#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--SILK RIBBON EMBROIDERY

Silk ribbon embroidered fashions from Godey's Lady's Book, 1876

Silk Ribbon Embroidery

Trends come and go. This is particularly true of crafting trends. Remember macramé? At one time it was everywhere—from plant hangers to vests. When was the last time you even thought of macramé, let alone saw a macramé craft?

One of the silk ribbon
applique prototypes

Silk ribbon embroidery was one of those crafty trends that came and went decades ago. Someday it may come back. But back in the day when it was hot, Lois Winston, she who writes about me, was commissioned to design a series of silk ribbon embroidered appliqués for a craft manufacturer. Lois recently came across some of the prototypes for the product line, and I convinced her to share them on the blog.

Silk ribbon embroidery first appeared in France in the mid to late 1700’s when the French court began wearing elegant garments elaborately decorated with embroidered ribbons. Eventually, the fashion made its way across the English Channel. From England it spread to various British colonies.

In the early 1800’s U.S. women were spinning silk from their own cocoons. Silk was in such high demand that by the late 1830’s silk factories were growing their own mulberry trees, which were essential to the cultivation of the silk worm. But mulberry trees were difficult to grow in the States, and as cheaper silk began to be imported from China, domestic silk production came to an end.

However, this certainly didn’t put an end to the demand for silk. French silk ribbons were being imported for use in clothing, millinery, linens, and crazy quilts during the Victorian era. It was the renewed interest in Victoriana that brought about the revival of silk ribbon embroidery toward the end of the twentieth century.

Silk ribbon embroidery is simply traditional embroidery stitches worked with ribbons instead of yarn or floss. The beauty of the technique comes from the 3D quality of the ribbons. Silk embroidery is also quicker and easier than traditional embroidery in that allows for more coverage with fewer stitches in less time.

Sell sheets, samples, and packaging
for the silk ribbon embroidered appliqués

The craft also adapts well to other forms of needlework. Besides its use in traditional crazy quilts, when silk ribbon embroidery once again became popular, it was combined with punch needle embroidery, traditional crewel embroidery, and counted cross stitch. 

One of the combination cross stitch and
ribbon embroidery kits Lois designed for
another craft company

At the time you could find many projects in craft magazines for embellishments on various wearables such as blouses, vests, and jackets. Smaller pieces were crafted into accessories like earrings, hair clips, and brooches. The company that hired Lois to design the appliqués went a step further by eliminating the need for the crafter to create the silk ribbon items. You simply had to stitch or glue them onto whatever item you wanted to embellish.

#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--ANTIQUE LACE HANKIE

I have a box of hand-embroidered lace given to me many years ago by an elderly relative. She grew up at a time before department stores. Nowadays when we need clothes, we have many options. We shop at Macy’s or Old Navy or Target, or any one of hundreds of other retailers—either in brick-and-mortar stores or online. Hard as it may be for us to imagine, no such establishments existed back when this relative grew up. Women sewed their families’ clothing—from undergarments to outerwear and everything in-between. Wealthier women hired seamstresses to make the clothes for them.

Such was the case with this family member. However, although the ladies of the house didn’t stitch their own garments, they did embroider and crochet the embellishments that decorated the garments. Needlework was considered a proper pastime for upper-crust ladies and was even taught in finishing schools. Being adept with a needle was considered a necessity for a good match.

Every season the seamstress would come to the home of this relative where family members would choose fabrics and styles and be measured for new outfits. Older garments would be handed down to household staff or donated to the poor. However, before doing so, the ladies of the house would remove all the crocheted and embroidered embellishments from the garments to reuse on new garments.

In addition to embellishing garments with needlework, these women would decorate linen with embroidery and lace trims, beginning as young girls as they worked on items for their trousseaus. They’d also embroider hankies. Facial tissues weren’t invented until 1924 and were first marketed as a way to remove cold cream, not for blowing one’s nose.

So going back to that box of hand-embroidered lace, most of it continues to sit in the box. Back in the 1980’s lace embroidery became popular again when decorators and fashion designers rediscovered Victorian style and Laura Ashley was all the rage. These days most of us are not into crocheted antimacassars and other assorted froufrou.

Still, there are a few pieces of embroidery in that box that are too beautiful not to showcase. One is the hankie shown above. So I carefully mounted it on a piece of black fabric and framed it. If you have some needlework family heirlooms, you might consider displaying them in this manner to preserve and showcase them. Just make sure you use archival quality materials and use spacers between the fabric and glass to prevent mildew and fabric rot from moisture that could get trapped within the frame.