As part of my course, I had to have a go at Goldwork Embroidery, which wasn't something I'd ever felt the urge to try before, and it wasn't all plain sailing.
As someone who has never been into anything gold and glitzy, goldwork was never really something that pulled me to try it. I thought I'd always give it a try sometime, but there are so many techniques out there and goldwork never made it to the top of my list. That is until I had to!
History of Goldwork
Goldwork is an ancient form of embroidery. It was known of in the Middle East two thousand years ago, before travelling across the continents and becoming established in Europe. Goldwork is one of the oldest forms of English embroidery techniques which date back before the 10th century.
Traditionally goldwork was used on ecclesiastical vestments and elsewhere in the church. It was also used by royalty and aristocratic families, as a display of wealth.
During the 200 year war 1095 to 1291, most of the examples of English goldwork survived as they were taken away to Europe for safekeeping. The style of the period from the mid 13th century to the mid 14th century was called Opus Anglicanum. This technique takes a lot of practice to perfect and is expensive to work. As the popularity of the goldwork increased in popularity, the technique changed to increase its accessibility to more people.
As demand for English ecclesiastical embroidery increased dramatically in the mid 14th century, there was a dramatical change in style. Luxurious woven silks and rich velvets were used and long and short stitching with thicker floss-silk was used to enable orders to be filled quicker.
By the 15th century, raised work became popular, mainly by using the wire purls over string and padding. These embroidered works of art, were much admired by the wealthy for their imagination as well as their skill.
Portraits of Henry VIII show that his clothes were adorned with a wide range of jewels and riches as well as goldwork embroidery. Elizabeth I also wore highly embellished clothing, which now included new inventions such as wire purls. When she got tired of a dress, the embroiderers would cut off the embroidered panels and attach them as slips on a new dress. Her pictorial dresses told stories of countries, morals and status.
Around this time fine wire drawing machines were invented. Most of the wires were silver and wrapped in a gold coating, it became known as Japanese thread. During this period of invention and texture, hollow wires were attached to the cloth to create beautiful three-dimensional effects.
Having a Go!
After having researched the history of the technique, I was excited to receive my supplies in the post. I decided to do my sample on a purple background as I thought it would be in keeping with its regal history. So I prepared my fabric and started stitching. I tried out a range of different techniques including couching jap thread and different purls, as well as basket weave, kid leather and or nué. Was it easy? Definitely not. The techniques themselves are not really difficult, after all a lot of it is couching, which I have done plenty of before. So what is so difficult then I hear you ask? Well, for me I simply found the gold threads difficult to work with, they just don't behave the same as other threads! So this was my first attempt:
Was I pleased with it? No, not really, but in all honesty, I was just glad that I managed to complete what I needed to do! I had never really felt like this with any embroidery before, I'd always managed to achieve more or less the results I was hoping for. I felt happy that I'd tried the technique and I would never have to do it again, that is until I enrolled on the next course and found myself having to do a whole lot more! But more on that next time...
To read part two click here: Trying Out Goldwork - Part Two (claireharveyembroidery.com)
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