Smocking and Cartridge Pleating

Smocking was NOT another skill that I had really thought about picking up. Even though I knew that some Italian camicie may have been reverse smocked in order to achieve the tiny perfect pleats that you can see in the details of the artwork, and even though I really wanted an authentically made camicia, I just wasn't compelled to go learn smocking.

Then I started looking at partlets, particularly Italian partlets.

Take for instance the lovely partlet that can be seen in two different portraits of Isotta Brembatti:

I don't know if she just really liked the partlet, or it was the only good one she had, or it was by sheer chance that she wore it in two different portraits so many years apart, but either way if you really look at the details of the partlet, you can see that it appears to be loosely pleated with four rows of trim or embroidery on the inside. 

In the upper portrait these lines of pink trim have a zigzag effect, which is reminiscent of the look that you get with ric-rac (mmm...I'm thinking not so likely) or with a basic cable stitch...and now I'm hooked.  I've got to go learn how to smock. It may not have been how that partlet was done or even the one below, but it is certainly plausible and I'm going to give it a try.

Another gorgeous partlet that appears to be smocked with additional embellishment.  

The Italian Camicia

Of the many projects that are going on in my sewing room, a commissioned camicia has been one of the most recent.  The garment is based on the following extant camicia that is in the Museo del Tessuto, Prato:

Construction

I have drafted the bodice of the garment in the same style as the camicia above.  I have used full sleeves that I will not be gathering at the wrist in the same manner as the extant camicia.

I'm not a smocker, and I like the look of the Eleanor of Toledo portrait with the camicia showing at the sleeve in full ruffles so I'm leaving it ungathered at the sleeve hem.

Eleanor de Toledo by Bronzino

Embroidery

Now while I would attempt all of the embroidery on the seam lines if it were for me and if I had 10 years to have this thing finished but I don't, so the plan was that the hand embroidery that I have chosen will be around the neckline only.  I have considered doing some machine embroidery along the seam lines but I'm thinking that I may do only the handwork at the neck.

One disadvantage of this project is that I did not choose the materials and the linen provided is of a slightly thicker texture than I would have chosen for myself.  But for the person it is being made for, the thicker linen is a better choice at the moment for a wide variety of reasons.

I have chosen to actually do "black" blackwork with some royal blue accents.  I am not re-creating the pattern in the extant camicia but am using a pattern from the Blackwork Embroidery Archives.as a base with my accents added into the "voided" area between the pomegranates. 

My Musings

When the project is completed, I will post plenty of pictures, but until then I'll have to keep you guessing as to what my project looks like and as to why I've made some of the design choices that I have made.

Updated:  I did decide to put a cuff at the sleeve edge...sort of....there is still ruffling that shows at the edge of the sleeve. 

Camicia Images from: © Roberta Orsi Landini and Bruna Niccoli, Moda A Firenze 1540 - 1580: Lo stile de Eleonora di Toledo e la sua influenza.  Florence, Edizione Polistampa, 2005.

English Paper Piecing and the Impruneta Project

So my latest project for the Society for Creative Anachronism is going to be my own rendition of a decorative pillow that was found in the grave of a very medieval bishop in Italy.  

Bishop Agli was a parish priest in the small town of Impruneta from 1439 until 1477.   His sealed tomb was opened at the end of World War II, where a small pillow, roughly 12" in size, was found underneath the Bishop's head.  What is most remarkable about the pillow is that both the front and back faces are pieced.  Other than a few extant clothing pieces, small relic bag from a Buddhist Cave (dated 600-900 CE) and  the jupon of Edward The Black Prince, we can only look at the paintings and frescoes of the era and wonder if the patchwork clothing and wall cloths that we see depicted are in fact evidence of piecework or interesting weaving techniques.

It is hard in some of these portraits to not immediately scream "Evidence! Evidence!", but we cannot know for certain how the rendered textiles were manufactured.  The Impruneta Cushion and a wall cloth found in a well shaft of a castle in Budapest that dates to roughly 1301-1387,  both shed some light that piecework was not entirely unknown and provided some evidence that some of the textiles we see in the pictorial evidence may in fact have been manufactured using piecework. An excellent article based upon the conservation of the wall cloth is available at the International Centre for the study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, and it does show that not only was the cloth pieced, it was also quilted.  While most research tells you that all quilting prior to the Victorian era was whole cloth quilting, these two textiles gives us a window into a time, where piecework may have been more available than we have previously believed.

The Impruneta Pillow has a pieced top done in a variety of silk fabrics (velvet, lampas, brocades, satins and plain silks) and the back is pieced in wool squares in green, blue,red, black, and pale yellow.  The piecing on the front side is a variation of the following block Rolling Star quilt Block  
while the back is done on point in the modern design we know as The Trip Around the World.

In the Impruneta cushion the solid squares or the Rolling Star Block in the design are finished off as octagons. Then Nine of these octagons are pieced together to make the face of the pillow.

The back of the pillow of which I have not been able to find a photograph on the internet is described as having been pieced together in what modern quilters would call the Trip Around the World Pattern.  Lisa Evans in her paper Survivor or Sole Anomaly, gives a very detailed description of the size of the diamonds, and how the colors radiate out from the center.

In turn I'd like to make my own rendition of the pillow.  I quite simply cannot see as I used to do, and the smallest of the pieces on the front of the pillow is about the size of half of pinky fingernail, so it means that I will be blowing it up some so that I can manage the pieces.  I also want to do the front and back as separate wall-hangings, simply so that I can display them better at events and for use in my own home.  While I don't think that medieval castles had "wall-hangings" of piecework on them as such is shown in the pillow, I don't wish to spend hundreds of hours on a project that will be thrown in my floor and wallowed on by my boys.

I started with this block that I made in EQ and  I made my templates and gave it ago.  I got the first star set made and decided that I had gone WAY too big.

So now I'm back at it again this time with smaller templates.  Will see this weekend how it goes, and if it goes well, I'll post a tutorial next week.

Cathy

Fons and Porter + Mickey Dupre + Bonnie Hunter = Design Mojo Weirdness

Let's start out by saying, that I have learned that I love going to quilt guild meetings, simply because of the programs.  Last night my guild's program, Capitol Quilters  featured Mickey Dupre as the guest speaker.  Her lecture was on choosing a color palette and although I am sure at some point I will ruminate on what she actually spoke about, what I came home with was the images of the quilts she showed us from her collection.  Because of the grandmother's flower garden I am currently working on, I was especially interested in the pieced hexie quilts she had with her.

This morning I got up and was putting boxes away that have been piled up in our living room (gotta get ready to decorate for Christmas you know???) and I came upon the small bin of table toppers that I started based on a Fons and Porter Pattern a few years back  (Back Issue). 

The table toppers turned out so well, I have now made five of them (they are great Christmas gifts).  The hexagon when finished, finishes at 48" from point to point across the hexagon, so they are pretty good sized when they are done.  I've also turned a couple of them into Christmas Tree Skirts, which are really cute.  It is a great, versatile pattern and easy to make.  I eventually came across the magazine issue that the pattern was in at a yard sale, and "fixed" my math issues, which was kind of nice.

So the visions of Mickey Dupre Hexies that have been running around in my head are all of a sudden colliding with my Fons and Porter Table toppers.   So while these two quilt designs are playing tag with each other in my head, I tried to re-focus on cleaning up the living room.  I threw some more boxes in the attic, putting out clutter fires here and there as I worked around the room.  
I moved into the dining room to reclaim the dining room, and low and behold I ran into the "Foundation" Box.  I started the Foundation Box a few years back after a Bonnie Hunter Workshop where she showed to us the miniature log cabin quilt she had made. I promptly came home and created the box.  

The box has two zip bags of strings and crumbs, one neutral-light the other is medium to dark.  There is no rhyme or reason to what kind of fabrics are inside the bags, you will find brights, civil war prints, novelties, etc.   There are a slew of 4" Log Cabin foundation blocks that I'd printed when I first started the box and now there are a slew of blocks I copied out of the May/June 2013 Quiltmaker Magazine that was also from a Bonnie Hunter article.    Once a week I sit down and spin out several of these blocks.  I'm sure eventually I'll have enough to make a quilt and it goes through the strings and crumbs that I create.  When they are finished I put them together in another box where I've been saving them. 

So now Mickey, Marianne, Liz, Mary, and Bonnie are all playing  in the playground of the design center of my brain. At first they weren't together, but then they all became friends and ideas started happening.  If you could have heard the conversation, it went a little like this:

 
Mickey:  Hey, Marianne,  I spent the evening with Cathy's Guild last night, and she's got pictures of my designs hanging out up here.  Why don't we get together and have a Hexie design party here in Cathy's head?

Marianne:  I don't know, the hexie design in our magazine has an awful lot of pieces, I'm not sure she can get them small enough and not drive herself crazy.... But the thought of a party sounds fun.  Let's call Liz.  We shouldn't leave her or Mary out!

Liz: Maybe we should invite Bonnie Hunter she does some foundation patterns for things that are really small..and she likes really small pieces.  Hey Bonnie, come to our party!

Bonnie:  Oh I LOVE parties, thanks for inviting me!  She could use foundation patterns for the diamonds and that would make them so much easier.

Mary:  Oh, that could work, I wouldn't want her to lose her mind you know, then we wouldn't have anywhere to play, and I love to party in her head, she has a really fun place to party in here, so many bright colors.

Mickey:  Let's see the finished Hexies would have to be pretty small.  She's going to have to sit down here in a minute and do some math you know?

Bonnie:  She can use her scraps to make the quilt, that would make her husband happy you know.  He likes it when she can quilt and not spend too much extra money.

Marianne:  All I know is that her copy of EQ is so old, she's going to have to draft the foundations herself and copy them.  She needs to stop cleaning and go find her drafting supplies.

Liz: They are on the computer desk.  Quick somebody tell her to go clean the desk off and maybe she will get the idea!

Mary:  The desk, Cathy, GO CLEAN THE DESK!

[Cathy, distractedly walks towards the desk...sees drafting bag and computer.  Straightens up the items on the desk, puts things where they belong and throws away the trash and returns the dining room]

Bonnie:  This is so EXCITING!  Cathy stop cleaning NOW and listen to us!!!!!  Go draft out this idea before you lose it!

Cathy:  OKAY ALREADY!  I am listening, see me sitting down at the computer....[click, click, click]

So I stopped cleaning and played around for 15 minutes on EQ to flesh out the main idea....and came up with that as kind of a base line pattern. Spent another 15 writing this post and that's about all I can spare for now.  Tonight I will sit down and draft out the foundation patterns now that I have a good idea going, well thanks to Bonnie, Liz, Marianne, Mary, and Mickey.   I'm sure when I've made a few hexies, that I'll have to play around a little more with them so that they finally decide what kind of quilt they want to be in, but for now, the seeds have been sewn,  I've written the blog post, and now I'm going back to cleaning my living room.  



Later Days!
Cathy