Linen on Linen

I will be participating next weekend in a demo at the German Society of Philadelphia.  I was particularly requested to talk to participants about German embroidery.  I'm putting together a little bit of a slide show of some of my favorite pieces from the area now known as Germany, as well as little kits for a brick stitch square for those so inclined.  German embroidery includes much more than the brick stitch pieces, though.  I'm working to include some of the different styles in my slide show.

One of those styles is the linen on line, or white work known as Opus Teutonicum. It is primarily from the 13th and 14th centuries, such as this altar cloth at the Cleveland Museum of Art (1948.352) is all white linen thread on white linen and has been dated to circa 1350.  On my first trip to the Cleveland it was hanging in a hallway.  I got some photos, but it was still in the days of film cameras and I will need to hunt down the actual physical prints.  This altar cloth is plates 154-157 in Schuette* lists four stitches.

Another one of the pieces that will be in my slide show is this hanging in the V&A, Museum number T.126-1931

This piece is dated 1587 so is quite late in SCA "Period."  It uses a larger variety of stitches (7 by the museum's count) and is worked in both brown and white linen threads on linen.

As so often happens, researching or assembling one thing leads me down another path. As I grow in my enjoyment of free embroidery stitches (when I started I was primarily a counted embroidery person -- now I'm about 50/50), I contemplate that something based on the Teutonicum will be in my future. 

But for now, back to pieces already in rotation, and planning a talk.

*Schuette refers to A Pictorial History of Embroidery, (Schuette, Marie and Muller-Christensen, Sigrid, King, Donald, Trans. Frederick A. Praeger, 1964)