Before you can begin work on any piece of goldwork embroidery, you’ll need to have certain basic tools and materials to hand. Don’t be put off by this though: you don’t need specialised equipment. You’ll need a general sewing kit of course with needles and scissors (we use the metal thread ones as although they are not essential they do last alot longer due to the serrated blade). You’ll also need to have a sewing hoop or frame (we recommend the bar frame as this keeps your fabric as tight as a slate frame but with alot less set up time)and a general background fabric on which you can embroider your goldwork pattern. The choice of background fabric is a personal one, but it’s worth bearing in mind that, although it’s nice to use a fine fabric it needs to be sufficiently strong and robust enough to be stretched over the sewing hoop, we have found the silk dupion fabric to be the best. Not all fine fabrics have the strength of cotton or linen. Calico can actually be a good choice for a background fabric, but it all depends on the effects you may wish to achieve. It is best to chose a natural fabric as when plunging threads these self heal. You’ll also need some metal threads or wires, like passing threads and purls and finally you’ll need sewing thread for couching, usually in a shade that either matches or contrasts with your threads depending on the effect your hoping for, we have found over the many years of doing goldwork that the Ultrafyne is best for couching, this is what alot of the restorers use.
Basic techniques- transferring designs and basic couching
Once you’ve finalised your design, you’ll need to transfer this to your background fabric which will already be stretched over the sewing hoop. There are various methods of doing this Prick and pounce, drawing it on or tacking we recommend the tacking method. Shapes can be produced by using felt, cut the same as the shape to be worked in metal thread, and lay it on the sewing frame. This is the shape that will be stitched over with gold thread. Yellow felt is traditionally used for goldwork, or white or pale grey for silver. If you’re looking to achieve a raised effect of profile, then use several pieces of identically shaped felt.
Lay the metal thread on top of the felt shape, starting at the edge. Leave an end of about 1 inch (2.5cm) for finishing off later. Using the sewing thread, make a small straight stitch over the metal thread, attaching it to the background fabric. Then continue to stitch the metal thread down at intervals of about a quarter of an inch (about 0.5cm).
When reaching the end of a row, when working a brickwork pattern, or when turning a corner, each couched thread should be stitched down separately. This prevents the threads twisting and overlapping. When cornering in a brickwork pattern, the lower thread of the two in the first row should also be the lower in the second row, i.e. it should cross over the upper thread. This gives a neater corner.