in period, the resulting cleanliness, order, and complexity of period blackwork easily cross over.  I am making such good time that I am considering making a sampler of blackwork lines, flowers, and animals for the back of the pouch.  It all depends on how soon I finish the front, which by my guess will be sometime next week.

As I progressed, I began to worry about the outline-stitched lines disappearing amid the fill designs.  I think, however, that this will not be the case when the rose is completed.  While it does bleed together somewhat, I think I was smart in picking fills that create a bit of a 3-D effect when put together.  The leaves are lighter, thus looking more distant, and the lips of the petals are denser, thus looking closer.  Overall, I am very pleased with the way it is turning out.

The front panel is complete.  Total time: 17 ¼ hours.

I am very pleased with the way the panel turned out.  The outlines show clearly amidst the busyness of the fills.  I am certain now that I want to do a back panel of line patterns, but am uncertain as to how to proceed.  My preferred source of patterns, Bronwen’s Blackwork Library, has been down and will remain down due to legal issues.  I need to contact her again to see when she will be publishing her pattern book and/or if she can send me some English line patterns in the meanwhile so I have something else to use.  Right now, I only have the few line patterns in Linn Skinner’s blackwork collections, which are nice but probably not enough to fill a panel.  I am also considering adding a couple lines of text, perhaps with “VISCOUNTESS OONAGH” and “AS XLI”, similar to the English sampler from the late 1500’s in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s 1999 book Samplers.  For that particular one, however, I do not like the text used.  I might create something similar; I am unsure as of right now.

A month has passed, and I’ve decided on what to do for the back.  I’m basically making it look similar to a page out of a period pattern book, specifically the French one.  While pattern books of the period didn't have a sense of copyright and borrowed each other’s patterns, this one has a lot more line patterns for blackwork than the others I’ve come across.  However, looks can be deceiving, for several pages of patterns are copies of each other, merely flipped upside down for printing.  Sigh.  So, I’m only putting in the patterns that I really like and am repeating them above and below the center line.

I have decided to forgo the words and date, as there will not be room for them once I’m done.  In addition to the patterns from the book, I just today learned that Mistress Catherine Lorraine had wisely made hard copies of Bronwen’s blackwork patterns, so I will be able to pick up a few more from those copies.

Another month has passed, as I had to put this project on hold while I worked on/finished off four other projects.  Now I’m back and eager to finish this one.  With the help of the copies of Bronwen’s blackwork patterns, I have more than enough line patterns that I’m much more excited about doing than the few in the French pattern book.  The copies I have are the ones Bronwen charted off of a 16th century Italian sampler in the Victoria and Albert Museum (item #T.14-1931).  So I’m crossing cultures.  Who didn’t?

I lucked out and managed to perfectly fill in the area from the top of the French patterns to the top of the stitching area.  I am putting an outline-stitched line of the white Kanagawa silk between each pattern, for looks and texture.  I am pondering filling the bottom portion with completely different patterns, as I’m interested in trying out the larger patterns and have more than enough room for them.  And I also found I could work in Oonagh’s name and the AS year in the open spaces in the middle pattern.  Definite serendipity there.

Almost two months more have passed. A lot has happened in that time to distract me from embroidery completely, not just this project – starting school again, jumping into the 2000ft deep end of tech writing, and getting really sick for two weeks last month. I have, however, managed to finish the embroidery for this project. The project itself is not yet done – I need to do the construction of the pouch. I purchased some nice tabby-woven blue silk at Stone Mountain and Daughter that almost matches the blue of the linen I used, and that will become the lining of this thing. I will work up the braids in the next day or so, and hopefully scoot up to Caiterina nic Sheamuis’ to get help on construction. Anyhoo – on to the picture:

HEY KIDS! There are three mistakes in this picture. Can you spot them? Bonus points for finding mistakes I haven’t already found!

The pouch is done. Lady Caiterina nic Sheamuis graciously agreed to let me come over to her place last night and use her as slave labor, for which I thanked her with two hanks of Gloriana silks. Cait has made several drawstring pouches in the past and is very good at constructing them. I bravely faced the hurdles of too much stuff to do, the closing of my local needlework store, and evening traffic to Needle in a Haystack (Alameda) then Cait’s place (Vacaville) to get her to help me. But to me, it was well worth it. Thus, I present to you the finished product:

Cait used her tube technique for putting together the pouch which is to sew the outer and lining fabrics into an inside-out tube, sew up the bottom of the outer fabrics, turn everything right-side out, then hand sew closed the lining fabric. I made the braided string out of whole strands of white Splendor silk #800 and included two silver colored bells I had on hand. Although Cait did all of the cutting and sewing together of the piece, she got me to do the pulling through of the drawstring. But I’m still going to give her all the construction credit. It was nice to sit and chat with her, as well, as that’s something we haven’t had a chance to do in a while.

Tomorrow is Investiture. I will get a picture of Oonagh with her pouch (and blackwork chemise trim) and finish off this report with that.

So it's been a while since Investiture. I didn't get a picture of Oonagh with the pouch, but she was very surprised to receive it and praised it greatly. I even got to present it to her in court myself, and was rewarded by the royals being awed by it and showing it off to the assembled masses.

This project took some doing and a healthy dose of luck, but the pouch was done in time, it was a great success and I was very pleased with it. And it’s rare that all three of those things happen for the same project!