Finally! Time to finish off the last band on my Clarke’s Law sampler. I really like the way it turned out. Yes, it’s dark. But it’s the narrowest strip on the work so far, and it separates the text bearing area above from what will be a more chaotic bit below. (The jury is still out if I’m going to continue full width strips down here, or do a more random placement of motifs:

But on to the the next a bit, unusual in the original sampler:

It features prominent outlines, plus some speckled, scattered straight stitch fillings and what looks like some patterned fillings too (the base of the pillars). While the source has several voided patterns and ones with lots of internal detail, this is one of the few that could be classified as falling into the “inhabited” style. I’m going to play with this a bit – working the outlines in two strands of red, and then doing some fillings in a single strand of black. Possibly patterned darning, possibly standard blackwork geometric fillings.

“Ah,” but you say. “These patterns were done in monochrome, with the same color used for both outlines and fillings.” I answer by pointing out some sources, including the ultra-famous Jane Bostocke sampler, and several others illustrated in The Victoria & Albert Museum’s Textile Collection: Embroidery in Britain from 1200 to 1750, V&A accession numbers 516-1877, T.32-1936(particularly nice contrast color specking on this one). and an Italian strip (late 16th/early 17th century) appearing in Johnstone’s Three Hundred Years of Embroidery, 1600-1900. You can even see polychrome work in the sampler that’s been the inspiration for most of the bands in this piece, and from which the above snippet was taken.

Plus since I’ve got no historical precedent for the way I am using these patterns (even though each can be sourced), who’s going to stop me? The Stitching Police? I raise my needle in defiance!

Technorati : blackwork, counted thread, embroidery, voided