Found via Permanent Record
Check out this knitted Anne Boleyn with a detachable head. She’s planning on doing more and releasing the basic pattern. It’s probably a good thing I don’t knit since I’m already working on the Six Wives in cross stitch and have plans for a Six Wives quilt!
TOO too hysterically funny!!!
If anyone knows of printed cross stitch canvas or kits of Elizabethan patterns, I would appreciate the link. Not portraits of the people, but the patterns of plants and animals, etc….thanks
I’ve mostly seen people and buildings for cross stitch, but I have a couple of books of needlepoint designs (which can obviously be used for cross stitch) that are medieval-inspired. Mostly flowers and animals, inspired from manuscripts and tapestries (which run into the Renaissance period). They could be used for needlepoint too, like the designs thought to have been done by Mary QOS and Bess of Hardwick.
If you’re interested in period stuff, blackwork of course was popular and there is growing interest in it, so you can find books and websites with info and patterns. There are some neat reproductions of coifs and such from the V&A (I think) that some serious costumers have done.
And if that wasn’t enough, there is also Elizabeth and Jacobean crewel embroidery, which I’ve seen some kits and books for.
Maybe I should look at the crewel embroidery. I was thinking of the needle work that Bess and Mary did – that was my original wish. I saw a kit in the giftshop at Holyrood Palace but it was so outrageously expensive I couldn’t bring myself to it.I hadn’t thought of blackwork, but maybe I’ll give it a rethink.
I’m not ready to work on costume pieces. Can’t commit to something that massive. (Although I have been trolling the web for costume ideas and so far have decided that the bodice must have shoulder straps.)
If you have a favorite book in this area, I am open to suggestions. (As though I have any time at all for this – but c’est la vie)
The stuff Mary and Bess did was mostly needlepoint, IIRC. I’ve also seen the expensive kits for reproductions of those pieces, but I don’t recall finding just the patterns.
Oh, I just remembered a place you can find some neat historically-inspired kits – Textile Heritage. When you mentioned that about the gift shop, it reminded me since I’ve bought lots of their kits at castle gift shops. 🙂 Silly me… I’ve got the Tudor rose cross-stitch drink coaster sitting right here next to me!
Most of the stuff I stitch I tend to find through British needlework magazines. New Stitches was the one I started with (and where my Six Wives patterns are coming from). It’s not like I have tons of time to play with the needle and thread these days, but I try to find a little time since it is a stress-reliever for me.