As we were learning to work the plaited braid well, some things became clear.  One was the importance of the spacing and width of the stitch.  On the historic pieces, you see some ’squished’ braids where the chevron in the center is hard to identify as it is almost upright.  Then there are others where the chevrons in the center are very distinct as “V’s”.  The original jacket was worked with this distinct V.  It became impossible to get this.  I wondered why.  

As I played with the width, thread weight and stitch length it became clear what had happened on our jacket.  The width of the ink lines was a bit too wide.  When we traced the original scaled jacket photos, we traced the width of the finished stitch.  Well, the double ink line width is always about 1/2-2/3 of the resulting stitch width.  In order to cover up the ink lines, we had to reduce the stitch length so the ratio of stitch length to stitch width is about 1/4.  The original jacket was more like 1/2.

I have included here a series of samples which show what you get with different threads, tracing widths and stitch lengths.

Once you have the strips, you wrap the core yarn and you get thread.  The thickness of the core yarn and its composition does make a difference, but I am not going to go into that much now.  The biggest thing that determines if you can use it to make wonderful plaited braid is the wrap.  It needs to be thin and made from rolled wire.  

To help you visualize the threads you have access to, check out the pictures below.  The first one shows you a close up shot of several threads and divides them into the membrane and English wyre types.  I then took two of them – Kreinik #5 Japanese Gold and the #4 Gilt Passing on Silk and bent them into small loops.  The same types of small loops that embroidery of this period required for these gold stitches.  As you can see, the English Wyre type thread holds a lovely loop and it pleasing.  The Membrane thread just doesn’t do it.  

What embroiderers’ are never taught is that their materials have been engineered for some specific use.  It is ok to use them differently, but if you want to maximize the effect  you need to use the correct one that was designed for it.  Membrane threads are designed for couching on the surface of fabrics and the long strip length increases the amount of shine you get.  They also lay well next to each other over the long runs as they are not as segmented as the English Wyres.  So they aren’t “BAD” threads.  They just aren’t designed for making plaited braid.  

So when you wonder why your embroidery doesn’t look like the historic piece – maybe it was because of the materials they used versus what you used.  What I need all the readers to know is that you get what you pay for.  A $3 skein of mylar gold thread will not give the same results as a $29 tube of real gilt thread.  The cost difference is in the base materials.  But it is worth it because it makes the stitches correctly.  Remember that your labor is worth at least the cost of that tube an hour!  

A bit more soapbox.  Our collective ignorance of what we put in our needles (and at that – the needles themselves) makes us all make choices based on price alone.  Our high-end quality material makers have been struggling in the last decade like you wouldn’t believe.  If we continue to make our decisions on our materials based only on $, we won’t have any more choices in a few years.  I know I am preaching to the choir here – tell your friends!  

Tricia

Once you have the right thread, you may also need the right needle to make the work easier.  I recommend a Japanese needle sized #9 or #10 for the larger threads and a size #7 for the smaller threads (Tambours or #345/#341).  The #7 works well for Gilt Sylke Twist also.

The round hole doesn’t abrade the gold thread.  The eyes of modern needles are stamped from both sides, this leaves burrs where the stamps come together.  The burrs can abrade the gold thread (and our silk threads too!).  The Japanese needle eye is made by boring (drilling) which removes burrs automatically.

Because there are few hand made needle makers (I have been told by my Japanese Master that there is only one left), the needles are expensive.  Add to that the export of the needles from Japan.  A needle runs between $8-$12 each depending on size and exchange rates.  They are also not nickel plaited and therefore will rust if exposed to water that is sucked up by linen.  Therefore, I never sell them without the Japanese Needle felt.  This felt is not treated and so still has its lanolin.  The needle is stuck into the top edge until just the eye shows.

Never leave the needle in linen overnight, always replace into the needle felt to oil the needle and also to make sure you don’t loose this expensive tool.  Think of it as a tool – not a needle!  In fact, it was only recently that we started thinking of needles as disposable.  They have become ‘cheeply’ made items and we treat them as such.  In the 1600’s, they were very valuable.  So much so that a contemporary of Shakespeare wrote an entire farce around the missing village needle.  The play is entitled ‘Gammer Gurton’s Needle’ (1575).

You can find the #9 and #7 on my website.

Tricia

It is finally time to discuss the plaited braid in all its gory detail.  First, some big time acknowledgements are due.  There are many people who have worked on decoding the braid.  Many of us have a hard time trying to figure out the directions in Mrs. Christies book – some able to get a reasonable looking stitch and many of us struggling to get anything on fabric.  

Leon Conrad published a different method in Fine Lines in Summer 2003 which was based on his work looking at pieces at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  Linda Connors took his directions and expanded them in an easier to read format.  One of the reasons I haven’t done a treatise on the plaited braid was that I was still confused on what was the correct way to do it.  There has been alot of behind-the-scenes email on this subject over the last year.  Thank you to those who have debated with me – it is great to have such discussions.  

While the stitch seemed to work well and move fast (a very important requirement as we have learned), I was concerned about the beginning of the stitch.  When it starts, it gives you two small straight stitches and then becomes the long parallel stitches side by side that we are familiar with.  I had been working on a book of gold work stitches when I was asked to work on this project.  It was put aside, but I had been photographing this stitch (as well as 38 others!) back and front and hadn’t seen the double straight stitches.  

So we decided to use the instructions as it gave us the right result – but I was confused with the beginning.  Well, a few months ago Wendy and I had a chance to look at the back of a piece of embroidery with plaited braid coiling stems.  We had the time to look for the beginning and ends and the knowledge of what to look for.  There it was – the two small stitches.  I could see why I hadn’t found it before – they are often obscured by the silk embroidery of the flowers where it is started.  So now we knew that it was a historically correct version of the working.  There may be more than one way to skin the cat – I hope to dig out all my photos before I complete the posts on plaited braid and see if I find another start which would imply another means.  I’ll let you know.

Tricia

I need to put an update on spangles up.  I was at a chapter meeting in Maine yesterday and someone asked to buy the tube of silk I was using to sew spangles.  I realized that I had never blogged about what we use and told you how to get the goodies!

I prefer to use a TIRE silk sewing thread from Japan.  The type is Machine Twist (50 weight).  The color number is #86.  It is a dark gold and is very, very thin.  The silk is a highly twisted filament silk and available in 100 meter tubes.  I don’t yet sell it as I don’t have a wholesaler.  I buy it from Silk Things.  If you press the link, you will be taken right to the page where the silk is sold.  I use white for the silver spangles.  It is $4.50 a tube.  

For the spangles for the project, we are using #F3 gold 2% spangles from Benton and Johnson.  They sell them in a minimum quantity of 25 grams which is somewhere around 500 spangles for this size.  You will need to email them to ask for them and a price as I couldn’t find them on the list of products.  If you need only a few, Access Commodities sells them in small vials of 0.25 gram each (roughly a dozen).  Have your local embroidery store order them from Access Commodities for you as they only sell wholesale to retailers.  

Tricia