Fall/ Winter Embroidery 2009
A couple of weeks ago I wandered into a needle arts exhibit at an Athenæum in Portsmouth New Hampshire when I encountered a piece of antique embroidery that looked eerily familiar. The tag said that I was looking at a piece of crewel embroidery from New England circa 1870. The strange thing was that it looked an awful lot like the embroidery I developed for my upcoming fall/winter collection. The only problem was that the embroidery I developed was made with the help of artisans in New Delhi in 2009.
This got me thinking: how can two embroideries from different times and places look so aesthetically similar?
At first blush, both of the hand embroideries use the stitches to achieve a ‘colored in’ appearance. The all over designs have that crawly vine look with leaves and flowers that is called the tree of life. The major difference appeared to be the materials used in creating the motifs. The crewel embroidery was made with wool yarn on what looked like a linen background, and my embroidery is silk on organic wool.
To satisfy my curiosity about the designs and techniques used, I set aside an afternoon to fully geek out with embroidery books and swatches. I looked at the individual stitches and tracked the trend which seems to have originated in India in the 1600s. By the end of this investigation I found my answer with the help of a map of colonial trade routes.
It seems that the British were responsible for bringing the Indian handicrafts to England and then on to America. The Dutch were the first to make the motifs popular by coveting a hand printed textile called the palampore. The palampores served as inspiration for the satin-stitched embroidery patterns that emerged from trade with China and southeast Asia. This satin-stitched embroidery became popular in England, where they began to use a type of wool yarn called crewel to make the designs. The New England colonists in America then adapted the satin-stitch to use less wool and cover only the surface of the design, both conserving materials and making it their own.
New England crewel embroidery was most popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, but enjoyed a revival in the 1960’s and 70’s. There you have it. A brief embroidery inspired connect the dots spanning 500 years and three continents.
As Americans start to get in touch with what counts and DIY project become more popular, I wonder if we’ll see a resurgence of the handicrafts of yore. Because crewel embroidery might be a fun thing to learn, in the summer of course. Crewel, crewel, summer…
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