Stumpwork

During the 17th century, a highly decorative technique of raised embroidery became popular in Britain for use on pictures, caskets and mirror frames. We know it today as stumpwork. This book introduces the reader to the charm of surviving pieces, with their costumed figures and fantastic birds and animals, thickly scattered across the ground fabric with a fine disregard for scale or proportion. The technique offers exciting possibilities to embroiderers wishing to produce contemporary stumpwork and the author shows how to combine the techniques of the 17th century with modern design. Methods such as applique, canvas and calico slips, padding, stiffening with wire, making purling and wrapping are considered, and assembling figures and modelling in clay are also dealt with. The book goes on with a chapter on stitches; not only those used in historical stumpwork, but also the many other stitches which give raised effect. Advice is offered on making a sampler for reference, and finally a chapter on design looks at subject matter suitable for interpretation in stumpwork, and suggests innumerable directions for contemporary work.
Finally, the author looks at some of the successful examples of modern work illustrated in the book, and analyzes the methods by which these inventive pieces have been executed. Muriel Best is the co-author of "Needlework School".