Table of contents for Fall 2018 in PieceWork

Embark with us on a PieceWork journey that celebrates “fine work.” We travel the globe and present examples of especially fine embroidery, knitting, needlepoint, and crochet. In trying to describe the textiles shown in this issue, the words “intricate” and “exquisite” seem, at best, inadequate. Your journey begins with the four examples shown here. These are embroideries worked by Miao women in the Guizhou province of China. The Miao tradition of embroidery is long—spanning centuries upon centuries to the present—and storied. The embroiderers use a wide variety of techniques; among them are the two shown here. The examples at top and bottom left are cross-stitch; the other two are folded cloth piecework. In all four, the stitches are so tiny, they are almost imperceptible. These are from the collection of…

This excerpt of Chapter 1 from The Queen’s Embroiderer: A True Story of Paris, Lovers, Swindlers, and the First Stock Market Crisis by Joan DeJean is included here with permission of the publisher. This exceptional and thoroughly researched book follows two prominent Parisian families from the 1600s to the French Revolution (1789–1799). Published in May 2018, the book is available at retailers nationwide; for more information, visit www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-queens-embroiderer-9781632864741.…

The Peking knot, a signature stitch of ancient Chinese embroidery, comes with a resumé clouded by the twin mists of myth and misinformed opinion. It suffers from identity issues, too. Like other embroidery stitches, the Peking knot is known by various names: Pekin knot, Chinese knot, blind knot, and forbidden knot. The last two of these—blind knot and forbidden knot—have given rise to more than one entertaining theory concerning the knot and its history. The Peking knot was branded the “blind knot” by those who believed tales of embroiderers going blind from working this often-tiny, always-exacting stitch—a riveting indictment that is largely untrue. Some further believed the stitch was forbidden by law for the same reason, which is equally untrue. It is more likely that a lifetime of long, grueling…

Published in 2017 by Thrums Books (Loveland, Colorado), Embroidering within Boundaries: Afghan Women Creating a Future by Rangina Hamidi and Mary Littrell is a celebration of the women of Kandahar Treasure, focusing on their magnificent embroidery and their everyday lives. If you are interested in traditional textiles, women’s work, counted-thread embroidery, and empowering women to make better lives for themselves and their families, you will want this book. It’s an engrossing read, detailing the women’s struggles, their achievements, and their dedication. That the photographs are stunning is icing on this cake. The book is available at www.clothroads.com/product/embroidering-within-boundaries-afghan-women -creating-future.…

The bookmark presented here is based on a Szontagh sisters design: Pattern Number 274, “Epaulette with Round Roses and Cherries.” As an epaulette, it was meant to be paired with a collar (Number 46a) and cuffs (Number 46b). I simplified the design by removing a clover and changed the dimensions to fit modern crochet threads, as the original materials are no longer available. MATERIALS • Anchor Artiste Mercer Crochet, size 100, 100% cotton thread, about 429 yard (392 m)/20 gram (0.7 oz) ball, 1 ball of White • Rowan Summerlite, 100% cotton yarn, DK weight, about 142 yard (130 m)/50 gram (2 oz) ball, 1 ball of White for packing cord • Crochet hook, steel, size 0.6 mm • Thin cardboard, for template • Transparent adhesive paper, to cover template…

The gloves knitted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on the tiny Estonian island of Muhu were exquisitely flamboyant and knitted at a very tight gauge. Muhu women used their favorite colors—fluorescent pink and bright orange—in abundance, even for men’s gloves! These fine gloves were usually made for the dowry, and a bride may have given up to a hundred pairs to her new family. Although Muhu gloves were later used extensively as inspiration for items with fewer stitches per inch and simplified patterns, this project invites you to knit an authentic pair of Muhu gloves at the traditional gauge. Fine metal double-pointed needles, fine woolen yarns, and the willingness to knit very, very tightly are required. Muhu gloves pose a true challenge: can you knit like women…

If your fancy turns to fine knitting, you’ll find a wealth of patterns and inspiration in the Weldon’s Practical Needlework series. Published as monthly newsletters starting around 1885, each leaflet related to a specific textile handcraft. Three years later, the company began consolidating leaflets into annual books with a variety of crafts (not always the same combination) represented. The projects were indeed practical—garments, accessories, toys, items for home decoration, and technique instructions. Between 1999 and 2005, Interweave published facsimile editions of the first twelve volumes of Weldon’s. I treasure my copies because I find so much to learn and try in these books, especially in the knitting and crochet sections. Working from nineteenth-century patterns takes some knowledge about yarn qualities, needle sizes, and stitch names, as well as enough knitting…

Whenever I think of lace traditions, I go back to what I consider my roots: Orenburg. My first lace-knitting class was with Galina Khmeleva in 2010. She called me “Katia” all day, and I fell in love with her stories and the clever elements and construction of gossamer shawls. My personal life over the last year has been undergoing change, and this piece represents that. Some parts are moving at lightning speed, yet in other aspects I’m learning to slow down, listen, and enjoy the beauty around me. This stole is of the Orenburg tradition with gossamer construction using Diagonal, Strawberry, and Mouse Print patterns. MATERIALS • Treenway Silks Go¯kana, 80% bombyx silk/20% cashmere yarn, laceweight, 1,570 yard (1435.6 m)/100 gram (3.5 oz) skein, 1 skein of #213 Celadon •…

Exquisite Case Needle cases in brass and exotic woods from Heritage Crafts By Jen make a perfect gift for any needleworker. Each case holds needles up to 2½ inches (6.4 cm) long, and each is designed not to roll on flat surfaces. Select from bocote, cedar, chakte coc, cocobolo, koa, maple, rosewood, and goncalo alves (shown). www.heritagecraftsbyjen.etsy.com. Silky Smooth Working with fine threads such as silk floss requires that your hands be smooth and soft. Eucalan’s Wrapture Balm, created in collaboration with noted knitting and crochet designer Kristin Omdahl, will help soothe the driest skin. This lightly scented vegan balm contains essential oils and absorbs quickly. Shown in Jasmine. www.eucalan.com. Colors of Fall Thread your needle with the latest shades of Watercolours, a hand-dyed Pima cotton thread from The Caron…

• Bring the needle up through the fabric and extend the thread horizontally to the right (Figure 1). • Make a small counterclockwise loop above the extended working thread (Figure 2). • Flip the loop to the left (Figure 3). • Place tip of thumb or finger on top of the loop and pull gently on the needle to reduce the loop’s size (Figure 4). Although the knot can be any size desired, it should be drawn almost closed, leaving a small area left open in the center. If multiple Peking knots are required for the design, take care to make them all the same size. • Sink the needle back through the fabric in the center of the loop (Figure 5). The sinking point should be close to but…

Knitting history has always been the little sister of textile research. But an innovative project led by the Centre for Textile Research in Copenhagen is asking knitters for help, including digging deep into their stashes of yarn to put that right. Knitting in Early Modern Europe (KEME) is a European Union–sponsored project with the aim of expanding knowledge of the origins and development of knitting from 1450 to 1750. A systematic and scientific way of examining the evidence for exploring knitting from that period is under discussion, and an experimental archaeology project is seeking suitable fleece for fulling knitted fabric in order to reconstruct the headwear ordinary people wore during the Renaissance. The project has so far focused on knitted caps from the sixteenth century held in museum collections in…

The oldest knitted infant garments, which may have been designated for a special event such as baptism, date from the seventeenth century. One, housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, is a baby jacket made of fine two-ply cotton. It was knitted in the round and slashed down the front. It is embellished with geometric motifs and has decorative false seams. Modern christening gowns did not appear until after 1700, when more families began to have enough wealth to be able to show it off. Most gowns, as today, were constructed of cloth. Paintings of the time show infants and children of both genders wearing long white, lace-trimmed dresses. A handknitted baptismal gown would have been unheard of before 1800. Only poor people knitted, and what they knitted…

Exhibitions San Francisco, California: Through April 28, 2019, and September 22, 2018–January 6, 2019. Fans of the Eighteenth Century and Contemporary Muslim Fashions, respectively, at the de Young Museum. (415) 750-3600; www.deyoung.famsf.org. Lincoln, Nebraska: Through September 16. War and Pieced: The Annette Gero Collection of Quilts from Military Fabrics, at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum. (402) 472-6549; www.quiltstudy.org. Albuquerque, New Mexico: Through October 14. American Jewelry from New Mexico, at the Albuquerque Museum. (505) 243-7255; www.albuquerquemuseum.org. New York, New York: Through October 8. Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (212) 535-7710; www.metmuseum.org. New York, New York: September 7, 2018–January 5, 2019. Pink: The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color, at The Museum at FIT, Special Exhibitions Gallery. (212) 217-4558; www.fitnyc.edu/museum.…

The Tree-of-Life design is versatile—motifs from this pattern can be used to create cushions, seat covers, bookmarks, pincushions, bell pulls, and more, ranging from medium to tiny sizes depending on the thread count of the ground fabric or canvas used. For this project, I chose forty-eight-count silk gauze and cotton embroidery floss. Both are easier to work with than the fifty-six-count silk gauze and silk thread that I used in my Tree-of-Life Carpet. The word “gauze” is somewhat of a misnomer; it’s actually a form of needlepoint canvas—a tiny grid with open squares that are called “holes.” The fewer the count number, the larger the holes; as the count number increases, the size of the holes shrinks. I hope you will enjoy this introduction to the worlds of miniatures, silk…

The Tudor Child: Clothing and Culture 1485 to 1625 by Jane Huggett and Ninya Mikhaila (Nottingham, England: The Tudor Tailor, 2013) includes instructions for knitting and fulling the cap shown here for a six-year-old child. For more information on the book, visit www.etsy.com/listing/123353013/the-tudor-child-clothing-and-culture?ref=shop_home_active_1.…

When I first discovered the marvelous and varied knitting of Estonia, I realized at once that it contained a wide range of intriguing and intricate color patterns as well as many techniques unknown to me. What I didn’t realize was how very fine some of the knitting was. Because the images of items I first saw were either drawings or reproductions of old photographs, it was hard to get a sense of the fabric. When I was able to visit Estonia and see the objects of my passion with my own eyes, I was truly astounded at the fineness of the yarn and the fine stitch gauges. For older items, the yarn, of course, was spun by hand. By the late 1800s, Estonian knitters gained access to manufactured or “shop-bought”…

This long-awaited revised and updated edition of Beth Brown-Reinsel’s Knitting Ganseys (the original was published by Interweave in 1993) is a beautiful and loving celebration of traditional sweaters originally worn by people in fishing villages on the coasts of Great Britain. Brown-Reinsel thoroughly explains how to knit a gansey and provides nine glorious patterns with step-by-step instructions, charts, and schematics. Each pattern incorporates traditional gansey motifs and construction methods. Find Beth Brown-Reinsel’s Knitting Ganseys: Techniques and Patterns for Traditional Sweaters at your local yarn retailer or bookstore or online at www.interweave.com/store/knitting-ganseys-18kn01. We think you will fall in love! Chapters • What Is a Gansey? • Getting Started and Casting On • Ribbings and Welts • The Lower Body • Pattern Motifs • The Underarm Gusset • The Upper Body and…