Morrall and Watt 2008

2. Embroidered Furnishings: Questions of Production and Usage, by Kathleen Staples (23-37)

"There is a popular notion that women themselves copied illustrations from printed sources or that young girls created their own drawings. The majority of objects, however, were drawn by professionals, men and women working in the textile trades." (23)

making a cabinet involved many people: silk women, draughtsmen to tranfer images from prints and books, embroiderer(s), then the joiner who "constructed the thin, lightweight wooden panels and drawers of the cabinet onto which the upholsterer then glued cut-up sections of the finished embroidery. The upholsterer gathered together and mounted or attached all of the finishing materials -- silk and paper linings, metal thread trim, a small mirror, hinges, handles, and bun-shaped feet. He probably also added the glass bottles. As a final step, a leather worker constructed a tooled-leather storage box." (23)

"In contemporary accounts, when a woman of status was 'working,' it meant that she was engaged specifically with her needle and thread. Her work referred variously to needlework, embroidery, sewing, or mending. Related to work is the archaic adjective wrought." (24)

Jasper Mayne, The City-Match

Dame Dorothy Selby's monument epitaph

Damaris Pearce, memorial published by her father

letters of Lady Brilliana Harley

women of all but the lowest classes participated in needlework and embroidery in 17c (28-29)

John Nelham, father Roger Nelham -- professional embroidery designers and pattern drawers

John Overton, "one of the best-known print sellers in Restoration London" (30); purchased stock of copper plates from Peter Stent in 1665

• hand-colored Overton print pasted on the floor of the interior tray of an embroidered cabinet
• "Overton may have supplied the designs to the pattern drawer or embroiderer, or perhaps he contracted with the upholsterer who made up the cabinet. The print served to advertise his business in the same way that Stent's broadsides did, with the inclusion of the business address." (30)

John Parr, William Broderick, John Shepley, Edmund Harrison, George Pinckney -- court embroiderers

tasks were not compartmentalized

"Evidence suggestst that pattern drawers may have offered needlework kits for sasle; print sellers may have provided finishing services. Professional embroiderers may have worked sections of a needlework or embroidery before it was sold to indicate to the prospective stitcher how the composition should be shaded." (35)

"discrete vocabulary of motifs" which the artist drew for his clients

3. "An Instrument of profit, pleasure, and of ornament": Embroidered Tudor and Jacobean Dress Accessories, by Susan North (39-55)

blackwork; curvilinear patterns with small linear fill stitching

"By the 1590s, stitching in blackwork was beginning to imitate the graphic effects of the printed sources that inspired its design; the geometric filling patterns were replaced by 'speckling,' or shading in running and back stitches." (46)

blackwork worked on a single strip, then cut later (see example on 50)

"Operating in parallel with the gendered and privileged nature of amateur decorative sewing was the merchandising of men's and women's handiwork. In addition to plain sewing, knitting, and spinning, working-class women also embroidered professionally. The manufacture of silk threads and silk goods in England developed as a predominantly female trade from the early fourteenth century. In addition to the reeling and throwing of silk thread for emroidery and weaving, silk women wove a wide variey of silk laces (braids), ribbons, cords, and fringes; they also made tassels and silk buttons, as well as such finished items as embroidered gloves." (49)

play, The Fair Maid of the Exchange (1607), shows women running domestic goods shop at the Exchange (49)

patterns taken from herbals and emblem books; motifs lost their significance over time