Working on the egg

The egg is taking shape. Here you see the goose egg with lines from Revelations 5:12-13 in Latin, English, Greek and German wallpapered onto it. The wax lamb has also been painted, and will fit nicely, I think.

Now for the bunch of grapes and sheaf of wheat that I want to work into the decorations. And perhaps I'll crochet some gold lace.

Klosterarbeiten

Several years ago I was able to take part in a one day seminar on Goldwork with Linn Skinner. It was wonderful, it was fun, and it was also a lot of work. I don't remember clearly whether Linn called us back to order when we were tempted to just play with the purl, or whether the temptation and calling to order were all internal. But certainly that stuff is awfully fun to play with. If you've never used proper gold threads, they are couched down with regular thread, and most of them, purl, pearl purl, check ... are really springs.

Last night I had a chance to learn a craft that developed in the women's monastaries of the baroque era. Gold threads and precious stones were used to decorate various religious items. The club of creche makers has a monthly meeting for learning this. It turns out that what it is is playing with gold thread. I spent three hours learning some basic ways of playing. For example, you take a short length of a soft wide purl. You thread it on length of wire and twist the wire tight to form the purl into a ring. Then you squash it with flat pliers and make a simple flower shape. Or you take pearl purl, thread it, and then pull it apart a bit. Now do the twisty thing, and form that ring into a leaf or square or whatever. Then you take 'Wiener Gold' (which turns out to be very fine purl). You pull the end until you have a bit of kinky wire, and fasten the end to your working wire. Now wind the Wiener Gold around your shape either parallel or as a fan, or just wildly, pulling all the while to make a veil of thin kinky wire.

A few times my fibre reflexes got the better of me. We were using a check purl to make another layer around one of those wrapped leaves, and I wondered how we were going to get it to stay where we wanted it without spoiling the division between the veiled inner part and the free outer part. It wasn't until we were done that it dawned on me: this is wire, not thread. It just stays there all by itself!

The time just flew, and I found myself tired but happy, with a pile of finished units just begging to be made into something. I think I'll try to make an Easter egg with a triumphant lamb inside decorated with my little treasures. But I can't stop the little voice suggesting that this all started back in some monastary work room, with a bunch of novices who were supposed to be learning goldwork. The nun teaching them must have left the room, and they started playing instead of stitching. But they came up with something beautiful and convinced their superiors that they didn't really have what it took to become skilled embroiderers anyway. ...

Paraments on View at St. Stephan's

Until the end of the month there is a small exhibit at Stefansdom of paraments from 5 centuries. Actually, most of those on display are 18th century, but I'm never against seeing baroque goldwork. There is one that dates probably to the 15th century, and the most recent is still unfinished. My favorite was one from 1900. Goldwork again, but this time typical Jugendstil scrolls instead of the heavy overall work from the earlier examples.

It's a narrow winding staircase up (two way traffic!) but well worth it even just for the view of the church from the higher vantage point, and when you have this rich treasure of needlework to see as well it would be a shame to miss it.

Embroidered banners

I had to drop in today at the building of the Wiener Wirtschaftskammer - the Vienna Chamber of Commerce. To my great delight, the building has several cases holding embroidered banners. I would guess that the ones I saw were 19th century. They were done in silk shading and goldwork, in a style that I associate with church embroidery. (These, of course, are secular pieces.) Jerry was in a semi-legal parking space waiting for me, and only one of the three I looked at was well lit, so I can't say much more about them, except that I shall have to make an opportunity to go back with more time, and perhaps a light. Then I will go through the building and check out each floor. (I saw two on the 4th floor, so I hope there are more on the floors in between.

Knitting Sampler

Yes, you read that right. It all started when we went to Iceland in June. I really ought to write about everything needle-related that I saw in Iceland...

But of course one of the things you can get in Iceland is really great wool. I bought wool. I bought the thick wool everyone associates with Iceland, and the same thing that runs twice that far for the weight, and the same thing that runs twice as far as that one. And some yarn that isn't really yarn because it isn't spun. Of course the woman at the yarn store said she had experimented with crocheting it, and found it not suitable at all. (She aslo said her colleagues require her to bring in a finished item before they let her buy more yarn now, because her stash is so big, but that is another story.)

That was at the Hand knitters' Association shop. There was also a great needlework shop with embroidery things. I bought woollen embroidery thread (not Icelandic) and black woolen evenweave to use the Icelandic cross stitch patterns I also bought with. That store also had the most beautiful knitting needles I have ever seen. The combination of lovely tools and lovely materials was too much. It didn't hurt either that the book stores in Rekjavik carry many books in English, and I was able to get a good book on knitting.

This is not the first time that I have tried to learn how to knit, but so far the most successful. I have more of the needles on order, and have bought more books of knitting stitches. I am trying to work my way through the books one or two patterns a day. 2 X 250 means that this should take me some time, although I don't promise to do all of them. I am working in a strip of 30 stitches, with garter stitch separating the different stitch samples. I figure that once it gets longer than 1.5 meters, I'll take another wool and start a new strip. Eventually if I really get several strips I can sew them together to make an afghan.

So far I've learned that some of these stitches are really slow going. One I have tried slips every other stich in one row, and the others in the next row. Since you are constantly moving the yarn from front to back to front, and only really knitting each stich every other row, it grows very slowly. Looks lovely though, if you have the patience for it!

Biscornus

Like everyone else, I have been stitching biscornus. I started with whitework ones. The smaller one is the third one from that pattern. (I gave the first one away, but liked it so well, I had to make another one for me.) The third time I varied it by using purple pearl cotton instead of white.

The larger one is wool. I bought the black wool evenweave and wool threads in Iceland in June. I'm enjoying working with them; it's a different feel. I also love the Icelandic patterns I bought.

Just so you have some idea - the larger one is about 12 cm (5 in) across, the smaller one 5 cm (2 in). I have an even smaller one started.

Venice

We spent a week in Venice recently. Mom was able to join us and we had a really great time. I've started putting a few pictures up at http://public.marthajeanne.fastmail.fm/pictures/ if you want to see what we were up to.

One thing you won't find there is pictures of the Museum for the History of textiles and fashion in Palazzo Mocenigo. I found it fascinating. There weren't a lot of displays, but the ones there were very interesting, and having them in situ in the Piano nobile of a Venetian Palazzo was wonderful. At the end there was a display of lace. Not only were there several examples of old Venetian lace, but also partially done pieces, and a Doge's hat made in 1999. After seeing a dummy dressed as a man of fashion, I was dying to peek under his jacket and see how far the fancy embroidery of his vest went. A few rooms further (the Bedroom, I believe) a few vests were laid out, and my question was nicely answered. The really fancy stuff was right where it would be visible under the jacket, but it tapered off in such a way as to make the garment attractive even without the coat.

I bought the catalogue, but it is only available in Italian, which makes it somewhat less useful. For those who do textile research, I should add that the Palazzo also houses a study centre, and without actually penetrating into the library proper, I did get a look at some of the shelves. The books I saw were mostly fairly old- Not old, old, but certainly several decades old, and were in a wild mixture of languages. Italian, of course, but also French, English, German, Russian... and besides books of local interest, also were on topics ranging from Mexican Indian clothing, to textiles from India.

Another museum with interesting textiles was the Hebrew museum in the Ghetto. There were several items of interest, and apparently there will be more to see there next year. The top of my list will probably stay the 18th century lace circumcision outfit.