#crewel project

Piecework, Winter 2022

The cover of this issue features a Jacobean Crewelwork Project Bag by Deanna Hall west which accompanies an article on the history of crewelwork by Jacqui McDonald. This article is actually an excerpt from Royal School of Needlework Essential Stitch Guides: Crewelwork. So you can try your hand and see if you want to pursue the craft further.

You see as well a colcha, Spanish for bedspread or blanket, which also refers to a long, self-couching stitch which is what embroiders this one with flora and birds. Julia R. Gomez wrote both the article on the history of this kind of needlework and offers a lesson and a project featuring a peahen. 

Those Sports Mittens have both a history and a pattern written up by Karen Penders St. Clair whose Grandmother LeRoux first typed up the basic directions. She made them in Kelbourne Woolens Germantown worsted weight yarn, a revived American brand, so you have both pattern and yarn with a bit of history. You see here the outer edge from the Shetland Old Shell Hap and Half Hap, which are a square and a triangular shawl respectively explained by Elizabeth Johnston. While the borders are pretty lace stitches, the body is done in garter stitch, a thick and warm stitch which surely makes sense coming from the Shetland Islands.

I always feature the projects, but there are lots of historical articles on felting wool, on Coptic textiles, and paper packets of needles and on needle gauges, small items that remind us that everything has a history.