As I've said recently, I'm very interested indeed in medieval embroidery, particularly of a goldwork nature. I had some old yarn (probably about as thick as embroidery floss in it's halved 3-strand state), which featured a gold-metallic effect, and some pale yellow thread. I decided to make a little sampler of goldwork techniques. Therefore, I drew a zigzig/chevron pattern out on some spare linen cloth and practised some underside couching, which I understand was a much-used technique in medieval clothing. It's come out very nicely, though I think next time I will be a little less timid and use ink, rather than pencil, to mark out the points of the chevrons. Perhaps it would be a good idea to get a lamp with a magnifier, and used counted thread embroidery in tandem with this. I'm also going to try painting (probably with watercolours, though I'll need to look into this) a design onto fabric to embroider in Or Nué, which I attempted here in the corner of the photo, by counting the number of dots for different thread colours and making a stitch for each in every row. This soon became very difficult to keep track of, even across a row of maybe twenty stitches. Finding a good system to keep all of the underside threads from tangling when they aren't in use will also be a must.
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