HNW - Blackwork

[Carolyn Kayta Barrows]

>1. Find a pattern that has no "floating" motifs - that is, everything is
>attached.  A simple pattern is best, of course.
>
>2. Take a long thread, and put a needle in both ends.  Pull one through the
>cloth so the middle of the thread is in the cloth.  
>
>3. Take a couple of stitches with one of your needles.  You will have
>something like: - -
>
>4. Take your other needle, and go though the same holes, and fill in the
>middle.  You have ---
>
>You have just done reversible Holbein stitch.  Now play with it...
>
>5. Do a straight line by doing a few stitches with one needle, then the
>other, and so on.
>Then do zigzags.
>
>6. Now try a simple pattern.  If you blackwork, you know that you divide it
>into rows or "passes".  Just fill them in on both sides by alternating
>needles.

7.  Hide the ends between the original threads of the weave, where they cross.

In addition to black cross stitch (=Schwartzcreuzstickerei in German), I
have done 'real' blackwork too.  I was pregnant with my first kid and did
one of the 'pregnant Tudors' from the Holbein of Thos. Moore and family - a
'Tudor station wagon.  The undershirt has double-sided blackwork cuffs, and
all the edges which show are finished with buttonhole stitch and a row of
needle lace, also black.


Kayta
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