Ahh goldwork. So pretty, so shiny. I mentioned Tracy Franklin’s book yesterday, or just go and check out her website. Tanja Berlin does more flower-type designs and has a lot of kits which are definately pretty, shiny and a great way to get into the technique without having to try and source all the specialty threads (and instructions!) yourself.

I’ve been collecting goldwork threads and books in a very magpie-like fashion for a couple of years and have been slowly incorporating them into my pieces (the threads and techniques I mean, not the books). But there’s one technique I hadn’t yet tried and really, really wanted to – Or Nué. In this, thick gold-covered thread such as Jap gold is couched down in tight rows, and coloured silk is stitched over row by row to create the image. The gold shimmers through, the silks are colourful and lustrous… it’s an all-over rich affair. It was used a lot in ecclesiastical stuff – well, goldwork in general was mainly done for the church or royalty anyway because it uses, y’know, actual gold. Not something for the plebs.

But I’d always wanted to give it a shot, and also had a very general idea of what the subject matter should be, so now I’ve finally started. Only I’m leaving the gold out.

I’d fully planned to use Jap gold, but when I started pulling everything out and looking at my plans, I decided that I wanted something a bit rougher, a little less pretty. So I grabbed a ball of string from the kitchen drawer and started.

This is how it stands at the moment. Excuse my slightly secretive corner view, but with the design transferred onto the backing fabric, it’d give too much away if I showed the whole piece. I want to see if I can faithfully reproduce the design in this method and I’d like your unbiased-by-the-original-picture opinion of the finished piece.. I’m pretty much freehanding the flow of the string around the piece –Or Nué generally uses straight lines but I saw this done somewhere else and found it beautiful (can’t find the link at the moment, will update when I do)- and I guess we’ll see how it turns out.

I’ve got a few embroidery books and magazines on my shelves. Okay, it’s heading into “more than a few” territory, so I figured I may as well give some small reviews of them. Just in case anyone else here is interested in getting as addicted to purchasing stitching books. Because reading about stitching is almost as good as doing it. Which, now that I think about it, is probably how many socially inept young chaps feel about sex.

With that charming introduction I’ll go onto the first book: New Ideas in Goldwork by Tracy Franklin.

Goldwork, frankly, rocks. It uses gold-wrapped threads (among others), involves a lot of couching (so as not to damage the golden strands, or waste lengths of it behind the fabric), and is shiny, shiny, shiny. Tracy is a graduate of the Royal School of Needlework, teaches and takes commissions and is at the forefront of modern goldwork. Check out her website, it’s purdy.

The book is set up with pages of photographed step-by-step instructions on how to do the various techniques of goldwork, although unlike many other goldwork books, it focuses less on how to do the traditional stitches stitch-perfect the traditional way, and more on how to use those methods to achieve new effects (while still being stitch-perfect but in the modern way). The second half of the book is artworks utilizing goldwork techniques by different embroiderers. These she’s broken down into their component parts and described so that readers can reproduce them if they wish.

The photography in the book is excellent and the descriptions clear. It’s a great resource for technique as well as a stunning source of inspiration for both beginner and advanced goldwork-ers. I love this book and it often comes out for me to flip through before bed. Then I lay awake for an hour with visions of golden threads dancing through my head.

Last one from the tattoo themed exhibition. This one used a lot more goldwork techniques (oh, the couching!), something which I’m still learning but loving.