English Embroidery - Centuries Of Excellence

The art of embroidery was practiced many centuries ago and is still practiced today. It would be highly unlikely that today's collector would be able to find or purchase much that was made prior to 1650, simply due to lack of preservation of such works. If one was to locate such an antique piece, it would be very expensive, due to its rarity.

Antique embroidery items of this nature can still be seen in museum-type settings or private collections. As one might expect time will have taken its toll on the piece.

English embroidery work from the Middle Ages has become well sought after throughout the world. What pieces remain in museums and private collections give good examples, and show just how this century-old hand embroidery work earned its reputation for being the finest work ever produced.

The very early examples of English embroidery were done on silk panels, of which most were white in color using silk thread to compose the design. Works were often designed around carved pieces, such as carved heads, faces, hands, and often shoes, which were then incorporated into the piece. The fine embroidery would fill in the clothing and background setting. These fine pieces of needle art would then be framed or perhaps inset into the top of a box.

In the 17th century one common stitch used in English embroidery was the straightforward tent stitch, embroidered onto wool or silk or both, with a canvas backing. Due to the durability of the canvas, there are more surviving examples of this kind of embroidery. In many cases, these works still retain the same brilliance of color now as they did centuries before. This same type of embroidery is still being practiced today, due to the fact that it can endure time without noticeable damage.

The eighteenth-century found many furniture manufactures incorporating English embroidery onto many types of furniture pieces, greatly increasing the value of a piece if present. The later half of the 18th century brought with it the embroidery picture. It was much in vogue to have such a piece in ones home. The pictures came in many sizes and frame shapes. As a rule, silk fabric and silk thread were used in these wonderful pieces of art. For added embellishment, many of these pictures were also touched up with watercolor paint. Such artifacts can still be found today. Unfortunately, this type of work did not wear well over time, and you would be hard-pressed to find one that does not show signs of fading. Even so, a picture of this nature would still have character and charm.

I would be remise if I did not mention the sampler. The sampler began as a simple reference panel. Whereas a pattern was developed, and colors experimented with, to come up with a desired design. In the eighteenth century it had become an exercise for children's lessons. Children were instructed to embroider letters of the alphabet, mottoes, verses, and texts. They also would have signed and dated their handiwork. Wonderful maps were also produced in this manner.

During the nineteenth century, samplers were designed to include vivid colors, and subject matter ranged from copies of famous art works to Biblical themes. Heavier threads such as wool were also used, and larger stitches were incorporated into the designs.

The nineteenth century also revived the art of using beadwork in the embroidered piece. Queen Victoria - the reigning Queen of England - took a great liking to embellishing banners, fire screens, and footstool coverings with beads.

Many fine examples of Victorian embroidery can still be found in antique markets today, which as a rule are in pretty good condition.

The wonderful art of embroidery is still very popular today. There are many talented artisans that design and produce beautiful pieces. I am sure many of these artistic creations will become the well sought-after antiques of tomorrow.

To learn more about embroidery, please visit Antique Embroidery and Elizabethan Embroidery.

Hoopless Machine Embroidery: How To Do It

All machine embroidery requires a stabilizer applied to the back of the fabric to prevent stretching, waving, pulling and skewing the design, but hooping fabric can be a frustrating challenge. And once the fabric is hooped correctly you often end up with dreaded hoop marks. The answer? Don't hoop the fabric; use a sticky stabilizer and hoop it, not the fabric, and eliminate frustration and hoop marks.

What is Sticky Stabilizer?

Sticky stabilizer is a machine embroidery stabilizer that has a slightly waxy paper coating, called the 'release side', over a self-adhesive, non-woven sticky backing. Some brands have a grid on the release side that comes in handy for positioning and marking.

When to Use the Sticky Technique

The hoopless sticky technique works best on smaller, less stitch intensive designs and on small areas such as pockets, edges, ribbons, cuffs; in other words, those areas that are difficult to hoop anyway. The hoopless sticky/float technique is by no means for all machine embroidery projects but it is a machine embroidery hooping option and finding what works best for you is a matter of good ol' trial and error.

Mastering the Sticky Technique
1. Trim the sticky stabilizer to about an inch wider and longer than your hoop.

2. Hoop the sticky with the release side up. It should be secure in the hoop: Tight, flat and without puckers or bubbles.

3. Remove the waxy paper coating from the sticky inside the hoop by first very gently scoring it with something like an X-Acto(R) knife or thread pick, then peeling it off.

4. Use your hoop's grid template to place marks on the stabilizer to locate the straightline center and right and left edges. Be sure to place your grid gently over the sticky with the bowed side up. Otherwise the sticky will do its job and grab onto your template.

5. Now lay out your design's placement on your fabric or garment, again marking the straightline center and right and left edges. Important: Place these marks on the backside of the fabric.

6. Grasp your fabric from the backside on the marks to make a gentle fold and, lining up the fabric marks with the marks on the sticky, carefully lay the fabric, backside down, on the sticky.

7. Smooth out the fabric, ensuring it is flat and secure on the sticky all around.

8. Now lock the fabric to the part of the stabilizer that is hanging over the edge of the hoop (the part with the paper still on) just to make sure it doesn't get caught on anything while embroidering. I often just pin it but double stick tape works great, too.

9. Mount the hoop onto your machine and 'float' a layer of stabilizer (tear-away, cut-away, or whatever type is recommended for your fabric) between the embroidery hoop and the needle plate.

10. Push the button and embroider it!

11. When your absolutely perfect design is finished, remove the hoop from your machine and remove the floated stabilizer.

12. All you have to do now is slowly peel the embroidered fabric off the sticky.

Machine embroidery just doesn't get any easier or more fun than this. And no hoop burns!

Deb Schneider is an embroidery design digitizer offering her machine embroidery designs, Redwork designs and appliques and machine embroidery information on her website: WindstarEmbroidery.com