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