Sometimes you see something and you decide you just need to have it. That’s how I felt immediately upon seeing this lovely pillow. This blog is about setting up and preparing my newest embroidery project.
Last year I completed my apprentice goal of having a head to toe outfit from a particular time and place. Now my goal is to fill my home and camp with medieval objects. When searching for inspiration for table linens I came across this lovely little pillow in the most inspiring bright green and red embroidery. And I just knew, I needed it in my life.
This pillow is from Italy, sometime between 1570 and 1599 which is beyond the time period I usually play in. But, because weather is often warm where I am, I am angling my camp toward a later period where I can wear removable sleeves.
Thanks to the high quality photos on the Victoria and Albert website I was able to chart the pattern quickly. It is a 24 stitch wide square.
The pillow is 18 inches wide by 11.25 tall. The pattern is arranged in a checkerboard pattern with little to no space between each repeat. There are 11 repeats across and 7 up and down. Thus calculations suggest there are about 14.6-14.9 stitches per inch. If I make this piece using counted fabric that would require an around 30 threads per inch thread count.
Zooming in on the image does suggest that each pattern stitch goes over more than 2 threads however, but this is difficult to determine without better images.
It is also too difficult to determine what exactly the green fill stitches are as they are just slightly too blurry to see but I believe they are simple cross stitches.
While the V&A only has photos of one side of this lovely pillow, it does have a description of the reverse: “similar devices form a boarder on the reverse”. Thus I assume the pattern looks similar to this pillow from a slightly later time period:
So my layout would look something like this:
I like this plan because it means when using the pillow, you have a nice empty space to rest your head, book or feet, and thus its easier to clean than the embroidered area.
The other fun thing about this pillow is that it includes a decorative button hole stitch edging (my favorite) which includes loops that embroidered buttons are inserted. This way, you can easily remove the pillow case for washing and cleaning or restuffing your pillow.
Pillows in medieval period were not made of synthetic polyfill, but instead filled with a wide variety of fillings such as straw, peat moss or down feathers. Depending on the social class and wealth of the owner, the filling of the pillow would be changed regularly to prevent pests from making a home of it. The pillow itself would be made out of a tightly woven canvas called “ticking” which would prevent bugs from crawling inside, however if you’ve ever dealt with a flea infestation you know that’s easier said then done.
Materials and Processes
For this piece, I am going to use up some silk from my stash including some lovely green 60/2 weaving silk that perfectly matches our original and some stranded red Caron Collection silk that I have used in the past for pelican blood. Red linear stitching will be completed in double running stitch/Holbein and the fill will be either square or long arm cross stitch. I will do some samples before hand to decide which captures the essence of the original.
As discussed above, it appears that the stitches are stitched over more than 2 stitches, however 45 and 60 count fabrics are difficult to locate and stitch on. This will be a big project for a little pillow, and while my eyes are young (only 32!) there is no reason to hurt them by using too small fabric. Therefore I am going to use a 30 count even weave linen from Legacy Linen I purchased from 123stitch.com. It is a softly warm linen and unlike many evenweave linens it is soft to the touch (and thus good for a pillow).
While I have a slate frame, it is too small for this pillow, therefore I will set it up on my scroll frame instead. This fabric, being an evenweave fabric made for this kind of work does not have the same stretch that a lot of linen fabrics made for garments or house linens do, and therefore is much easier to work on a scroll frame.
Italian Embroidered Linens
Collections like the Victoria and Albert and the Metropolitan Museum of Art tend to have a large selection of “Italian” linens from the Gothic and Renaissance periods. Many of these have beautiful embroidered borders and line work motifs commonly referred to as “blackwork” though especially in Italy they are stitched in red, blue or green. This type of redwork embroidery is usually stitched in red silk in a double running or Holbein stitch.
When traveling in Italy this past year I was able to spot some paintings of table linens with beautiful colored patterns, though these were likely woven rather than embroidered.
I also spotted quite a few embroidered pillows on my journey, though many of them were colored pillows.
All of these items ranging from 1285 to the 16th century speak to the decorative nature of home goods and linens in Italy during this time period. Their presence on the throne of the Virgin Mary, and the pillow decoration of elite figures suggests decorative pillows signified wealth and status in Italian homes.
Redwork was not limited to Italy though, and appears in large quantities in England as well, and can be seen decorating the chemise in a portrait of Bess of Hardwick. Indeed, colored embroidery on body linens is found throughout Europe during this time period.
An explosion of embroidered linens in the sixteenth century can be traced to the prevalence of model books, which were pattern books printed using wood blocks. Such pattern books could be used by embroiderers guilds and home stitchers alike to stitch counted designs on household linens. A more complete discussion of modelbooks can be found in my counted needlecase blog.
Sources:
Lawrence Wright, Warm and Snug, A History of the Bed (2004).
Textile Research Center “Redwork”
Textile Research Center “Double Running Stitch”.
String-or-nothing.com Excellent research blog on Modelbooks, blackworlk and counted patterns, stitching, and interpretations.
Charted Patterns of the German Renaissance by Susan Johnson, a paper copy reproducing some fun patterns from Bernhard Jobin’s pattern book of 1589.
Design Elements of the Renaissance 2 by Helen Hough and Franciska Ruessink
Janet Arnold, Patterns of Fashion 4, a great resource on embroidered shirts and chemises of this period.
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The Inevitable Scadian 