Fabric folds, quilting and embroidery...

I have begun to investigate the combination of fabric manipulation through folding and pleating with embroidery and quilting. In addition to consulting specialist books on the history of costume during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I have also found museum webpages to be very important sources.

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Hand stitching … Erica Wilson’s Embroidery Book

(Faber and Faber, London, 1973) also shows the value of searching through older texts for photographic images of historic fibre works. While many of the images in this publication are in reproduced in black and white they still provide valuable information about stitch and pattern placement.

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Hand sewing techniques… A recent excursion through second-hand booksellers produced a copy of Erica Wilson’s Embroidery Book (Faber and Faber, London, 1973). One of the best features of this publication is the clear line illustrations associated with the sewing stitch instructions. The section on couching stitches was a particular favourite, showing the range of couching techniques that can be employed, from Bokhara couching to couching wheels and brick pattern couching.