Saturday, July 25, 2009

Brick stitch pattern #16


This is one of the bigger patterns, and I've always liked it. When I first started embroidering I liked it but didn't think I could ever do it. I haven't yet, but now that I made the pattern I know I could do it.

Photographs of the original can be found here. It is listed as late 13th century Spanish in origin, with woven straps terminating in turk's head knots (as often as turk's head knots show up in these types of purses I really should learn how to make them). The colors look to be light yellow, a deeper gold color, and dark blue or maybe purple? Taschen did a beautiful reproduction of the embroidery which can be seen here, it is really enviable and drool-worthy. He also published a really nice pattern. I made my own using the photograph both for the sake of completeness with my own patterns and as a technical challenge. My pattern is very slightly different, almost unnoticeably so. I'm not completely happy with it but I am tired of looking at it. Check out his pattern to compare.

In the picture I set the pattern on a tiled backround of the same pattern. The original isn't made quite this way, but imperfect photograph and wear obscure the rest of the pattern. I may attempt it another time.

4 comments:

Liadain said...

Ooo, like that! Looks like little bird heads, maybe, going around....

Tristán Z. said...

Aha, that almost unnoticeable difference (which I *just* caught) seems to make your interpretation closer to the original!

I'd love to be able to figure out the rest of the pattern.. even where it's damaged, it's easy to see that there was a bunch more going on there!

Thanks for the complement by the way! I look forward to more patterns from you!

Kathy Storm said...

Liadain,

Yes, I thought the same thing about the bird heads. Funny!

Tristan,

I'm still not sure it is quite exact, but it is pretty. I hope one of us figures out the rest of the pattern!

Krista B. said...

Wow! My broidy senses are tingling.