PATTERNS PLATE 7
And here’s page 7:
A rather boring one for sure. But lots of highly useful smaller repeat patterns, good for small areas or contrast with the busy, larger ones.
I’m having fun drawing these up, combing over the stitched pieces and drafting out what was stitched. And making up new ones. But not these. These are all from my notebooks, and all appear on my big blackwork underskirt and Forever Coif. #39 and #40 are especially useful for small areas. My coif has lots of those:
PATTERNS PLATE 6
On to page 6. Remember – you can click on the page images to get a US letter size full page printable JPG. A PDF compendium of the whole set will be issued after the last page is posted here.
I’m also fond of #31, #34, and #35. #34 is calculated to drive you dizzy while stitching. It takes a bit to wrap the brain around the eccentric spacing on the repeat. But it’s worth it. I’ve used it dozens of times, sometimes with little crosses sporting a centered cross stitch when I wanted something more uniformly visually dense. I’m not wild about the interlace in #33. It’s too skinny, although at a distance (mocked up by the tiny thumbnail above) it looks better than it does close up.
If enough folk are interested, I’ll post an illustrated tutorial on using open source/free GIMP for this style of charting.
PATTERNS PLATE 5
Page 5:
This is turning into quite a holiday present. I’ve now posted five pages (30 fillings), and because I’m continuing on to graph up other patterns I’ve improvised as I stitched my projects, plus others in my notebooks, I can safely say that I’ll be posting a page a day through the mid-December at the least. Possibly longer.
On today’s page you’ll see a couple of my favorites. #27 and #29 I’ve used again and again. I like the voided flowers formed by #27, and I like the movement in #29. #28 is also an old fave. That same spiraled band appears in all my booklets as a simple border, sometimes published with a corner. You can see it (with corner) on my ancient pre-SCA “Eve Was Framed” unfinished sampler, circa 1975 or so:
More about this old, unfinished piece here.
PATTERNS PLATE 4
As promised I return to the keyboard and post the fourth page of blackwork filling patterns. Again these are patterns originally published in my 1978 booklet, redrafted and re-issued here.
More thanks to those not mentioned yet who have offered encouragement and thanks, including (but not limited to) local Carolingian Ygraine; String readers TexAnne, Pam, twerp, Cailee, fourdny2, PamC, and Annanna; and Yahoo Blackwork Group members Sherry, Linda, Annabelle, Anita, Esther, Sharon, Gail, Millie, Nicole, Viv, Elspeth, Georgia, Susan, Audrey, Rebecca, Nancy, Heather-Joy, Gaz, Viji, Magda, Elizabeth, Sorcha, Isabella, Maria, Liadain, Jean, Millie, and Shirley. Apologies if I’ve left anyone out.
More tomorrow!
PATTERNS PLATE 3
And Page 3:
Again, these are patterns that I published in my first booklet back in 1978, and that are stitched into the piece that became my blackwork underskirt. I am going to take a Blog Vacation this coming week. Look for more pages after the holiday. I’ve got roughly 15 more in queue for publication. At least.
Again thanks to all who posted or emailed me encouragement or who have lent inspiration over the years. Like Pal of Pal Mathilde. Great stuff at her site!
PATTERNS PLATE 2
And here’s the second page:
#10 is unusual in that the little isolated straight stitches that fill in the “background” area behind the large cross shapes are not stitched on the same grid as the rest of the pattern. But if you’re working on even weave you’ll see immediately and clearly where that stitch belongs.
The sharp-eyed will be able to pick out #9 and #7 in the detail shot of my underskirt. I assure you that #10 is there too, but it’s shown in a very small snippet. (I’m going to have to take more detail shots of this piece and of my Forever Coif for this series).
Which brings me to an obvious observation. You’ll note that some of these patterns offer small repeats – like #10. Others like #11 are larger, covering more ground before the design cycles. Smaller repeats work well in smaller design areas. Larger repeats show better when used in larger areas. But that doesn’t mean that either scale pattern should reserved exclusively for one use or another. Sometimes “zooming in” on a sub-unit of a larger design is a perfect fill choice. And sometimes the uniformity and regularity of a fine-grain pattern is what’s needed to fill a larger area, especially if it’s near other areas with fussy or complex fills.
Thanks again to all who have encouraged this project. Not the least of whom is Long Term Needlework Pal Kathryn Goodwyn (author of Stalking the Wild Assisi). Oh. That reminds me! ** Hi Fred! **
PATTERNS PLATE 1
Here’s the first page of the Blackwork FillingsCollection, as discussed in my last post. I intend to publish a page each day or so until I run out of pages. (I may take some time off over the upcoming US holiday week though.)
The doc below is a full page JPG (click on it to view/download it at full scale). Eventually, when all the pages have been shown here (and I expect that to be in the neighborhood of 20 or so), I intend to also offer the entire collection as a single PDF, for home printing or viewing on any PDF-capable reader.
As far as the provenance for these patterns – my notes from 1978 aren’t complete. Some I found by examining historical blackwork samples. Others I doodled up as I worked on what became my underdress. And a few (though none on this page) are fresh, invented as I played with graphing up the others.
I did try to constrain the angles employed in all of my filling patterns to 90 and 45 degrees in order to maintain a visual symmetry among all of the geometrics used, and to restrict all lines to the native grid of the fabric (no half stitches or stitches displaced one thread over from the standard 2×2 thread matrix). However, there are a couple of exceptions. One is Pattern #5 on today’s plate. The stitching logic for that one is to work the diagonals of squared cross stitches; then take the long stitches from each of the “shoulders” of the stairstep diamonds formed by the intersecting lines of cross stitches into the centermost point of each diamond. It’s easy if you’re using plain even weave linen – that center hole is very evident. But if you’re using Aida, or another ground cloth a bit of fiddling may be in order.
As to what I mean by the copyright restriction on the page – if you’re working up your own sampler, have at these patterns. Enjoy! If you’re planning on making works for sale or donation based on these fillings – either finished stitched pieces or published designs, please contact me. In all probability I’ll freely grant permission, but the courtesy of notification and formality of reply is respectful to all parties involved. And if you’re looking to republish or reproduce these pages or the patterns on them, please contact me for specific license to do so before reposting, reprinting, or republishing my work.
Thanks to all who voiced support for this venture. I hope the forthcoming pages prove useful, and whet everyone’s appetite for other full scale works to come. Questions, comments, criticisms and other feedback is most welcome.
SQUARES!
Given Chris Laning’s confirmation of our independently devised charting method, and my own impatience to get started, I’ve decided that using GIMP in the multi-layer mode is the way to meet my graphing challenge. That means one layer for background grid, one for pattern, and a “mask” layer of little white donuts around each grid point to separate the solid pattern lines into stitch units. Thanks also to Ariel who had a very innovative suggestion about using MetaPost, but the complexity of some of the patterns I will be doing will quickly exceed the practicality of her solution.
To practice up for these more complex designs I decided to regraph the collection of 72 blackwork fillings I published back in 1978, plus some more from my own notebooks that didn’t make it into that booklet. These are the fillings I used in the blackwork underskirt I stitched back in 1976-1977.
Not being able to resist a doodle-capable medium, I’ve done up a few more, too. I’ve got about 100 of these fillings now graphed out in neat little squares and ready to share, but I’ve not decided on the most efficient sharing method. I’m leaning to composing them into pages, and sharing the pages one by one, so that they can be seen before they’re downloaded. An alternative would be making a new PDF booklet and post that. In either case, my intent is to publish them here for free download under my own copyright, rather than try to sell the thing.
Here are two samples to whet your appetite. Any feedback? Suggestions?
And special thanks again to Chris, who has asked that I spread the word among both SCA and non-SCA stitchers about a valuable embroidery resource. The SCA’s West Kingdom’s Needleworkers’ Guild maintains a very useful on-line library of articles on historical stitching – all from the hands-on perspective. You can find it here. I guarantee hours of fascinating reading and inspiration!
GRAPHING CHALLENGE
I’m still trying to work up my favorite mode of double running graphing. I’ve pretty much dismissed all of the dedicated charting programs. They don’t allow the dot/stitch metaphor that I find far easier to stitch from than heavy lines superimposed on a background lighter grid.
Again, here’s that jester snippet from TNCM. I find this clear enough to stitch direct from the thumbnail, even at its tiny size/poor resolution.
It’s small, but it’s clear. The lines are stitches, the dots represent the “holes” in the cloth being stitched. In something like Aida, Hardanger or Fiddlers Cloth, each dot is an actual hole in the weave. If one is using plain weave linen, each dot corresponds to the interstices between each two (or three, or more) threads over which the stitches are taken.
Here’s the same pattern, graphed out in one of the stitching programs (click on this, to see it better than it is shown in the thumbnail):
Yes, there are some aids built into the stitching program, like decimal bars on the graphs (every 10th bar indicated), and stitch counts along the margins, but those can be added to my style of illustration.
My main beef with ALL of the stitch graphing programs is that they treat back stitch, double running or other straight stitches as an afterthought. Sometimes the back/double running notation can’t be easily mirrored or manipulated (as in KG-Chart LE, which I used for the bit above). In others it always appears as an undifferentiated or symbol-represented line, with no indication of individual stitches. And in all of these programs, scale is limited. They’ve been invented for folk who stitch at larger gauges than I favor. My 18 stitches per inch (36 count linen) is a bit smaller than the 7, 10 or 12 stitches per inch many modern stitchers favor. Patterns plot out waaay too large for easy display or reproduction on book size pages. So far I’ve taken the demos of quite a few of the dedicated stitching programs for a test drive. To date I’ve tried and discarded PCStitch 9; WinStitch, SitchR-XP, DigiStitch, KG-Chart, Easy Cross, Easy Grapher Pro, STOIK Stitch Creator, and Cross Stitch Professional. I will say though that most of them do a fine job at turning photos or drawings into cross stitch. (I am a bit frustrated with programs that allow very limited trial periods. I work. Lots. My hobby investigations take place over months, not days. I would have liked to have gone back and re-tried some of the earlier programs I encountered later on, but was unable to do so because my 3-day trial had expired. Their loss, not mine).
Now I’ve turned to general purpose graphics programs. I need one that lets the user manipulate grid density and representation, that allows mirroring and rotation, and grid-constrained line drawing. Ideally I want one that allows either patterned lines, or that allows some sort of logic-based display controls (black pixel overlaid with white pixel = white pixel as displayed; black pixel overlaid with black pixel = black pixel as displayed; white pixel overlaid with black pixel = black pixel – you get the idea).
I’m not quite at the optimal yet. But I’m getting close. I did the bit below using GIMP – a general purpose open source graphics manipulation tool. Elder daughter (the one jumping up and down, waving madly over there in her dorm room) gave some vital assistance with layer manipulation and masking. Here’s the result (click on this one too):
I’m not quite happy with the dots/voids. I find my original method from TNCM much easier to parse out visually than I do the new version, with dots in the center of each void. But that may be just me.
I’m going to soldier on, looking for something – anything – that can get close to my original. For the record, that was done on my long gone Mac IIcx using Aldus Superpaint. A program that has no direct cognate today.
All advice/leads on possibles are gratefully accepted. In fact, if someone manages to put me onto an effective solution to produce the look in the first snippet above using Windows software, and I end up using their method for my next book, I will reward them with a highly suitable stitching related gift.
CLARKE’S LAW SAMPLER – FINAL SOURCES ROUND-UP (LONG)
UPDATE ON 24 APRIL 2022 – For some unknown reason, the majority of this page disappeared. I’ve gone back to find and restore the missing info. Apologies if the links are still broken. This is a work in progress.
———–ORIGINAL POST – RESTORED MATERIAL FIRST PUBLISHED ON 24 OCTOBER 2010 ———–
I seem to have picked up some new readers here this week. I answer questions and comments from Kabira, Annanna, H. from Japan, and others. Recognizing that upon completion this heads to my pile of “finish me for display”, is unlikely to emerge before the holidays are over (and may not be seen again before spring) I post my wrap-up now on the almost-completed piece. Apologies for the length of this post.
First, thanks for your kind words. I’ve had a lot of fun stitching this piece. My sampler is more of an exercise in perseverance than anything else. The wide pattern strips, though complex, are not appreciably more difficult to stitch than are the narrow ones. All follow the same basic logic, and once a stitcher is used to following that logic the only thing that can go wrong is miscounting threads. (Bright, indirect light helps with that).
My sampler is worked on 36 count even weave linen, using one or two strands of standard DMC embroidery floss, colors #310 (black) and #498 (deep crimson). Worked over 2×2 threads, it’s done at 18 stitches per inch (about 7 per cm). The entire embroidered area measures out to roughly 16 x 32 inches (40.6 x 81.3 cm). I did not work it double sided, but the double sided logic does prevail.
The Clarke’s Law sampler, like all embroideries on this site, is an original composition. However the individual strips are adapted from or inspired by historical sources. I comb period modelbooks (mostly pattern books printed before 1650) and photos of museum artifacts, looking for goodies. Then I graph them out and stitch them up. I’ve been playing with patterns this way since the early 1970s, and over the years I’ve amassed a collection of designs. I put out a couple of leaflets within the Society for Creative Anachronism, the first one being issued in 1977/1978, and reprinted a couple of times thereafter. I released a second, better documented leaflet in 1983.
Then in in the ’90s some friends convinced me that others would find my notebooks useful (the leaflets containing only a small bit of what I’d been collecting) and introduced me to a publisher. The result was The New Carolingian Modelbook: Counted Embroidery Patterns from Before 1600 (TNCM). Sadly, the publisher turned out to be either exploitative or incompetent, or both, and to this day I’ve seen almost no return for the effort. But the book is out there, and continues to sell on the used book market for absurd prices. New copies continue to trickle in via eBay and a used book seller in New Mexico, so somewhere out there beyond my reach, there is still a source.
Be that as it may, I continue to collect and “play test” patterns on samplers like this one. Here’s an index to the sources for the 22 patterns used on the Clarke’s Law sampler:
1. TNCM Plate 32:1 “Twined Blossom and Interlace Meandering Repeat”. Known affectionately as “The Brooklyn Pattern.” Ultimate source – Domenico daSera. Opera Noua composta per Domenico da Sera detto il Francoisino. Venice, 1546 – one of my all time favorite modelbooks.
2. The alphabet for the main quote is from Sajou #55, posted by pattern archivist Ramzi at his Free Easy Cross, Pattern Maker, PC Stitch Charts and Free Historic Old Pattern Books blog site. Thanks, Ramzi! I played with it a bit, working the curlicues in red and weaving them over/under the letter forms.
3. TNCM Plate 69:1 “Grape Motif or Border Repeat”. I graphed it up originally from a photo in Drysdale’s Art of Blackwork Embroidery that showed the Victoria & Albert Museum’s artifact T.14-1931. The picture available on line is MUCH better than Drysdale’s black and white photo. Many of the other patterns on this piece come from this same source. Drysdale cites it as being Spanish, from the late 16th/early 17th Century. The V&A’s attribution is Italian, 16th Century. I’d go with the museum’s judgment on this one, and if given the chance to republish, would amend TNCM’s listing accordingly.
4. Plume Flowers. Victoria & Albert Museum’s artifact T.14-1931. I’ve charted this out on paper but other than stitching it here, I haven’t published it yet.
5. Hops. Victoria & Albert Museum’s artifact T.14-1931. I’ve charted this out on paper but other than stitching it here, I haven’t published it yet.
6. Column and Wreathe Repeat. Victoria & Albert Museum’s artifact T.14-1931. I’ve charted this out on paper but other than stitching it here, I haven’t published it yet.
7. TNCM 68:2 “Seam Decoration or Border Repeat”. Graphed from photo in Pascoe’s Blackwork Embroidery: Design and Technique. Pascoe cites this as being from 1545. The original was worked along the shoulder seam join line of a butted sleeve man’s shirt, stitched in all black.
8. Another alphabet from Ramzi’s Sajou collection. This one is from #172. It’s interesting to note that several of the late 1800s/early 1900s booklets he’s got quote some early modelbook patterns closely enough to recognize the direct line of heritage.
9. Meander Repeat. Victoria & Albert Museum’s artifact T.14-1931, BUT this one appears on at least one other source, also on display at the V&A. The keeper of the www.drakt.org website shows a display case with what’s clearly a close kin to the T.14-1931 pattern, but worked voided style. [2022 Edit note – I have since tracked down the particular strip that was included in the massed display artifact shown on the defunct drakt.org website – it’s Victoria & Albert Museum’s Border, dated 1600s, accession 503-1877. The massed display in which it is mounted is also pictured on the V&A’s page.]
10. Yet Another Meander Repeat (I’m running out of descriptive names). This one is also from Victoria & Albert Museum’s artifact T.14-1931. I’ve charted this out on paper but other than stitching it here, I haven’t published it yet. I worked it voided, although the original is in double running only.
11 a-d (top to bottom)
a. TNCM 55:1. “Snail Border Repeat”. My original, inspired by period designs.
b. TNCM 51:1 “Brier Rose Twining Border Repeat” My original, inspired by period sources. Also in my second booklet, Counted Thread Patterns from Before 1600, published informally in the SCA circa 1983.
c. My first booket, Blackwork published in 1978. Pattern #j, which I cited as being Italian counted thread work from the 1500s. No citation though, which is why it didn’t make the cut for later booklets.
d. TNCM 52:2. “Flower and Bud Meandering Border Repeat”. My original, inspired by period designs.
12 a-d (top to bottom)
a. My first booket, Blackwork published in 1978. Pattern #gg, which I cited as being English, very early 1500s. No exact source though, and I didn’t include it in TNCM for that reason.
b. TNCM 54:3 “Pomegranate Meandering Repeat” and #53 Counted Thread Patterns from Before 1600. Another one of my own, inspired by period sources.
c. TNCM 49:2 “Acorn Meandering Border Repeat” One of the early set I graphed from the photo in Drysdale’s Art of Blackwork Embroidery that showed the Victoria & Albert Museum’s artifact T.14-1931.
d. TNCM 44:2 “Acanthus Meandering Border Repeat” also #55 from Counted Thread Patterns from Before 1600. Yet another from the Drysdale photo of Victoria & Albert Museum’s artifact T.14-1931. (I do adore that source!)
13. Wreath and Columns Repeat. Victoria & Albert Museum’s artifact T.14-1931. I’ve charted this out by hand but other than stitching it here, I haven’t published it yet.
14. Columbines(?) and Twists Voided Repeat. This one also appears on the same Drakt website photo taken at the V&A as one of the sources for #9, above. I can’t make out the artifact’s accession number though. And yes – I graphed it direct from the on line photo, as seen on the screen.
15. TNCM 58:1 “Strawberries and Violets Meandering Border Repeat.” Also #61 in Counted Thread Patterns from Before 1600. This is the pattern adapted from the very famous Jane Bostocke sampler, also resident in the V&A. But my source materials were photos in Gostelow’s International Book of Embroidery and King and Levy’s The Victoria and Albert Museum’s Textile Collection: Embroidery in Britain from 1200 to 1750. If you’re familiar with those sources you’ll understand why my squinting at them came up with the odd raspberries in between the flowers, instead of what can now be plainly seen as simple twists on the V&A’s own photo page. I’d amend the description to “After Bostocke..” were I to republish TNCM now.
16. Black strip pattern. From page 57 of Louisa Pesel’s Historical Designs for Embroidery, but I worked it outlined and voided instead of foreground stitched.
The patterns I tested on this piece will probably make their way into a sequel to TNCM – once I find a graphing program capable of handling double running stitch with ease, and that can chart out giant repeats at a small, but useful gauge. I want to be able to present largest of these patterns on a single page, and to do it using a background dots and voided line style of presentation which I came up with for use in TNCM, and which I find much easier to follow than regular dark line on background graph paper charts:
(Snippet of Jesters pattern, TNCM 69:2)
What’s next? I’m not sure. I’m certainly not stitched out. I’d like to do another big sampler to try out more patterns, but I haven’t decided on its size or form yet. There’s also the possibility of a set of matched but not matched napkins – six all using the same colors, but all different. There’s also a pile of holiday knitting to achieve between now and the end of the year. Rest assured – I won’t be idle.
String-Or-Nothing 
