Agnes berengarii de Girona

Benvingut a la meva pantalla.

Welcome to my display!

I am The Honorable Lady Agnes berengarii de girona, resident of the Province of Silver Desert in the Principality of Cynagua. I consider myself a string artist. This allows me enough rabbit holes to satisfy my scattered tendencies, while helping me to focus on an artform.

My display is more about the process of creating a table covering in the style of those found in Spain and Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is difficult to produce large amounts of needle arts in our modern world due time constraints (like jobs), so that while I have completed specific parts of this table cloth, I have not completed the project itself.

Because we are going through the process, I put my research tools first:

References

Books

Earnshaw, Pat. A Dictionary of Lace. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications Inc, 1982; Dover edition 1999.

Gonzalez Mena, Maria Angeles. Catalogo de Enjaces: Con una Adicion al Catalogos de Bordados.Madrid: Instituto Valencia de Don Juan, 1976.

Haley, Lorelei. Filet Lacis. 2014. October 2014 <http://needlelacetalk.ning.com/group/filetlacis>.

May, Florence Lewis. Hispanic Lace and Lace Making. New York: The Hispanic Society of America , 1939; reprint 1980.

Quinault, Marie-Jo. Filet Lace: Introduction to the Linen Stitch. Trafford Publishing, 2003.

Vinciolo, Frederico. Renaissance Patterns for Lace, Embroidery and Needlepoint. Mineola, NY: Dover Publishing, 1587; printing edition 1606 ; Dover edition 1971.

Websites

Grace's Laces https://pysankigirl.wixsite.com/graceslace

The Metropolitan Museum collections https://www.metmuseum.org

An idea

First tablecloth, photo is mine.

Spending a lot time looking at linens in Catalogo de Enjaces (Mena, 1976). The collection is mostly Household linens not ecclesiastical ones, so they are more practical for SCA use. Using a Vinciolo (1587) pattern, I created my first table cloth. This was a simple cloth with some basic macramé fringe. The lacis is inserted into the linen with a buttonhole stitch to secure it. After finishing this, I decided to create a larger tablecloth to feature more lacis I was making.

I had started a project making a panel from Catalogo de Encajes (Mena, 1977). The original extant panel was part of a mid 16th century Colcha or bedcovering. The colcha had forty eight panels of 11" X 11" squares of lacis connected by 56 small squares of lacis (approximately 2 inches square). To do the whole colcha would be a lifetime project. In fact, according to my translation of Maria Angeles Mena (1977), based on the differing panels and the storyline of Hercules being a bit muddled; it is very possible that the extant colcha was produced by more than a single needle worker. The original stitcher had possibly passed away before finishing the bed cover. I wasn't ready to do that big of a project. I had finished one large panel and chose to just work on four smaller panels, of similar net, that I can use for a table cloth. I have started the process of making a repostero (table square), which is much smaller and will still take a lot of time as I am starting with the making of the net.

The lacis pieces of this project are done on a 7 cotton net (7 squares per inch) from Filet Lace by the Sea. The extant pieces are approximately a 10 mesh (10 squares). These measurements are based on those listed in Mena (1977). However, they are not specific to each square.

Inspirations

A. Spanish, Repostero, 16 century

Catalogo de Encajes, fig.186

B. Sicily, Italy, 16th century

Metropolitan Museum, Accession Number: 33.90.7

(photo by the museum)

C. Sicilian, Italian, 16th C.

Metropolitan Museum, Accession Number 10.95.2

(photo by the museum)

The above are some examples of 16th century tablecloths featuring the use of lacis inserted into linen. These tablecloths; Italian and Spanish from the 16th century. The Repostero (first image) is very indicative of Spanish linens of this era, use of multiple techniques, including cutwork, lacis, insertion work and reticella. All have lace edgings, mostly needle lace, though there is a possibility of bobbin lace on figure C. For my current project, I was glad to find figure B with its placement of four small lacis squares around a larger piece. This gives me a bit of an argument for that grouping. Now, for this tablecloth I will try to use a bit more stitching technique, because... My persona is Catalan and being from the Iberian Peninsula I want to put some more "bling" similar to figure A without going too crazy (seriously, I want to get this one finished before we can camp). I have been looking at how I want to do the hem and decided to go with an easy fringe stemming from a simple pulled work border on the ends with the possibility of a hem treatment using a lace. Lace tends to be the norm for the mid to late 16th century, based on the extant tablecloths, but earlier ones show macramé fringe, like the one below.

These photo details are from the Marriage at Cana by the Masters of the Catholic Kings (circa 1500, taken at the National Gallery in 2015). This is a great look at a tablecloth and towels.

Yes, this is a very complicated piece of macramé work. However, it does show an early 16th century tablecloth using fringe. I suspect from this painting, several others I have seen, that the fringe is only on one or two sides. Trying to find a cloth in this period with fringe on all sides is difficult. Having tried to create fringes, it is nearly impossible to get all sides fringed. However, if you are doing your fringe off the fabric then it would be easier to do so. With this project, I will be fringing two sides using the warp threads of the fabric. The tablecloth fragment to the left is from the 13th century and looks as though the fringe is made from the warp threads knotted to create the honey comb pattern

Most extant macramé is done as a separate piece and attached. Below is a piece of fringe attached to a border of lacis (Italian, 16th c, Metropolitan Museum). If you look closely you can see The fringe has a simple macramé of loose threads brought together to join in a diamond pattern. This is more my style at this level... yeah, I am thinking about doing more tiny macramé .

There were a lot of macramé items from the 15th - 16th century at the Metropolitan and the Cooper Hewitt websites. I was so tempted by this macramé fringe to the left (it has the look of a needle lace, but it really is macramé). I realized after trying to do the first loop set, that I needed to do more work with macramé... new rabbit hole to play in. My goal is to finish this project, so now is not the time. This is my decision making process. "Ooooohhhh, look at all the shineys. I can do this and this and this..." then reality sets in and I need to talk my self down to doing what I can do in reasonable time.

To the left is a detail of a larger piece from the Cooper Hewitt collections.

Short URL http://cprhw.tt/o/2CeKD/
Accession Number 1951-111-67
Object ID 18386791

The Process

Five Panels of Lacis

Here is the inspiration for my lacis. La Luna con escorpios (Mena, 1977). She is stitched using linen thread on a ground of linen knotted net. Based on the information provided in Catalogo de Encajes, there is approximately 10 meshes per inch.

I created the pattern from the extant piece using graph paper, not too different from the patterns used by Vinciolo (1587) I do admit that I like using a highlighter to keep track of where I was.

In progress, Luna took about a year to complete. Each motif needed to be done separately, the central figure was difficult because of the need to make sure the path is correct. Imagine doing counted cross stich with 4 yards of thread. Correcting errors could take hours, I will admit that I often chose to use short cuts to correct errors when I could. However, you often just can't on a big motif.

My take on the original. Again, I used a commercial net, so this is done using a 7 mesh per inch, the tiniest available within the knotted nets. For more information about the process of lacis, check out my article below.

Filet Lace Class

Linen net and in progress...

These are some samples of my network. These are 50/2 linen using 000 needles for my gauge. Since I was doing Luna on cotton 7 mesh, the four small pieces are a little larger than the extant pieces to maintain consistancy.

Peacock and Owl

The peacock is the only pattern from the original colcha that I could get a clear look at. The others are motifs that were visible in the larger panels. However, in the discriptions there were owls, dogs, rabbits, bats and other animals listed (Mena, 1977). This best photo I could get of the extant piece (below).

The Bat

I just fell in love with this little guy, but he was a bit of a challenge compared to some of the other patterns. Like all the peices he is stitched mostly using linen stitch, using a #8 pearl cotton (Commercial mesh only comes in cotton).

Finished the lacis, now time to figure out how to use it.

I had been working on Luna when I finished the little table cloth that was given as a gift. So, I though it would be good to make a tablecloth for my own feasting table. Looking at my options, I saw several decorating options in the extant pieces. While the Italian tablecloths are fairly simple in their decoration, the Spanish/Iberian cloths are rather elaborate. I have started by doing some pulled work stitches, using the instructions on Grace's Laces. I used her instruction to start my pulled/drawn work (Gigluiccio) https://pysankigirl.wixsite.com/graceslace/instruction

First step - pull out a line of threads. This is a linen cambric that I had left over from my store in Tacoma. So much nicer than fashion linens.

Second - start the first row, picking up 4-5 threads of the linen each stitch. The thread I am using is 100/3 linen thread. This is tiny work and the Londonderry linen works well. There is no information on the threads used within the information I have accrued, so I am using threads that are commonly used in modern lace work. They are sturdy and do well with the tugging of the stitch.

Third - come back the opposite way, connecting the bundles as you go. It works best to use a frame of some sort.

Looking at the extant tablecloths many were done in a bit of a patchwork. Insertion laces were used to create decoration while enlarging the fabric to the measurements of the tables. Modern linen comes in widths that allow one to use a single piece of fabric.

Fourth - starting the fringe. Pulling threads out.

Fifth bundling the threads and tying knots similar to the fringe mentioned above. I chose to make the fringe using the weft threads instead of creating a separate trim. This was for time and energy.

Not done yet...

I am still trying to think about what I need to do to finish this project. I may do some pulled work in between the lacis panels. The Spanish often used a lot of embellishment on their linens, but I am not that ambitious, so will try to maintain the flavor, but try to finish before I die. I am also working on making a repostero, using linen net, but that is a long term project.

Thank you for looking at my display.

Trying a little bit of a layout for the tablecloth . Luna is in the middle with a couple of the smaller pieces. The fringe is in progress.

Page updated

Report abuse