About 15 years ago, I attended a lecture by Ms H.E.M. Cool. She is the author of the book 'Eating and drinking in Roman Britain'. One of my favourite books on archaeology. But that lecture was nothing I thought it would be. Instead of an overview on small finds related to food and drink in Roman Britain, we got a highly controversial lecture on the stark domination of female archaeologists in small finds. Female domination sounds good, doesn't it? Wrong. It is bad. You see, many female archaeologists end up as a finds specialist. You are in the office instead of in the field and this career path can be combined with raising children, supporting a husband in his career or simply with having a catastrophic period each month. So far, so good. However, we do not live in a perfect world. When a workforce is dominated by women it gets taken less seriously (think elementary school teacher, nurse, etc.). Payment goes down. Fewer men enter as the overall perspective of making promotion diminishes. As a result, the workforce becomes even more 'girly'. Ms Cool spoke to a mainly female audience. Ms Cool was very angry; that sacred kind of angry. Not because she wanted to drag some younger female archaeologists through the mud, but because she cared deeply. Nevertheless, no doubt, some thought of her as a traitor. On me, she made a lasting impression. What does this have to do with medieval embroidery? Read on!

Research into historical textiles is dominated by women too. This wasn't always the case. We had Joseph Braun and Louis de Farcy at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and Donald King who died in 1998, to name a few. But when more people got an academic education, more women ended up in textile research and fewer men entered the discipline. I don't want to speculate about why so many women ended up in textile research. The 'why' doesn't matter. What matters is that the discipline became female-dominated. And with it, it lost its serious character. Some people, who started out as brilliant researchers on medieval embroidery, switched to studying paintings instead (Saskia de Bodt). Better career opportunities there, no doubt. Academics involved in the recent high-profile research project on the Imperial Vestments were told that 'university isn't a Kindergarten' when they tried to recreate stitch plans.

So, what do we do when a discipline such as embroidery research is not being percieved as serious? We make sure that we adhere to academic standards and that we are professional. And here comes the controversy of my plea. If we want to be seen as serious researchers in a mature discipline, we cannot quote: comments from Facebook groups on historical embroidery, generic introductions in embroidery project books, blogs by hobbyists who do not state their references, etc. However right these sources might be. We usually have no means of verifying them. If you cannot verify a source it does not pass academic standards and it should thus not be used. It is perfectly fine to use any of these sources as your starting point for more research. And you should credit them accordingly. Bluntly copying them, even with a proper reference, should be avoided at all times. Does this mean that only academics have a monopoly on proper research? No. Anyone who states his or her sources which then can be verified produces proper research and is thus a totally valid source.

Here is another story from the days when I was still an archaeozoologist. When I publicly defended my doctoral thesis, one of my examiners was not an archaeologist, nor a biologist or a veterinarian, instead, he was a historian. And he hated my thesis. Analysing thousands of medieval animal bones from older sub-standard archaeological excavations and then translating the results into a 500-year history of husbandry strategies and trading with animal products does not produce many definitives or truths. Instead, you need to eat humble pie and use the words 'possible', 'probably' and 'might' a lot. Back then, older historians were not used to this. When you work with written sources they surely must be true! What does this have to do with medieval embroidery? Read on!

Those who have taken my Medieval Embroidery Course know that research is never finished. Got new evidence? The narrative changes. A 'possible' becomes a 'probable' or the idea is dropped altogether. This resulted in an updated course for the second run and then again an updated course for the third run. And no doubt, things being tested out by the students of the third run will influence any future runs of the course. I am still learning every day about medieval embroidery practice. And I need my students very much to point me to things I haven't thought of myself. But. And this is an important but! All their ideas need to hold up to academic scrutiny. They need to be verified before they can become part of my academic research.

Going to university and being trained to become an academic means that you are being equipped with a set of skills. You could view this as a toolkit. Learning these skills takes time and professionals who teach them to you. Just like with any other occupation people embark on learning. In the case of becoming an academic, learning to verify sources and to validate sources is probably the most important skill they'll teach you. People seem not to be born with this skill.

Some people say that we live in a post-truth era. As academics sometimes err there is no truth and all opinions are equally valid. For instance, the opinion of your barber on vaccination is as valid as your family doctor's opinion on vaccination. Really? Personally, I do not want to live that way. It has prevented humanity so far from taking decisive action to avert climate change and to properly react to the pandemic (a small cog in the machine called climate change). It also massively threatens our democracies. Alternative facts, anyone?

It is clear to me that some who read this will see me as an arrogant academic who thinks she is above 'normal embroiderers'. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've set up the Medieval Embroidery Study Group of students who have completed the Medieval Goldwork Course but who want to continue their studies in medieval embroidery. Think of it this way: academics theorising about embroidery without ever holding a needle are as daft as hobby researchers who cannot support their claims with proper references. There are now so many textile societies embroiderers can join regardless of their educational background. If you are interested in archaeological recreations try EXARC, if you like medieval textiles join MEDATS and if you like dress history you might want to check out the ADH. Here you have access to cutting edge new research and you are very welcome to contribute your own thoughts (again: they will need to hold up to academic scrutiny). Contrary to Facebook groups, you need to pay a small yearly fee to join these societies. But remember: Facebook's free is costing society an arm and a leg!

This is going to be an exciting year medieval-embroidery-wise. I have quite a few special things lined up for you all. Most importantly, the third run of my Medieval Goldwork Course is now fully booked. From the introductions, I gleaned that it is quite an international group with many interesting backgrounds that will really add to the study of medieval goldwork embroidery. As I am now quite confident that I have my supply lines secured, I've decided to work with a waiting list. My plan is to run the course for the fourth time in the autumn. You can express your interest by dropping me a line. I'll decide at the end of Mai if all stars line up correctly. If they do, I'll notify the first 15 people on my list. You'll have a couple of days to decide if you want to take the course. If you don't, I'll notify number 16 on the list, etc. But that's not all I have in store for you this year! Read on ...

During the holidays, I've cleaned out my webshop. Shipping has become very expensive due to reduced air traffic. This means that I have ditched most of the physical goods. But fear not! There's plenty left. And, I have even added some gorgeous Italian linen (Sotema). It is of the higher-count-kind. As the holes are really distinct, it is actually easier on the eyes than the more commonly used lower-count varieties from Zweigart.

Apart from teaching my online course, I will also be teaching a weekend-long medieval goldwork embroidery class at the Glentleiten open-air museum. This class will be taught in German and is specifically geared towards embroiderers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. You will make a small sampler with three common medieval goldwork elements. You will also learn to dress a traditional slate frame (included with the course fee). The course will probably take place on the 16th and 17th of July. Once all details have been cleared with the museum, the course will be visible under the 'learn tab' at the top of my website. As a weekend is far too short to finish the complete sampler, this is going to be a hybrid course with how-to videos you can watch at home after the actual event. As making these takes quite some time, I don't have a finished class sample to show quite yet.

In the coming weeks, I will review this lovely book, write a blog post on a long list of named embroiderers from 1425 (it includes some women!) and I will introduce you to another antique bedouin dress I bought last year. Plenty to look forward to!

Soon I will be backing my famous Christmas stollen and I will be taking a well-deserved break from my business from the 24th of December until the 9th of January. I will only briefly return on the 3rd of January for the sign-up of the third run of my medieval embroidery course. And as there are a few things a bit different this year, please read on if you are thinking of signing up. As it doesn't look like covid is leaving us anytime soon, my studio will stay closed during 2022. Unfortunately, there is a lot of vaccination scepsis in my beautiful alpine village with more than a third of all adults not being vaccinated. Having students, who come from all over Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland,  attend courses in my studio (other than my husband and I, none of the other parties in our apartment block are vaccinated) is a risk I am not willing to take. As an alternative, I hope to be able to teach at the Alpine Experience in June. Especially for my German-speaking students, I am planning a two-day weekend course at the open air museum Glentleiten. As soon as I have more details, I will publish them here. And now on to some important information on the Medieval Goldwork Course and my webshop!

The second run of my Medieval Goldwork Course has been a great success. As you know, the course is very much an interactive affair as the students are part of my ongoing research project. None of the medieval embroiderers left us an instruction book. This means that there is less known about the "how" as you might think. During the second run, we felt that some things were not quite right yet. Modifications have been made for the third run and I am excited to see if we are right this time. This also means that it is important that, if you sign up for the course, you do participate. I therefore kindly ask you not to sign up if you know that your circumstances are too busy for this in-depth academic course. Equally, if you are only looking to learn goldwork embroidery techniques, but you are not interested in using the materials provided as they might be a little more cumbersome than the stuff you have in your stash, I kindly ask you to not sign up. There are plenty of other embroidery teachers out there that teach goldwork embroidery. If you are a curious person with a taste for medieval history and goldwork embroidery: I'd love for you to sign up! All details on the upcoming course can be found here.

As I am finally growing up as a business, I'll need to implement many changes to my webshop. The biggest change will be adding 19% VAT to all prices. To avoid this price increase, you might want to shop before midnight on the 31st of December! As shipping prices outside the EU are still ridiculously high, I will no longer sell fragile objects such as goldthreads. Currently, you have the option to have your items shipped in a padded envelope or as a parcel. When you click between the options it clearly states that you should not use the much cheaper padded envelope for fragile objects. Guess what? I am shipping purl and other delicate goldthreads in padded envelopes all the time. And I have to deal with the complaints too :(.

In order to make all the changes, my webshop will be closed from midnight 31st of December until as long as it takes :). When everything goes to plan, the webshop will be up and running again on the 2nd of January.

Brexit, my nemesis. I have written about this before: due to Brexit and me finally becoming a real business, I am no longer able to sell to the UK after midnight on the 31st of December. This means that things like downloadable ebooks and patterns can no longer be automated. The current automated setup would mean that customers from the UK can still purchase and download, but I am legally required to return their money... The new setup will be that I will email your digital product during business hours.

Likely, I will not be able to stuff all loopholes regarding my webshop. This means that I will have to cancel any purchase with a payment or shipping link to the UK. I feel gutted about this, but this is the reality for small businesses like mine who cannot afford the financial and legal steps that are required by the UK government.

That's all for now. Thank you for your support during 2021 and please keep up the good work in 2022! Wishing you a lovely holiday season from snowy Bad Bayersoien.

As we have typical winter weather here in southern Bavaria, I decided to use my Sunday for some uninterrupted me-stitching. No work on course samples, lectures, my website, administration etc. Just me and my needle. And apart from doing laundry, cooking lunch and baking bread, it was indeed uninterrupted :). To show you my progress on the or nue on St Nick, I decided to take a picture at the top of every hour. Enjoy!

For the or nue on St Nick, I am using Stech vergoldet 80/90 by M. Maurer which is comparable to gilt passing thread #4. As the silk in or nue covers most of the gold foil, I like to use up all those pieces of goldthread that are no longer in pristine condition. The silk I am using is Chinese flat silk from Oriental Cultures.

On Saturday evening, I lectured on the origins of or nue for the Embroiderers' Guild of America. The week before, I held a lecture on the development of medieval embroidery for the San Francisco School of Needlework and Design. Both lectures were very well attended and a great success. Personally, I really like the Q&A at the end. It sharpens my mind and offers new perspectives.

If you would like to book a lecture for your guild or embroidery group, please contact me. I am also looking into organising lectures myself. Do let me know in the comments if you would be interested. In principle, I can lecture in English, German or Dutch. It takes me about a full week to make a lecture from scratch. Now that the frameworks are up, I only need to modify them as my research progresses (or translate them, if there is a market for that). As making these lectures has been a lot of work and will continue to require some work, they will not be offered for free. Upcoming lectures are advertised on this page. Do let me know what you think!

Today, we are going to revisit the Uta-chasuble in Marienberg Abbey in Southern Tyrol (Italy). I originally visited the small museum in 2017, but I was never able to lay my hands on a publication. Last week, however, I found the only publication on this extraordinary piece in my favourite second-hand bookstore on the internet. So here comes my updated blog post on the Uta-chasuble.

During my second trip to Northern Italy, I visited the Benedictine Abbey of Marienberg in Mals. Their museum is also part of the exhibition 'Samt und Seide 1000-1914: Eine Reise durch das historische Tirol' curated by the European Textile Academy (you can read about my first trip here). This museum houses one of the crown jewels of medieval embroidery in Europe: the Uta chasuble stitched around 1160 AD. To give you an idea of its importance, the oldest pieces in the famous 'Opus Anglicanum' exhibition in the Victoria & Albert museum in 2016/2017 were a seal bag from 1100-40 AD and several embroidered fragments from 1150-1200 AD. The oldest embroidered complete chasuble in the exhibition was the Clare Chasuble from 1272-94 AD! Similarly, the oldest embroidered chasubles in the exhibition 'Middeleeuwse borduurkunst uit de Nederlanden' in the Catharijneconvent in Utrecht in the Netherlands in 2015 is dated to the late 15th century. High time I introduced you to the Uta-Chasuble!

The above pictures show you the Uta-Chasuble from the front and the back. In the right picture, you also see the matching stole. The embroidery shows a tree of life spread all over the chasuble. Inside the top part of the forked cross, you see Jesus inside the mandorla flanked by two angels and several stars and crowns. Jesus is seated on a throne, holding a book in his left hand and raising his right hand in a blessing. This is the so-called Christ Pantocrator. On the back of the chasuble, we see the Agnus Dei flanked by the symbols of the evangelists. The evangelists are portrayed as winged figures on which only the heads differ (Matthew man, Mark lion, Luke ox and John eagle). Originally, the chasuble would have been a bell chasuble. At some point, probably in the 14th or 15th-century, the sides were cut for easier movement.

Here you see a detail of the back of the chasuble, just inside the forked cross, showing two of the winged evangelists. You can see every silken stitch (they are between 2-7 mm long). In the literature, the stitch is described as alternating rows of stem stitch. However, I think the stitch is brick stitch. This was a stitch particularly popular in the German-speaking areas. You can also see the faint lines of the original drawing. It looks like the design drawing was done free-hand. There is also some couching with metal thread left on the winged evangelists (single metal thread couched with red silk). Two different types of gold thread were used in the embroidery: Membrane gold with a white linen core and gilt silver foil wrapped around a yellow silken core. These parts of the embroidery are so well preserved because a forked cross was appliqued onto the embroidery.

This forked cross was made by cutting up a precious piece of lampas silk. This silk came from Persia and dates to the 10th or 11th-century and is thus much older than the chasuble. The pattern on the purple silk consists of pairs of parrots. These birds are framed with circles filled with Kufic script and small animals. Now, why would you cover parts of your embroidery with pieces of silk? Once the silk was taken off the chasuble it revealed that they covered the seams between the different parts of the chasuble. It turns out that the chasuble consists of seven separate pieces. And they were clearly embroidered by different people. When they stitched the embroidered pieces together to form the chasuble, the difference in stitch length and direction was far too noticeable. That's why the seams were covered with the strips of silk.

Here you see one of the angels flanking Jesus inside the mandorla. Pattern couching is present on Jesus' clothing. Instead of the now common bricking pattern, the couching pattern forms a slanting line. This pattern can be seen more often in medieval goldwork embroidery. The colour palette for the silk embroidery on the fine linen background (43-58 ct) is quite restricted: red, yellow, blue and brown.

Accompanying the chasuble is a matching stola showing saints. In the picture on the left, you see St. Panafreta, one of the 11.000 virgins following St. Ursula to her martyrdom in Cologne. On the right, you see St. Datheus. He was archbishop of Milan and opened the first home for abandoned children in 787 AD.

Oral history claims that the chasuble was stitched by Uta von Tarasp and her ladies. Uta and her husband Ulrich were the beneficiaries of Marienberg Abbey. But who drew the pattern? Was it the same person who painted the frescoes in the Abbey Crypt? And where were the precious embroidery threads coming from? A large quantity of consistently spun and dyed silk thread as well as metal threads. Apparently, the silk threads came from Sicily. Did Uta and her ladies work the chasuble on large embroidery frames in a room in Tarasp castle? How was the work divided amongst the women? How fine were their needles? Did they have artificial lighting or could they only work in daylight? Would there be music played or a book read aloud when they were working? Let me know what you think!

Literature
Hörmann-Weingartner, M., 2004. Die Uta-Kasel in Kloster Marienberg, in: Stampfer, H. (Ed.), Romanische Wandmalerei im Alpenraum. Veröffentlichungen des Südtiroler Kulturinstitutes 4. Südtiroler Kulturinstitut, Bozen, pp. 129–148.

Hurry! Only a couple of weeks to go before my SALE ends. As I've written before, I am radically down-sizing my webshop as a result of the high shipping prices for parcels and the fact that I will need to charge 19% VAT on all purchases come January 1st. Most products are sold at wholesale prices! Have a look at what is still available. Anything not sold by the end of December will either become part of my stash or will be available at the original price + 19% VAT. Smaller items with a maximum weight of 0.5 kilos can be shipped in a tracked padded envelope worldwide for only €7,20. Shop now!

These gorgeous antique whitework stencils are also part of the 50% sale!

Beautiful foil leather for your creative goldwork embroidery! Available in gold, silver and four modern colours.

Many of the beautiful hand-dyed silk ribbons (2, 4 & 7 mm) and cotton perle #8 by House of Embroidery are still available. These embroidery threads are made in South Africa and are fair-trade.

I also have a few packets of wooden beads, round and olive-shaped, left. These are perfect for wrapping with embroidery threads or silk ribbon (House of Embroidery!) to add berries and flower parts to your stumpwork embroidery.

And last but not least, I have these wooden embroidery hoops from Elbesee for sale. These are perfect for displaying your hoop-art!

A big thank you to all those who have placed an order! You help me and my business to move on to the next level!

The majority of medieval goldwork embroidery is ecclesiastical showing corresponding iconography. A tiny proportion of surviving pieces can be associated with the nobility and might show non-religious designs. Absolutely unique are the finds of Villach-Judendorf in Austria near the Slovenian border. Archaeological excavations in 1968 revealed the graves of people who had been buried during the Hallstatt era till the high Middle Ages. Among the younger graves were at least four women who were buried wearing a bonnet with goldwork embroidery. The finds were extensively published in 1970 by Ingeborg Petrascheck-Heim. As far as I am aware, no newer publications exist. So out comes my lovely, always grinning, assistant Elisabeth to make sense of the black-and-white pictures in this important publication.

How come so few examples for "normal" goldwork have survived from the Middle Ages? Gold can be recycled without quality loss. This means that worn clothes were deconstructed or simply burnt to retrieve the bullion. In addition, you needed a certain amount of disposable income as goldthreads, even the gilt ones, were quite expensive; the majority of the population did not have access to them. And even when people were buried in their goldwork-finery, only in exceptional circumstances did these textiles survive. Your best bet would be a sarcophagus in a cosy, slightly drafty, family vault. However, sarcophagi and family vaults are a rather expensive luxury reserved for higher-level clergymen and the nobility. Thank goodness for silver-gilt threads! Upon burial in the ground, the humidity and the larger silver component in the threads form salts that leak onto the surrounding area. In the case of goldwork embroidery, this is the textile component of said embroidery. The salts preserve this textile component. And although we will not end up with complete pieces of clothing as sometimes is the case in sarcophagi, the salt-caked fragments can still tell us a lot about the original goldwork embroidery. This is the case in Villach-Judendorf.

Let's examine the four graves with the goldwork bonnets in some more detail. First up is grave J 57. Even with the help of my lovely assistant, I, as a former archaeozoologist, found it hard to correctly orientate the pictures in the article (see above). I think the suture on the left in the black-and-white picture is the one between the frontale and the parietale. The bonnet sits on the back of the head and the face (bones not preserved) would be towards the bottom of the picture.

Amongst the textile remains you see in the above black-and-white picture is a black woollen bonnet with a design consisting of a nine-part trellis with spirals and trefoils. Unfortunately, the poor preservation of the bonnet does not allow for a more accurate pattern reconstruction. The goldwork embroidery consists of normal couching of two parallel threads with a silken couching thread. The goldthread (width 0.25 mm) consists of a 0.3 mm wide silver-gilt strip spun (S-direction) around a silken core.

Grave J 59 contained a bonnet made of silk on which a repeat pattern of simple five-petal flowers in a circular frame (c. 3.6 cm high) was stitched. The areas between the circles are also filled with a kind of abstract wavy thingy :). Again, the goldthreads are couched down in pairs with 35-40 threads per centimetre. Two different goldthreads are used in this design: 0.25 mm width (0.25 mm wide silver-gilt strip around silk core) and 0.4 mm width (0.4 mm wide silver-gilt strip around red silken core). There is also a strip of bead embroidery on this bonnet. The beads are 2-3 mm in diameter and are made of gilt silver foil. The beading design could not be confidently reconstructed.

Although the remains of the bonnet from Grave J 63 are poorly preserved, they do show that the goldwork embroidery is worked in underside couching. The publication does contain Ingeborg Petrascheck-Heim's reconstructed of the pattern. For the embroidery, two parallel threads are couched with a single stitch. The couching thread itself has not survived (probably thus linen) but the characteristic loops of goldthread at the back of the silk twill fabric unmistakably point to underside couching. The silver-gilt thread has a width of only 0.15 mm.

The goldwork embroidery on the fragments of the bonnet in Grave J 105 is of very high quality. Unfortunately, the fabric has hardly survived but points to some sort of canvas. The embroidery design included roses in a circular frame, spirals, trefoils and acanthus leaves. Unfortunately, it cannot be confidently reconstructed. The goldthreads have a width of 0.15 mm and were couched down in pairs with silk. There are 45-50 threads per centimetre.

The author assumes that, because of the higher quality of the embroidery, the bonnets in graves J 63 and J 105 (and probably J 57 too) were made by professionals. Bonnet 59 might have been worked by the wearer herself or someone else in her household. Where did these professional bonnets or the raw materials come from? Either complete bonnets were imported from beyond the Alps or raw materials were imported from beyond the Alps and fashioned into bonnets by local craftspeople. Certain characteristics of the (design of the) goldwork embroidery and the used fabrics point to a date around the middle or in the third quarter of the 13th century (AD 1250-1275). Although I concentrated on the goldwork embroidery, the complete headdresses of these women also included tablet-woven bands which include goldthreads and very fine veils made of silk. All this luxury points to a wealthy population that buried their dead in the burial ground of Villach-Judendorf. As the name "Judendorf" implies, some of these people might have been Jews.

If you are interested in non-ecclesiastical medieval goldwork embroidery, you should consider buying the publication from Ingeborg Petrascheck-Heim. It contains a full catalogue of all the gold bonnets (they have woven ones too) and 101 pictures and illustrations of the finds. You can order a copy by writing an email to Stadtmuseum Villach. The book costs only € 11 + shipping.

Literature
Petrascheck-Heim, I., 1970. Die Goldhauben und Textilien der hochmittelalterlichen Gräber von Villach-Judendorf, Neues aus Alt-Villach (= 7. Jahrbuch des Stadtmuseums), p. 56-190.

The past weekend, I have been demonstrating goldwork embroidery at the Open Air Museum Glentleiten near my home. Although Covid numbers are sharply rising and the weather was rather drab and wet, quite a few visitors knocked on the door of building 11 to learn all about late medieval or nue. My abode for the weekend was a farmhouse from Sauerlach near Munich built in AD 1637/38. It had a fantastic built-in oven. With ceramic beakers in the oven wall. The air warms quickly in these ceramic pockets and then expands into the room. This meant that I had a constant hot airflow over my neck and shoulders as I was working. I herewith propose a UN stichers charter in which embroiderers have a right to such ovens in their dwellings :).

I started a "new" old project for my demonstration of the or nue technique: St Nick. THE St Nick from "On the shores of St Nick" a piece I have been working on, on and off, for a couple of years now. As I wanted to copy the likely method used in the late-medieval period for working or nue saints, I started by finding a suitable painting. I choose one by Gherardo Starnina painted around AD 1422. Then I turned this painting into a simplified stitch plan. It is believed that medieval stitchers worked from existing models too. After all, plenty of inspiration was on display in every church.

For the next step, I made a pricking of my stitch plan and used some black pounce to get it onto my Sotema 48 ct 100% linen. I then connected my dots with iron gall ink. By working slowly and with very little ink on my tiny brush, I was sometimes able to achieve the same thin lines you see on medieval embroidery pieces. One thing that certainly helps to make very thin lines is using as little pounce as you can get away with. Heavy black dots seem to make the ink bleed more. The rest is: practice, practice and then practice some more. The advantage of using ink over paint: when done well, you can make much thinner lines. This is especially useful when transferring an intricate design drawing.

Then came the fun part: choosing colours! I use Chinese flat silk for most of my projects. It is high-quality and I can split the thread easily in as many fractions as I like. This means that I have total control over thread thickness. A similar thread was used in medieval embroidery. Alice from Oriental Cultures is always very helpful and dispatches my orders super-fast. I recommend buying a real-thread colour chart as there are nearly 1000 shades of silk available. The goldthread I am using is Stech gilt 80/90 made by Maurer.

As I was talking to visitors most of the time, I haven't made a lot of progress :). And things aren't as neat as they are when I work concentrated. But that's okay! I find it much more important to convey knowledge about an almost forgotten embroidery technique to people who, at best, are familiar with tent stitch and cross-stitch. With a bit of luck, I will become a regular at the museum next year!

Last week's simple experiments told me a lot about the anatomy of the modern gold threads we use in our embroideries. But how does this compare to the gold threads that were being used in the medieval period? Before we dive into the literature, a little shout out to my German-speaking blog readers: I'll be demonstrating medieval goldwork embroidery at the Open Air Museum Glentleiten this coming weekend. Do come and see me! And now let's dissect some more gold threads :).

When you are familiar with goldwork embroidery, you probably know that there is a myriad of different gold threads available nowadays. This plethora of forms and shapes is a relatively new invention. Before the end of the Middle Ages, your stash would have looked rather clear and orderly. If, for instance, you lived in England, France or the Low Countries, your threads were probably made of a gilded silver foil wrapped around a silken core. However, if you lived in Germany, your thread was probably made of a strip of gilded silver glued onto a membrane (animal gut) and wrapped around a linen core. Membrane threads (usually with a silken core) were also used in the weaving of luxurious silk fabrics. But probably not in embroideries in England, France and the Low Countries.

Sorry for the use of the word "probably" so frequently. Unfortunately, the makeup of the metal threads used in medieval embroideries is not routinely stated in the literature. And researchers that analyse metal threads do usually not differentiate between thread samples taken from an embroidery and those taken from a woven textile. However, I have a gut feeling that there might be a difference. After all, the technique and motions are quite different. And whilst you can use many threads for both embroidery and weaving, some work much better than others. I do not have many answers yet, as I am currently in the process of untangling the gold threads from the published data.

What I can say is that the twist of the foil around the core in these medieval passing threads seems to be S-twisted. This is also the case in the modern passing threads I took apart last week. However, seeing the passing thread under the digital microscope made me realise that the width of the metal foil is very small (especially when compared to the Japanese threads). How does this compare to medieval gold threads? The number of wrappings per centimetre is hardly ever stated :(. When you look at the close-up of ABM 2107f held at the Catharijne Convent, at first glance, it does seem to correspond well with the modern passing thread. However, if you zoom in and measure the ratio of the width of the gold thread and the width of the gold foil, the gold foil is about twice as wide as the width of the thread. For the modern passing thread, this ratio is about 1:1. This means that the strips of gold foil in a modern passing thread are thinner and that there are more wraps per centimetre. Is this difference important? Does it make for a different embroidery experience? And how will we ever be able to tell?

What also struck me during the second run of my medieval goldwork course was that we use modern passing threads on the two samples that were originally stitched with membrane gold. It works, but would the use of a modern Japanese thread be closer to the medieval membrane thread? Is the paper substrate comparable with the animal gut substrate when it comes to the behaviour of the thread? How heavily gilded were the original medieval membrane threads? Do they compare better with non-tarnish Japanese threads or with the real deal in which a high gold content is used? And what about the core? There are some membrane threads used in medieval embroidery that do have a silken core. But the majority is linen. And from the pictures above you can tell that the modern Japanese threads are Z-spun, whereas the historical sample (ABM t2007) on the right is S-spun. How does this affect the embroidery experience? I am definitely going to do some experiments before the start of the third run of my course.

Please do leave a comment below as I very much welcome your input on this!

Literature
Járó, M., 1990. Gold embroidery and fabrics in Europe: XI-XIV Centuries. Gold Bulletin 23 (2), 40–57. And references cited in this paper.
Karatzani, A., Rehren, T., Zhiyong, L., 2009. The metal threads from the silk garments of the Famen temple. Restaurierung und Archäologie 2, 99–109.

One of the hardest things in recreating medieval goldwork embroidery is finding embroidery materials that are similar to those used in the past. Although the composition of the gold threads used is not routinely stated in publications and museum catalogues, generally speaking, modern threads contain less real gold or even none at all. But what else can be learned from having a closer look at them? Out come the digital microscope and some matches.

Although I have quite a collection of gold threads, I am going to take apart a few key ones that you are probably familiar with too:
- imitation Japanese thread (#8 from Golden Threads)
- passing thread (Stech 120/130 from M. Maurer)
- "real" gold passing thread (Stech 120/130 Echt Gold with silken core from M. Maurer)
- pure goldthread (vintage Japanese from Hauser Gallery)
All these threads have a thin foil that's wrapped around a textile core thread.

Let's start by having a look at how the foil has been wrapped around the core thread. Interestingly, you can see the core thread between the foil wraps in all specimens. The glare of the gold is such that we don't see this with the naked eye. If you click through the above picture gallery, you will see that the two Japanese threads are Z-spun and the two passing threads are S-spun. You'll also see that the width of the foil is much greater for the Japanese threads than for the passing threads. This probably explains why you don't have pesky pieces of foil standing up in tight turns when you are using passing thread. The changes of you "folding" a single wrap in a turn is less. It is more likely that you'll push two wraps a little apart with your couching thread.

To quantify things a bit: there are c. 13 wraps/cm for the imitation Jap, c. 16.5/cm for the pure gold thread and c. 64 wraps/cm for both passing threads.

Let's unwrap the foil from the core and see what it's actually made of. This exercise reveals the biggest difference between the Japanese threads and the Stech. You can clearly see in the pictures above that both Japanese threads have a golden foil on the outside of the strips and a substrate on the inside. It is white in the imitation Jap and brownish in the real gold thread. The latter is very likely a special high-quality paper, but the white stuff might be an artificial membrane.

The foil of the Stech looks very differently and behaves very differently: it really is a strip of metal without another material. It stretches considerably upon unwrapping. In the pictures, you can see that the foil has a silver colour on one side and a golden colour on the other. According to the manufacturer, the normal Stech consists of a silvered copper thread which is then very thinly gilded on one side. The Stech Echt Gold is a pure silver thread that is then gilded with pure gold on one side resulting in a higher karate.

Above, you see pictures of the cores of the different gold theads. All are yellow, except for the vintage pure gold thread which has a more reddish hue. To determine if they are made of real silk or polyester, I have burnt them by holding them in a flame with tweezers. The core of the imitation Japanese thread burnt with a small flame and the smell was one of something being burnt. The core of the Stech burnt with angry sparks and there was no smell at all. The core of the Stech Echt Gold burnt very quickly with a faint smell of something being burnt. The core of the Pure Gold thread burnt very quickly, but I could not detect a smell. The results hint at the core of the imitation Jap being cotton, the core of the Stech being artificial and the cores of the Stech Echt Gold and the Pure Gold thread being silk.

How do these results compare to the gold threads that were being used in medieval embroidery? Find out in next week's blog post!