Table of contents for Winter 2022 in PieceWork

The wool yarn and tapestry technique meant a wide variety of motifs could be produced on plain linen—motifs that reflected the foreign cultural influences sweeping through Egypt at different eras. We don’t know exactly what type of loom was used to make this fabric. Among the options available were pit looms, horizontal staked looms, vertical looms, and warp-weighted looms. The Clues in the Fragments One way to learn more about the techniques used is to study the textile fragments. For example, the Copts sometimes outlined figures and motifs with natural linen yarn, making them stand out on the dark woolen tapestry weave; this is called the flying-shuttle or sketching-weft technique because a second shuttle is used to insert an additional weft thread into the weaving. Some Coptic textiles feature a…

I chose a peahen motif for this project because it was the first design I was given by my teacher when I learned colcha embroidery in the late 1970s. Today, I often use the peahen motif when I am teaching new colcha embroiderers. Feel free to choose your own colors for this project and make it your own. Nature may have dressed the peahen in dull colors for hiding her eggs in the grass, but the peacock has dazzling tail feathers to lure predators away from the nest. Because I tend to be eccentric, I wanted to dress up my peahen! TRADITIONAL TECHNIQUES AND MATERIALS The colcha stitch is a filling stitch made using a long stitch on the surface of the work that is overlaid with a tacking stitch…

This pattern includes instructions for square and triangle haps in three weights of yarns, allowing you to create a wide range of traditional haps. Suggested yarns and amounts for sizes and styles not pictured here: Triangle Hap ♦ Jumper-weight wool (fingering weight), 105 m/25 g balls, 7 balls—804 yd ♦ Laceweight wool, 194 m/25 g balls, 5 balls—1,060 yd ♦ Cobweb wool, 380 m/25 g balls, 4 balls—1,662 yd Square Hap ♦ Jumper-weight wool, 105 m/25 g balls, 14 balls—1608 yd ♦ Laceweight wool, 194 m/25 g balls, 10 balls—2122 yd ♦ Cobweb wool, 380 m/25 g balls, 8 balls—3325 yd Recommended suppliers: Jamieson & Smith, Jamieson’s of Shetland, Uradale Yarns, Foula Wool, Aister ‘oo’, and Laxdale Yarn.…

In 2017, Courtney Kelley found a mill in North Carolina that could take the whole project from start to finish and applied for the Germantown trademark. Kelbourne Woolens Germantown is made from a blend of wools known as Territory wool. Territory wool (or range wool) is a rather archaic name for wool that comes from the former United States Territories (broadly, anything west of the Mississippi River), but in the case of Germantown, mostly from Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. The most prevalent breeds are Rambouillet, Targhee, Columbia, and Polypay. The natural color of the fleeces has a creamier tone than the whiter Australian or South American wools, with more crimp and body, which makes for a loftier yarn with more bounce. Germantown is a worsted-spun yarn, as opposed to a…

Wonderful Memories! Many of your articles touch my heart by bringing back pleasant memories of childhood as I watched my mother and grandmother create wonderful household items from threads, yarn, and other fibers. My grandmother made exquisite crocheted works, even a tablecloth my sister now uses as a special bedspread. Your article on crepe paper fabric (“A Most Valuable Fabric: Crepe Paper in the Early Twentieth Century,” Piecework Spring 2020, and pieceworkmagazine.com, May 6, 2022) reminded me of afternoons at the kitchen table with my mother, crafting flowers for her hats, dresses, and even handbags. Her box of materials included stems with jeweled tips or perhaps tiny acorns or other adornments to add to the glamour of the crepe paper flowers. Thank you for rekindling my youth! D. L. Hydue…

My love for colcha embroidery began in 2000 when embroidery artist Beatrice Maestas Sandoval invited me to El Rancho de las Golondrinas, a living history museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I worked that summer as a volunteer, learning about the Churro sheep—Golondrinas keeps a small flock. I worked every day with Beatrice learning to spin wool from the sheep and to dye yarn from plants also grown on the ranch. I learned about the history of the Spanish settlers who brought the Churro to New Spain in 1598 and about the colcha embroidery that traveled up El Camino Real from Mexico City with them. I fell in love with the story of colcha embroidery, of how women brought a bit of beauty to the frontier with only a needle…

The women who crossed the plains of what we now call the United States in covered wagons treasured the fine steel needles they brought with them as if they were gold and jewels. These needles would have to last for months and maybe even years. Needles were also carried to North America from Europe and elsewhere as trade goods. In a list of goods brought to New Mexico in 1598 by one of conquistador Juan de Oñate’s soldiers is “400 needles for trading,” along with other necessities.2 Here in New Mexico, the Indigenous peoples taught the Spanish to use the thorns (spines) of the yucca plant as needles and the fiber of the same plant for thread.…

I adore vintage and antique needlework accessories, and the ones that most captivate me are the needle gauges that were made in my own country, Australia. These small notions reflect the country’s social history of knitters and knitting. A needle gauge is a way to ascertain needle diameter: test your needle by inserting it into each of the pierced holes that cover the gauge’s surface until you have found a proper fit. The number next to the hole represents the size of the needle. The number of holes and their range of sizes represent the range of knitting needles most in use with the wools popular in that era. Early gauges demonstrate the small sizes that were once used for very fine knitting and are still valuable today to the…

Crewel embroidery has a long, interesting history, and one of its oldest surviving examples is the impressive Bayeux Tapestry, which was stitched in the eleventh century. Crewel embroidery is defined as being a needlework style made exclusively from crewel yarn (a loosely twisted, two-ply wool yarn) threaded through a sharp large-eyed needle and stitched on a plain sturdy fabric. Not all crewelwork is Jacobean in style. Specifically, Jacobean crewelwork originated and flourished during the reign of James I (Jacobus Rex) of England (1603-1625), previously James VI of Scotland (1567-1625) and the son of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. This beautiful and bold type of embroidery is a style and not a stitching technique and is characterized by exuberant designs of fanciful and exotic trees with curving branches and vines endowed…

My friend Cindy Miller asked me to rework and rewrite instructions for a mitten pattern knit by her greatgrandmother. Laura Rapin (known as Dora to family and friends) was born November 24, 1870, to Francis Exavier and Emily Ranger Rapin. At age 22, Dora married Paul LeRoux, and the young couple struck out on their own to live in Rensselaer, New York, returning to their families, and their roots, 12 years later. Both the Rapin and LeRoux families lived most of their lives in Ogdensburg, New York, near the St. Lawrence Seaway and Canadian border. The discovery of Great-Grandmother LeRoux’s mitten pattern, deciphering the instructions, and successfully knitting the mitten has connected five generations of a family. Both sides of Dora LeRoux’s family—that is, the family she married into, the…

Modern Kogin Simple & Stylish Sashiko Embroidery Projects Boutique-Sha Salem, MA: Zakka Workshop, 2020. Paperback, 112 pages, $19.99. ISBN 9781940552453 I settled down onto the couch with my needle and thread, Modern Kogin: Simple & Stylish Sashiko Embroidery Projects propped up on the sofa arm. At the end of a long day, I looked forward to the patterns in Boutique-Sha’s book, finding the relaxing, meditative counting of pattern stitches to be the perfect way to unwind. As Boutique-Sha explains in the introduction, “Kogin originated during the Edo period (1603-1868 CE) in northern Japan. This type of embroidery was used as a way to reinforce threadbare fabric and add warmth to the clothing worn by farmers in rural villages.” With this new project-based work, readers can try their hands at more…

Tidy Threads Keep your wool organized with these hedgehog floss bobbins from Pip and Chip. Sold in sets of 12, they are adorable embroidery companions. pipandchip.etsy.com Learn a New Skill Try your hand at needlefelting with this allinclusive kit from Bear Creek Felting. The items shown here make this cheerful black sheep (see inset). bearcreekfelting.com Squeaky Clean Kookaburra Wash is a lowsuds, rinse-optional soap ideal for use on your woolbased creations. Its gentle wash formula (shown here) is available in three scents. kookaburraco.com Old World Elegance Naturally dyed and spun in Italy, this crewel embroidery wool from Renaissance Dyeing is available in variously sized skeins to suit your project. Select their Elizabethan Range set for that Old World feel, or create your own palette from over 90 shades. renaissancedyeing.com…

Tens of thousands of textile fragments labeled Coptic are dispersed around the world in the collections of unlikely museums. If you happened to notice any on display during your travels, you may have wondered how Egyptian fabric ended up at a museum in Boston, Brooklyn, or Budapest; why it was significant; and what the word Coptic means. Coptic textiles are often woven with colorful tapestry motifs that look classical—Greek or Roman—to our modern eyes: not what we might consider to be traditional Egyptian style. Designs vary from scarabs to eagles, from pagan revelries to Christian saints. If these wool and linen fragments could be amassed into a single grouping, they’d probably be the largest collection of (predominantly) ancient textiles still in existence. Unfortunately, they have been scattered to the winds…

The Shetland old shell knitting pattern was—and is—so commonly used in the borders of Shetland haps that it became known as the hap shell. Haps are square, but some are now knitted as a triangle—a half hap. The construction for both full and half haps is mostly from the outside, but in a few areas in Shetland, haps were worked from the inside. The way it was done depended on who taught you. I learned working from the outside, and that is what I will share with you here. This construction method was used to create a range of haps and shawls in different sizes—smaller for wrapping baby, larger for workwear—and with a range of yarns. Instructions are provided for three yarn sizes: jumper weight, laceweight, and cobweb. Thicker yarns…

MATERIALS ♦ Kelbourne Woolens Germantown, 100% North American Wool, 220 yd (201 m)/3.5 oz (100 g), 1 skein of #030 Medium Gray Heather (see Special Stitches and Notes) ♦ Needles, size 1 (2.25 mm) set of 4 double-pointed needles, or size needed to obtain gauge ♦ Stitch markers ♦ Stitch holder ♦ Tapestry needle (Mrs. LeRoux’s “bodkin”) Finished measurements: Hand circumference 8" (10.2 cm), length 12¾" (32.4 cm) from CO to end of fingertips. Cuff, hand, and thumb lengths are adjustable. For a larger or smaller hand circumference, increase or decrease needle size. Gauge: 24 sts and 42 rnds = 4" (10.2 cm) in St st. Visit pieceworkmagazine.com/abbreviations for terms you don’t know. Special Stitches and Notes M1: (make 1) Lift the running thread between the stitch just worked and the…

Felted and fulled textiles are both created by entangling fibers and have similar properties. Confusingly, the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. But what is the difference between these two techniques? Felting goes directly from the fiber to the felting process. The fiber is not spun, knitted, or woven before felting. To full a textile, the fiber is first spun, then knitted or woven, and then fulled using the same felting techniques described above. If you weave a woolen scarf and then agitate it in hot water, you have just fulled a piece of cloth. Felting is done to fibers, whereas fulling is done to cloth.…