Welcome to What Are You Working On? where we talk about (and often display) our handiwork, whether yarn and fabric crafts, woodwork, metalwork, art, or anything else “crafty”.
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I’ve done embroidery since I was 12. I’m now 74. My embroidery in the early years, was more basic. I knew a half dozen stitches and that worked for me. In my 60s I decided I wanted to “up my game”. I wanted to learn more about embroidery and do more complex pieces. Books existed, but they didn’t give enough information, so I started taking classes. When you live in the outer reaches of Chicago, that wasn’t easy. The first place I found that taught somewhat more advanced embroidery was over an hour’s drive. I did it. Now there are many places on the Internet where you can find classes and information on stitching. A dozen years ago, that wasn’t the case, however.
Also after a some years, I found, and joined, the Embroiders Guild of America. (EGA) The local group, which is an hour and ten minutes away, mostly focuses on canvas work, i.e. variations on counted cross stitch. I’ve done that, but it isn’t my real interest. I started going to national and regional EGA seminars, and during COVID, Zoom classes, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. So I have gone from a basic embroiderer to a mid level, sort of, embroiderer.
Now, back to topic, I decided I wanted to start adding goldwork to my repertoire. Above is my first piece with goldwork. It is fairly small only about 3”. It combines embroidery, beadwork and goldwork. It is far from perfect, but for a first piece, not bad. It should also be pointed out that in goldwork, the threads can also be copper, bronze, silver, etc. The concept is called goldwork, but maybe a more accurate term might be metalwork.
I am doing a series on Weeds. An odd concept I know. On the one below, an embroidery of a Goldenrod, the goldwork is combined within the embroidery as it makes the stem of the Goldenrod.
For goldwork wire this thick, the ends are just whipped down. Otherwise goldwork wire is plunged to the back. More on that later.
Currently I am working on an embroidery piece where goldwork is used to outline parts of the embroidery.
With the Peacock, as with the Persian Tile above, the goldwork lining the embroidery is basically two pieces of gold smooth passing, a type of goldwork thread. These gold threads are couch down, meaning they are stitched across every 1/8” to hold both threads down. Instead of trying to show you myself, the link below is to a 30 minutes long video, that explains the process wonderfully.
Sarah Homfray is a great resource for any embroidery. She points out not to let the two threads cross over. Well, I goofed on that in two places on the peacock.
In the Peacock, as well as the outside of the Persian Tile the outside is two different types of gold work “threads”. In the Peacock, the first is a gold twist thread; then a copper twist thread, and then another gold twist thread. With the Persian Tile, it is 3 types of thread: smooth passing, a med weight purl pearl (really that’s the name), and then a gold twist. With these larger threads, each one is stitched down individually. As far as I know only smooth passing is couched down in pairs.
I hope you find this helpful, or maybe are intrigued a bit to learn more.
And as always: What Are You Working On?