Schoolgirl Embroidery

This is a bit of a break away from the colorful, non-traditional and whimsical stitching we all love here on Feeling Stitchy, but I thought this would be of interest.

The Florence Griswold Museum is currently displaying (only until January 30th!) an exhibition called "With Needle and Brush: Schoolgirl Embroidery of the Connecticut River Valley"

The Connecticut River Valley was one of the most important centers in America for the teaching and production of embroidered pictures by girls and young women in private academies during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As the first exhibition to examine the subject of Connecticut River Valley needlework in depth, With Needle and Brush contributes to the understanding of the traditions of needlework and provides insight into the nature of women’s schooling before the advent of widespread public education. Guest-curated by needlework experts Carol and Stephen Huber, this exhibition of approximately seventy embroideries, watercolor sketches, and portraits will draw extensively on works from private collections, many never before shown publicly.

I love the example above- which I think is a "mourning embroidery". If any of our readers are in Old Lyme, Connecticut and have a chance to see this, let us know about it!

Link

Sources of Inspiration - Museums

Needleworkers are always looking for sources of inspiration. The advent of the Web has opened a whole new world to needleworkers when it comes to finding new and exciting examples of needlework to inspire future projects.

A great source of inspiration for new projects is to look to the past. There are fantastic textile and needlework collections held in museums around the world. Many of the big museums and an increasing number of the small ones, are making their collections available online. The quality of the online collections vary greatly, but even the smallest image can be an inspiration.

This pouch is based on an example in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is from the 14th Century, from the Westphalia region of Germany and is made using silk thread on evenweave linen in brick stitch.

When searching online databases, finding something depend on the search term you use. There are two ways to do it, by broad category:

• embroidery
• embroidered
• needlework
• textile
• fancy work

or by technique:

• blackwork
• redwork
• cross-stitch
• needlepoint
• petit-point
• sampler
• klosterstitch
• opus anglicanum
• goldwork
  

Most museums and galleries have a separate section for their Collections. If it is possible to search in the Collections, rather than the whole site, do so, as you will generally get a better set of search results.

So here are some links to various online catalogues and databases associated with museums around the world:

• Victoria and Albert Museum
• Museum of Fine Art, Boston
  
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
  
• Cleveland Museum of Art
  
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

And now since this is my first post, a little about me. My online name is Laren but I also use Jane which is my name in the SCA. The SCA is a historical recreation society. My main area of interest and activity in the SCA is historical embroidery, so I will be posting about that. This will include articles about historical embroidery techniques, history of popular embroidery stitches and techniques, examples of surviving historical embroidery and anything else that takes my fancy! I am slave to two kitties and live in Newcastle, NSW in Australia.

My main blog is The Needles Excellency, and a couple of websites In Prayse of the Needle, where I have project diaries, handouts with patterns etc and Historical Needlework Resources, which has lots of links to information about historical embroidery and examples of surviving historical embroidery. My Flickr site. My current project is based on a 14th Century German klosterstitch wallhanging which will probably take me about 400 hours to complete.