Crewel embroidery
A wide variety of different embroidery stitches are used to follow a design outline applied to the fabric.
The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework (1896–1926) revived interest in crewel embroidery in the United States.
Unlike silk or cotton embroidery threads, crewel wool is thicker and creates a raised, dimensional feel to the work.
Some of the techniques and stitches include: In the past, crewel embroidery was used on elaborate and expensive bed hangings and curtains.
Depending on the size of the finished piece, crewelwork is generally executed with a small portable hoop up to large free standing frames (also known as slates).
[7] Wool from Worstead in Norfolk was manufactured for weaving purposes, but also started to be used for embroidering small designs using a limited number of stitches, such as stem and seeding.
Many different stitches were used for the embroidery, including "back, basket, braid, pleated braid, brick, buttonhole, chain, coral, cross, long-armed cross, French knot, herringbone, link, long and short, running, double running, satin, seed, split, stem, tent as well as laid work and couching.
"[8]: 16 Motifs frequently used in crewel embroidery of the period included coiling stems, branches, and detached flower designs.
Using satin stitch with worsted wool, they created hangings and other objects showing images of fruits, birds, and beasts.
[10] However, other experts stress the importance of multiple influences from different parts of the world brought back by English travelers, and evolving designs from earlier forms of embroidery.
[11] Flora and fauna found in the tree of life designs include the rose, noted for national and religious reasons, and two emblems of the Stuarts: the carnation and the caterpillar.
Influence of exploration and trade are seen in plants in Jacobean that have recently become known to the English: the potato flower and the strawberry.
Just as Indian cottons may have influenced designs with trees and exaggerated leaves, these Chinese elements may have been inspired by Persian silks and calico fabric.
[12]: 9 While early American crewelwork, and embroidery more generally, followed in the tradition of their English counterparts regarding fabric, designs, and yarn, there were some differences.
[13]: 82–83 A study of New England crewel embroidery found that the primary colors, blue, red, and yellow, were the most used.
Indeed, there were also stylistic differences within New England, with one region being the Massachusetts coast area centered on Boston, and another Connecticut.
Day and boarding schools that taught different types of needlework existed, as evidenced by advertisements in colonial Boston newspapers.
[14]: 77 They would embroider items both utilitarian, such as bed-hangings, curtains, clothes, and bed linens, and ornamental, such as wall hangings.
[16]: 113–115 Many of the embroidery patterns they worked from included common motifs: trees, birds, flowers, groups of figures or animals.
Other natural materials, used with or without mordants, used to dye wool included: butternut shells (spring green); hemlock bark (reddish tan); logwood (purple brown, blue black, deep black purple); broom sedge, wild cherry, sumac, and golden rod (yellow); onion skins (lemon and gold yellow); and cochineal (purple, deep wine red).
Members of the Blue and White Society initially used the patterns and stitches from these earlier works that they had found in the town museum.
[20] Miller and Whiting used vegetable dyes in order to create the colors of the wool threads, and handwoven linen fabric was bought for use as the background.
