Blackwork embroidery designs

In this post I'm going to share with you a key part of my preparation for my RSN blackwork module - choosing the blackwork stitches.

Blackwork or Spanish Blackwork is a form of embroidery using black silk on white or off-white linen. Learn more and get free designs here.

Blackwork is a centuries-old form of embroidery. In Elizabethan times clothing was decorated with delicate blackwork patterns stitched in black silk threads, and sometimes accentuated with g…

Here are the best free blackwork embroidery patterns showing classic Elizabethan monochromatic designs. Used to adorn cuffs, collars and hems of garments, today

Jane Bostocke's 1598 Sampler can be seen at the V&A Museum here. Jane Bostocke's Sampler at the V&A Museum. Embroidered linen with coloured silk and metal threads, seed pearls and beads. The blackwork embroidery patterns below are from Bostocke's sampler and can be found here (Claudette Ziemann's page).

If you enjoy blackwork - or if you haven't tried it but are keen to - here's a wonderful online resource for an extensive collection of blackwork filling patterns - and it's free! Kim over at String or Nothing has put together a four-part PDF just loaded with blackwork patterns. You can downl

My attempt at stitching the first page of fill-in patterns from Lesley Wilkins' Beginner's Guide to Blackwork. Blogged at: backstitch.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/blackwork-fill-in-sam...

It's finished, done, complete. I will miss the slow pace of the work, the richness of the gold and black, that wonderful experience of doing something new for the first time. However... Ta Da! (imagine trumpets playing a fanfare here...) Here's a close up of the wrapped pearl purl and the

Click here for the video that goes along with today's post. So, you have learned the basics of how to do blackwork embroidery. Now you're interested in creating your own historical patterns, but maybe don’t know where to start? First, you need to find historical blackwork embroidery designs. Here are links to some examples: "Sir Thomas More and Family" (portrait is at the Nostell Priory and is part of the National Trust Collection) "Portrait of a Boy with a Marmoset" portrait is at the…