Goldwork

Design

I chose the peacock because a SCAdian, who was a relative stranger to me then, showed me an amazing kindness. She likes peacocks and I had wanted to do something nice for her.  I found a card that had this image on it, and thought I would embroider it onto something, but never quite know what.  

When I was sick last summer I stumbled upon Sarah Homfrey's goldwork YouTube channel and the idea to do the peacock using goldwork was born.  It's been in process since then (summer of 2023) and I finally finished it at Panteria (2024). 

Process

I remembered hearing about pouncing so I looked it up on the internet. There are a lot of sites that talk about it. I probably could have watched some more videos, but after all the pricking of holes I was eager to get the chalk onto the fabric and start the embroidery. 

(pricking and pouncing is known at least in the 14th century embroidery - according to this article referring to Evelin Wetter, in her article “England and Central Europe”, in English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum,

Pricking and Pouncing. 

I used a quilters pin to poke tiny holes in the parchment paper, following the outline of the peacock.  Then I pinned the paper to the cloth that was held taut in an embroidery hoop.  I used ground chalk and a fine brush to dab the chalk onto the paper.  

The first try was very blurry - So I wiped of the cloth and tried again. The second time I was sure to tap of excess chalk from the brush, and I tapped gently and did not rub the brush side to side at all.  It came out more clear. 

 I traced the chalk lines with a fine tipped, white, paint pen.  Then I started doing the embroidery on the flowers at the base.  

I used silk threads for the embroidered portion of this project. I ended up using only 2 types of gold thread.  One was a jewelers wire, the other a gold embroidery thread. I tried the gold wrapped thread I had, but I decided it was too bulky for the quills of the feathers. 

I have figured out the backs of these things are not neat.  So the piece of fabric was going to have to be lined with something.  

From there it was an easy leap to making it into a pouch.  I was at Panteria when I finished the embroidery, so I hand sewed the lining into the pouch.  I fingerloop braided the cord so it can hang from a belt, or be worn across the shoulders. The bag cinches closed when both drawstrings are pulled. 

Thoughts

If I do goldwork again, I'll use bigger designs to do the goldwork on. So it can be more impressive. And I'll get serrated scissors to cut the gold wrapped thread.