Blackwork Unadulterated

Stella Grace

detail of blackwork that does not have reversible patterns

black cotton on white cotton fabric

7" X 7"

The Wedding Sampler

desinged and stitched by Carole Rinard, Ann Erdmann, and SKW

from the collection of Jake and Barrett Lucero

15" X 10"

black silk on white linen

some of this could have been done reversibly, but it wasn't--too comlex and not needful.

I first learned blackwork when I was a new member of the Creative Needlework Chapter of the EGA out of Collingswood, NJ. That was the first chapter I was ever in. I joined the group shortly after we (PJ, Mike, and myself--Barrett was not even a sparkle at that point) moved to NJ for Mike's work in 1977.

CNC was a great chapter for me who was absorbing embroidery at a mad rate. We were close to the then-national headquarters in NYC and most of the great teachers lived within a couple hundred miles of us, including several within fifty miles. The programs were astonishing with new things every month. We learned Brazilian, Hardanger, Assisi, goldwork, dyeing threads, counted cross-stitch (this soon-to-be world-wide craze was just taking off), needlepoint, crewel, and many more things. We were a chapter of youngsters. I was in my early 30s; most people were under forty--not something we see now much.

My first two blackwork teachers were Jane Zimmerman and Ilsa Altherr, both still active within embroidery circles. Jane is my favorite embroidery teacher of all time. She taught us classic English blackwork. Ilsa taught us reversible blackwork. It was very hard for me that first time I tried Ilsa's way. I liked Jane's a lot better--it was more accessible.

Now there is sort of a schism between people who insist that proper blackwork be reversible and people who insist that it can be either and still be correct. I quickly learned how to do reversible blackwork and can now do it even ungraphed. It is usually done in running stitch "journeys" with up to four journeys needed to finish a complex line of blackwork. But I normally choose not to it, but to stick to the more plastic Elizabethan style of back stitches.

In England there is a tradition of blackwork that goes back to at least 1395 with Chaucer's description (and by inference back even further in time), and this description may indicate reversible blackwork. This is the quote from The Miller's Tale

"Young, comely, was this wife; a lovely girl;
Her body slim and supple as a weasel.
She wore a cross-striped sash, all made of silk;
An apron also, white a morning milk,
She wore about her loins, gored to flare.
White was her smock; its collar front and back,
Embroidered with black silk inside and out,
The ribbons of the white cap that she wore
Were also coal-black silk, to match the collar;
She'd a broad silken headband set back high,
And certainly she had a come-hither look in her eye."

There is a portrait of Queen Isabel of Spain done in 1494 by Bronzino that shows her in "undress" with a cap and smock both decorated in black stitches on white fabric. This most certainly is Spanish Work. In Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe inventory of 1600 there is reference to both Spanish work and blackwork--sometimes both techniques are listed on the same piece of clothing. Obviously there was a difference between the two in the minds of the Elizabethans and the Tudors. But what that difference is, we do not know today. To us it is all black stitches on white fabric.

My theory is that Spanish work was always reversible. We see in Spanish samplers of the 1600s and 1700s the type of running stitch that is familiar to us today as reversible blackwork. I think this is the remnant of the great Spanish Work tradition. I have been to the Victoria and Albert Museum and have seen the backs of English-style blackwork and none of it is reversible by any stretch of the imagination. In the great portraits of the Tudor and Elizabethan eras we see the court dress as having a lot of blackwork on the cuffs, sleeves, and bodice edgings. People point to these and say that obviously it was reversible blackwork because on a sleeve cuff we can see both the front and back which seem reversible. Well, maybe. From a portrait we cannot see how the garment was made. Maybe the cuffs were two pieces sewn with wrong sides to the inside and with two identical lines of stitching on them. Or maybe they were done in Spanish Work. But the items of clothing I saw at the V & A were NOT reversible.

Ilsa Altherr, as far as I know, introduced reversible blackwork to the USA. But this style of blackwork is not the be-all and end-all of blackwork. Not every blackwork pattern can even be stitched reversibly. Some patterns change from the front to back when they are put in reversibly. The Elizabethans and the Tudors were a practical people. There is no sense in taxing brains to do something reversible when there is no need to. As Jane Zimmerman says, the Tudors and Elzabethans did not have graph paper to plan out the journeys of reversibility. A huge stumbling block to most stitchers.

I do not teach reversible blackwork: I teach in the classic Elizabethan model--backstitch with some running and double running stitches for some outlines. Basic blackwork is easy to do--anyone who can cross-stitch can do blackwork at its easiest levels. I urge everyone to try it--it is very satisfying.