SINISTER STITCHES |
ANNA MEYER DRESS
Updates:
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I have long wanted to have a dress like Anna Meyer’s in Holbein’s Darmstadt Madonna, painted between 1526-1528. In it, Miss Meyer is wearing a white dress with a wide band of blackwork running along the neckline of her dress, as well as three wide bands of blackwork on her sleeves and cuffs. All four bands from wrist to bust are completely different. |
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I was pleased to receive the patterns for the three sleeve bands from Catherine Lorraine, who scanned them from a book on blackwork. The neckline piece, however, was not among them. I will have to chart it myself, which might prove difficult as I don’t have a really clear image of the painting, and can only experiment with graph paper. But what a fun challenge! |
| On further examination of the painting, I noticed that the decoration on her collar and down the front of her chemise is something else entirely – and it looks suspiciously like German counted thread satin stitch! Oh joy, oh rapture unforseen – my absolute favorite! This is something I could practically chart in my sleep, and I am currently working on building a pattern in Pattern Maker. At least, for the collar part; the chemise part is seriously difficult to see clearly, but it still has the angles characteristic of GCTSS. |
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| On further digging through the Web Gallery of Art, it appears Holbein made a sketch of Anna in 1526. |
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| It seems Miss Meyer had not yet been engaged, and so has her hair unbound. However, as time elapsed and she did become engaged, Holbein changed her image so that her hair was bound up, her face looked slightly older, and she had a rosary in her hands. Something he also changed was her collar; in the earlier sketch, it’s not GCTSS at all. It’s still a tall collar, but it has evenly spaced yellow things in a grid. |
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What could this be? Perusing other portraits of the time and place, it is possible it’s embroidery, but most of what I’ve found has been blackwork. Another fashion of the time were jeweled collars, which could be what this is trying to imitate. I don’t believe it’s a jeweled collar, however, because you can see where it puckers out slightly at the front where a cloth collar would tie together. This won’t impact what I do (I’m doing GCTSS, dangit!), but it’s very interesting. |
| Marsaili ingen Andrais has made me a red linen gown and white linen chemise along the same lines of the Anna Meyer dress, and all it requires are pretty bands of blackwork to make it really pop. |
This is what I plan to work on in the near future, once I get lengths of matching linen (or cut my own out of my art linen; still thinking about that) from Marsaili. Once I’m done, she’ll attach the trim to the dress. FINALLY, I get to make something for MYSELF! This is gonna be great. |
| I’ve completed the charting of Anna’s collar based on what I know of GCTSS patterns from Master Wymarc’s Creative Anachronist. Unfortunately, I cannot create a jpg out of the pattern. I'll have to put it up once I get around to making a scan of it. |
Hmm . . something’s not right. When I compared the chart to some 32 count evenweave linen, the width only comes out to about an inch or so high. Perhaps they doubled up on the thread count? Perhaps Holbein made it bigger so the pattern would show better? It’s possible. However, since my neck takes after the rest of my body and is rather short, I think I’m going to keep it this way. Anything taller will choke me. My neck is 13 1/2” around, so making a 14” long piece should give Marsaili enough wiggle room. |
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My silks also came in today – yay! Looking at the painting, it looks like the colors used are a very pale yellow and blue. My heraldic colors – perfect! I ordered a few Splendor silks that looked comparable and have chosen to use colors 879 and 1026. There won’t be much differentiation in the pattern, but I think it will still look good. |
| The collar piece is going smoothly! There was a small hitch where I somehow wound up using the colors I hadn’t chosen, but I’m actually happy with the way they’re turning out. I’ve got about an inch and a half done lengthwise, and the band is about an inch and change tall. |  |
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I like it so far! I think it will be spiff when done. I am planning on cutting out linen for the middle two blackwork bands soon to get started on those. I’ll use my usual black Splendor silk for that. |
| I got started on the blackwork armbands. The patterns are turning out oddly large, and I’m not quite sure why. It is possible, like I mentioned earlier, that they were either made that way or Holbein enlarged the design to make it visible. However, both are very close to the 2” width that Marsaili asked for, so I’m not worried. I am planning to make trim for the guild’s 2008 Pennsic project, and want to do one of these patterns on clothing linen. The pattern should turn out much smaller then. |  |
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| One thing – these bands are going quickly. What you see in these pictures is only about two evenings worth of work on both of them. I should get them done on the upcoming camping trip. I am also making lots of progress on the collar, and am just about halfway done with it. |
| Since Marsaili got back with me on how long I should make the neckline (44”), I figured it was time to come up with a pattern. :D So I took a close look at the line drawing from Margaret Pascoe’s book Blackwork Embroidery: Design and Technique, scribbled on my newly-found tiny graph paper, cursed a lot, erased a lot, and came up with a working design. Unfortunately, I cannot create a jpg out of the pattern. I'll have to put it up once I get around to making a scan of it. |
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I’m glad I worked on the other two armbands first, because that gave me a good basis on which to build this pattern. There is a lot of up two/over two angling action going on, so I used that extensively in this pattern. I came across a few points where I had to use an up three/over two angle, but managed to work in enough so that it looked balanced. And I even got the roses to be offset just enough like in the original. Sweet! Now to cut and hem 44” of art linen . . yum. |
| I’ve long since cut and hemmed the art linen, and had a car and camping trip to Oregon to work on the neckline trim. I managed to get almost ½ of the entire thing done: |  |
| Looking at the entire thing it really doesn’t look like much, but I put in a ton of hours on it. It’s just so open and airy compared to the other one. I’ll keep plugging away at it, but I might have to put it aside in favor of getting a self-paced De Anza class out of the way. | |
Marsaili intends to work up a second gown based on the painting and asked if I wanted to do trim for that one. Hah! I think I’ll let her work her magic with brocade strips in order to decorate that gown. |
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Wow, it's been a while since I wrote. :D Well, I have finished the long neckline band of blackwork, and am very curious to see how Marsaili's going to be able to attach it to the dress. To me, it looks like this huge, unwieldly thing, but as I'm the first to admit, I'm no seamstress. Marsaili offered to sew this band on to the dress now, but I want to wait until all the bands are done before getting them attached. I told her I wanted to maximize the "wow" effect, and she said that "wow" would be an understatement. :D After being in the trenches with this thing for so long, it's nice to hear compliments from the outside. Here are two shots of the thing, as I try to find the best way to show just how long it is. But . . I can't! |
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| I've also done a lot of work on the first of the two "A" arm bands. These are denser, but take less time than the neckline behemoth. And they're fun to whip out and work on here and there. Although I've already started on the first of each one, I am going to aim to make a time log for the second bands of each pattern. |
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The first armband is complete! This is what I'm calling band A, because that's the pattern letter Margaret Pascoe gave it. This one will go right above one of my elbows. One down, five to go! |
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I have also finished the collar piece, which saddens me as I really like this technique. Sigh . . oh, well. Back to blackwork. |
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| But what have we here? I noticed in Anna's portrait that the left side of the collar starts with the little diamond pattern. I started with the same and thought about how cool it would be if I could end the pattern in the same place . . and it worked! Of course, we have yet to put the piece onto the collar to see if it will choke me or not, but it's nice that it's cooperated thus far. |
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