Mistress Ascelin Meare of Ravenslocke is making Princess Oonagh’s stepping down garb and asked if I would like to do blackwork trim for it. Of course, I agreed. Ascelin is making Italian Renaissance clothing for Oonagh and picked out a blackwork pattern from a printout provided to me by Mistress Catherine Lorraine of Stonegate Manor, who had the foresight to print out patterns from the now-defunct Bronwen’s Blackwork Archives site. The patterns were charted from a 16 th century Italian sampler in the Victoria and Albert Museum (item # T.14-1931). Oddly enough, Ascelin picked out the very pattern that Lady Vittoria Aureli had picked a long while ago for the trim I made for her chemise.

Ascelin gave me a strip of the linen being used to make the chemise and asked for the length of it to be embroidered sans an inch on either side. She suggested a clothier’s trick for me to do, which is to draw out one thread running along the middle of the fabric to serve as the fold line; not only will this make the linen easier to fold when it comes time to attach it to the chemise, but it will serve as a consistent reminder of where top is. The pattern is to be made a quarter inch down from that line, and will be about a half-inch in width itself. Since it needs to be machine washable, I will be stitching with black DMC cotton thread (#310). I anticipate this project will go quickly, as blackwork is my specialty and I’ve done this pattern before.

Got started on the trim, and in one hour I got two inches done. At 36 inches of embroidery to complete, this should only take me about 18 hours. It’s difficult doing this tiny of stitches; as this is on lightweight clothing linen, I have to really focus in order to not skip threads, which I’ve done a couple times already and had to go back and fix.

A month has passed and I’ve been done with the stitching for a while. I’ve not touched this project for a while as I’ve focused on the kingdom kneeling carpet and have been very sick with the flu. Now that I feel a little more motivated to work on this project, it’s time to tie off all the loose ends. Literally - I didn’t tie a single tail while doing the embroidery, and now I have a whole slew of them to do. I plan to do a trick I learned a while back, which just might be the straw that make my eyes completely give out – running the threads through both the stitches and the back-most side of the fabric threads. This gives a much stronger hold to the tail, which is necessary since this will be washed. I think I’ll also tie knots in the tails for further solidifying.

All done. The tails took three day to tie off, and I managed to do to them exactly what I said I’d do. I will see my boyfriend Jeff today and will hand the embroidery over to him to transport to Ascelin’s place, where he’s busy installing a work shed as her new sewing room.

I am pleased with how this project turned out, although it was difficult to maneuver on such a tiny scale. I think it will look lovely once on the chemise. I will be certain to take pictures of it once it’s all complete and post them here.

Investiture was this last weekend, and although Their Excellencies looked tres faboo in their new duds, the chemise with the blackwork was not amongst them. I briefly spoke to Oonagh about it, let her know that I was the artist who made the trim, and asked her to get in touch with me once it was finished so I could get pictures. She agreed; she’s very nice like that. So I will post a final picture if and when the chemise gets finished.