The inspiration for the embroidery was an illuminated French miniature from a medieval manuscript: Fécamp Psalter, dating back to c.1180. The manuscript is currently stored in Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague.
It is one of those strange illuminations I love: looks like the poor man is working in the middle of the night, pulling out huge weeds to save his wee crop. And what a strange hat he is wearing!
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| Pic.1, from: http://www.wga.hu/support/viewer/z.html |
I applied stitches: couching, satin, split and chain.
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| Pic.2: My interpretation of the illumination, photo by Bartosz Kolata |
But when I had the face done the way I wanted, I found it very rewarding and motivating! There is this strange feeling of presence, like you embroidered a company of somebody to be with you for the rest of your work on the piece!
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| Pic.3: Sad face and funny hat! Photo by Bartosz Kolata |
The next step was embroidering the Gardener's tools and his tunic. Very time consuming process, as I used split stitch for it (splitting a single thread from the skein of cotton floss). What is great about this technique: if you consequently lay down the split stitch in the same direction in part of the tunic, it plays nicely with light, giving your work a subtle 3D effect)
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| Pic.3: Combining different directions of split stitch in parts of the tunic, photo by Bartosz Kolata |
I decided to embroider the inner frame in cotton mat golden thread, in couching stitch, with a silver inner line in chain stitch. I chose different colours for outer frame than in original illumination: I wanted a better colour correspondence with the background and other threads I had used.
What is very important: the metallic thread should be incorporated as the last one, otherwise it gives you a lot of grief when you try to work around it with cotton and silk thread.
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| Pic.4: Inner frame in cotton yarn - couching stitch; outer frame in satin stitch with the zigzag ornament in silver thread - couching stitch. The grains are done over couching stitch of the inner frame, in silver thread (in couching stitch as well), and their heads are done in single stitches placed along the stalks. Photo by Bartosz Kolata |
The last thing was applying the beads in the background, for starry night sky. I used German silver beads and red coral beads, with single stitches in silver thread for gleams.
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| Pic.5: The stars and planets embroidered in beads and silver thread, photo by Bartosz Kolata
The piece has found the best home: it is now in rural France, in the house of my very good Friends. The best place for it: Beth and Steve are both Gardeners!
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