Embroidered Coif

Outline of design

While I'm waiting on my contrast color of yarn to arrive for the 17th century jacket I decided to try my hands at embroidery.  A lot of garments from that time are elaborately embroidered - my guess is anything that didn't run away got embellished.  I'm going to be prudent and start small - a coif from Seventeenth-Century Women's Dress Patterns Book 1 with blackwork and gilt thread in double-plait stitch.  Because embroidery isn't one of my strong suits, and I have a very expensive, under-utilized industrial embroidery machine, I decided to work out the design on the computer and machine-embroider the design's outline.   Cheating? Absolutely.  But if it means there's a chance I can finish an embroidered coif before the next snowfall in Houston it will be worth it.  The gold-plait stitch will have to be done by hand as there is no way to emulate that with an embroidery machine.

Detail of Double-Plait practice

Much of the blackwork on the original piece has deteriorated, but you can see the stitch holes and thread remnants to get a general idea of the fill.  So the embroidery machine did a running stitch of the blackwork outline, which leaves me with filled in areas and double-plait by hand.  I actually think I did a pretty decent job for a first attempt.  Not perfect, and there's a big knot where the thread got tangled, but I think I'll be okay with a little more practice.