My goal in this project was to make something that my persona would have worn. My persona is mid-16th Century, Elizabethan, and that being so I decided to do blackwork on the forepart of a skirt. I thought it would take me almost a year to complete it. I was wrong. I have been working on this for seven months and I am just now getting the top of the skirt done.

Katherine of Aragon is reputed to have been responsible for introducing Blackwork as an innovation from Spain, but there can be little doubt that counted-thread embroidery in black and white was known in England well before then(Blackwork by Geddes and McNeill. Mills & Boon Limited, Fitzroy Square, London, 1965). For example, one of the first mentions of blackwork is in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in the last decade of the Fourteenth Century.(Blackwork Embroidery by Elisabeth Geddes and Moyra McNeill. Dover Publications, Mineola, New York, 1976.)

Blackwork during the Elizabethan period was an embroidery method that was used on the outer parts of the dress as well as for the under linen. It was shown on sleeves, underskirts and stomachers. It was also very popular on bed furnishings, coverlets, cushions and curtains.(Blackwork by Geddes and McNeill. Mills & Boon Limited, Fitzroy Square, London, 1965.)

Blackwork, is a counted-thread embroidery and is usually worked in black silk thread on white or natural linen fabric. The main stitches of blackwork are back stitch, and double running stitch also known as Holbein stitch.

For this project I used a metal 24 count tapestry needle with 1 thread of black silk thread over 2 threads of 36 count White Linen. The availability of steel needles were first made during Queen Elizabeth’s reign. (English Embroidery by Barbara Snook. Mills and Boon Limited, London, England, 1974.)

Backstitching on linen is very exact, in that with linen, to make it work right you go up in the first hole of the fabric, skip the second hole, and go down in the third hold of the fabric.. This is also a bit harder because the linen I am using is not embroidery linen, it is regular sewing linen, which has smaller holes in the fabric. This makes is much more difficult to see.

My skirt is going to be similar to the picture Mary Conrwallis, Countess of Bath, by George Gower (circa 1575-1580)(Please see attached picture). I am not doing the same design, but I am using the same technique of covering the entire skirt and chemise with blackwork. (Blackwork by Mary Gostelow. General Publishing Company, Ltd, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1976.)

I planned to have this project done by Kingdom Arts & Sciences July, 2005, but I realize now that it will be more like Kingdom Arts & Sciences 2006. This project will be part of a new dress I am having made.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Blackwork by Mary Gostelow. General Publishing Company, Ltd, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1976.

2. Blackwork Embroidery by Elisabeth Geddes and Moyra McNeill. Dover Publications, Mineola, New York, 1976.

3. Blackwork by Geddes and McNeill. Mills & Boon Limited, Fitzroy Square, London, 1965.

4. English Embroidery by Barbara Snook. Mills and Boon Limited, London, England, 1974.