In needlework, a slip is a design representing a cutting or specimen of a plant, usually with flowers or fruit and leaves on a stem. Most often, slip refers to a plant design stitched in canvaswork (pettipoint), cut out, and applied to a woven background fabric. By extension, slip may also mean any embroidered or canvaswork motif, floral or not, mounted to fabric in this way. [2] [3]
Isolated motifs arranged in rows are common in English embroidery from the 14th to the 17th centuries, and small floral slips were the most popular.
The name slip as used in needlework derives from the horticultural sense, where it describes a cutting of a plant used for grafting. [4]
Canvaswork floral slips and other motifs appliquéd to a woven background fabric such as velvet or damask became common in England from the mid-14th century, replacing the all-over embroidery of Opus Anglicanum. [5] These were worked with silk thread in tent stitch on linen canvas, cut out, and applied to the ground fabric, often with an outline and embellishments of couched thread or cord or other embroidery. Slips were also appliquéd of rich fabrics on plainer ones, similarly detailed with couched cord and embroidery. This style of decoration is characteristic of later medieval ecclesiastical embroidery (and probably of domestic embroidery as well, although little of this survives). Following the dissolution of the monasteries during the English Reformation, rich vestments were cut up and the fabrics and motifs reused to make secular furnishings. [6] Appliquéd slips of both old fabric and new canvaswork are characteristic of domestic textiles such as chair covers, cushions, and especially wall hangings and bed curtains throughout the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.
Elizabethan slips were based on the woodcut illustrations in herbals and flower paintings, such as Jacques Le Moyne's La Clef de Champs, [4] William Turner's A New Herball (published in three parts, 1551-1568), Henry Lyte's A niewe Herball (1578), and John Gerard's Great Herbal (1597), [7] and were intentionally naturalistic. By the first quarter of the 17th century, simpler designs for slips were being published in books of patterns specifically for embroidery, like Richard Shorleyker's A Scholehouse for the Needle (1632). [4] [8]
Slip motifs are also seen in blackwork embroidery, worked in silk, and in Jacobean embroidery and crewel embroidery in silk and wool.
Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen on caps, hats, coats, blankets, dress shirts, denim, dresses, stockings, and golf shirts. Embroidery is available with a wide variety of thread or yarn colour.
A needlework sampler is a piece of embroidery or cross-stitching produced as a 'specimen of achievement', demonstration or a test of skill in needlework. It often includes the alphabet, figures, motifs, decorative borders and sometimes the name of the person who embroidered it and the date. The word sampler is derived from the Latin exemplum, which means 'example'.
Blackwork, sometimes historically termed Spanish blackwork, is a form of embroidery generally using black thread, although other colors are also used on occasion. Sometimes it is counted-thread embroidery which is usually stitched on even-weave fabric. Traditionally blackwork is stitched in silk thread on white or off-white linen or cotton fabric. Sometimes metallic threads or coloured threads are used for accents.
The Bradford Carpet is a canvas work embroidery made in the early 17th century that originally belonged to the Earl of Bradford at Castle Bromwich.
The Royal School of Needlework (RSN) is a hand embroidery school in the United Kingdom, founded in 1872 and based at Hampton Court Palace since 1987.
Crewel embroidery, or crewelwork, is a type of surface embroidery using wool. A wide variety of different embroidery stitches are used to follow a design outline applied to the fabric. The technique is at least a thousand years old.
Needlepoint is a type of canvas work, a form of counted thread embroidery in which yarn is stitched through a stiff open weave canvas. Traditionally needlepoint designs completely cover the canvas. Although needlepoint may be worked in a variety of stitches, many needlepoint designs use only a simple tent stitch and rely upon color changes in the yarn to construct the pattern. Needlepoint is the oldest form of canvas work.
A shawl is an Indian simple item of clothing, loosely worn over the shoulders, upper body and arms, and sometimes also over the head. It is usually a rectangular or square piece of cloth, which is often folded to make a triangle, but can also be triangular in shape. Other shapes include oblong shawls.
Backstitch or back stitch and its variants stem stitch, outline stitch and split stitch are a class of embroidery and sewing stitches in which individual stitches are made backward to the general direction of sewing. In embroidery, these stitches form lines and are most often used to outline shapes and to add fine detail to an embroidered picture. It is also used to embroider lettering. In hand sewing, it is a utility stitch which strongly and permanently attaches two pieces of fabric. The small stitches done back-and-forth makes the back stitch the strongest stitch among the basic stitches. Hence it can be used to sew strong seams by hand, without a sewing machine.
Opus Anglicanum or English work is fine needlework of Medieval England done for ecclesiastical or secular use on clothing, hangings or other textiles, often using gold and silver threads on rich velvet or linen grounds. Such English embroidery was in great demand across Europe, particularly from the late 12th to mid-14th centuries and was a luxury product often used for diplomatic gifts.
Persian embroidery is one of the Persian arts. It uses mostly floral motifs, especially Persian figures, animals, and patterns related to hunting. Persian embroidered women's trouserings, also known as "Gilets Persans", have rich patterns; these were in fashion until the late 18th century. The designs are always of diagonal, parallel bands filled with floral ornamentation.
Buttonhole stitch and the related blanket stitch are hand-sewing stitches used in tailoring, embroidery, and needle lace-making.
In embroidery, couching and laid work are techniques in which yarn or other materials are laid across the surface of the ground fabric and fastened in place with small stitches of the same or a different yarn.
Cross stitches in embroidery, needlepoint, and other forms of needlework include a number of related stitches in which the thread is sewn in an x or + shape. Cross stitch has been called "probably the most widely used stitch of all" and is part of the needlework traditions of the Balkans, Middle East, Afghanistan, Colonial America and Victorian England.
Goldwork is the art of embroidery using metal threads, or threads with metal leaf wound round a normal textile thread. It is particularly prized for the way light plays on it. The term "goldwork" is used even when the threads are imitation gold, silver, or copper. The metal wires used to make the threads have never been entirely gold; they have usually been gold-coated silver (silver-gilt) or cheaper metals, and even then the "gold" often contains a very low percent of real gold. Most metal threads are available in silver and sometimes copper as well as gold; some are available in colors as well. A new coating technology however enables the direct coating of 24K gold on a filament yarn without any other metal or adhesive layer underneath.
The straight or running stitch is the basic stitch in hand-sewing and embroidery, on which all other forms of sewing are based. The stitch is worked by passing the needle in and out of the fabric at a regular distance. All other stitches are created by varying the straight stitch in length, spacing, and direction.
English embroidery includes embroidery worked in England or by English people abroad from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. The oldest surviving English embroideries include items from the early 10th century preserved in Durham Cathedral and the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry, if it was worked in England. The professional workshops of Medieval England created rich embroidery in metal thread and silk for ecclesiastical and secular uses. This style was called Opus Anglicanum or "English work", and was famous throughout Europe.
Embroidery was an important art in the Islamic world from the beginning of Islam until the Industrial Revolution disrupted traditional ways of life.
Bed hangings or bed curtains are fabric panels that surround a bed; they were used from medieval times through to the 19th century. Bed hangings provided privacy when the master or great bed was in a public room, such as the parlor. They also kept warmth in, and were a way of showing one's wealth. When bedrooms became more common in the mid-1700s, the use of bed hangings diminished.
Phool Patti ka Kaam is a dying traditional craft of appliqué style embroidery practiced at Aligarh and Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. Phool Patti ka Kaam was the combination of patchwork and embroidery in which floral designs were created on clothes. The fabric cut pieces formed into motifs and hemmed onto the ground fabric and stems were embroidered alongwith stem stiches.The craft was famous during the mughal period. The appliqué was done on fine muslins, white cotton fabric or organdy. In the past, A large number of women workers were used to be engaged in this craft.