Thursday 30 December 2021

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, Embroidery Gave to me ...

A Golden Compass

Yet another designer I became aware of through the Cabinet of Curiosities ladies, Cynthia Jackson. Cynthia researches and reconstructs original embroidered artifacts, particularly those from Medieval and Tudor times. Amongst other things, Cynthia has designed a series of embroideries inspired by a fragment of embroidery traditionally believed to have graced the bed that Anne Boleyn was born in. This year I took part in an amazing online class on Medieval embroidery delivered by Cynthia. But before I knew about Cynthia’s research and Medieval inspired embroideries, I came across her Mariner’s Compass. Enough of us we keen to stitch our own that Cynthia was persuaded to offer it as a class. One of the most interesting aspects of this course (at the time) was that it was conducted entirely online. Cynthia is based in Canada and, in normal circumstances, this class would not have been accessible for many of the participants. It was a added bonus to “meet” several people I had got to know through the Cabinet of Curiosities forum.
© Cynthia Jackson/Carol-Anne Conway

Many of the materials and techniques were familiar to me, although, I think this is the first time I have worked with plate and is the first time I have done S’ing. I found it very challenging and was not entirely satisfied with my attempt. Everything else was within my comfort zone but I think the various materials and techniques come together to form a very pleasing design that I thoroughly enjoyed stitching.

Happy Stitching

2 comments:

Rachel said...

I think I've seen more than one person tackling the Mariner's Compass over on instagram. It's certainly looked like fun!

D1-D2 said...

This was such a fun stitch. It was even more amazing to finally meet you :)