Project for Free- Goldwork and Silk Pomengranate  

Posted by MeganH in

This is from the Arts & Crafts Magazine Vol1-2A Practical Magazine For The Studio, The Workshop And The Home, published by Hutchinson & Company in 1904. (and hence copyright free)

http://chestofbooks.com/crafts/general/Arts-And-Crafts-Magazine/

I found this book very hard to navigate. Many of the design drawings are missing – they are in “Supplement A” which is nowhere to be found, even after searching the Net. I await an e-mail about it from the site author. The pages are unmarked. Occasionally, a design will pop up on the wrong and totally unrelated page and some can be found individually under Google Web/Image searches. Nothing under Google Books/Scholar. I was about ready to strangle this book after spending yesterday with it!

However, in spite of all this, I have the following project to offer you from the magazine. I haven’t tried to clean up the design picture itself at all (I’m not Mary Corbet!).

It is an applique piece meant for a superfrontal.

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pom1

The design for an altar frontal and a super-frontal given herewith are to be worked on red velvet; or rather the embroidery, first executed on linen, is transferred to the velvet.

The open portion would look well in basket stitch, a good deal stuffed, of gold threads, sewn down with a deep-coloured red silk; or it may be treated as shown in the chawing, with the seeds worked in satin stitch of gold-coloured silk, or with Japanese gold sewn very closely in a circular form, and the spaces filled in with French knots of silk. These should not all be of one hue, but some in deep reds, with others toning towards gold, should he-used.

The lines marking the outlines and the divisions of the fruit should be worked in stem stitch, in the deep purplish red which has come to be conventionally used for pomegranate.

Between these lines the silk used should be golden in hue, shading into reds at the two extremities. Care must be taken, however, to keep the reds sufficiently distinct from the velvet ground.

The crown of petals at the top may be worked wholly in rich gold-colour, with a little red introduced, so as to give richness, and they may be outlined with Japanese gold.

The foliage at the back of the fruit should be lighter in tone than the sprays at the side. It is impossible to give written directions for the hues to be selected, as they must depend on the tone of the ground.

The buds must introduce a brighter pomegranate shade than any used in the fruit. Although they must he kept somewhat low-in tone, so as not to appear patchy, they must follow out to brighter tones the colours used in the pomegranate.

As there is a great preponderance of red and yellow in the fruit and flowers, the greens used in the foliage would need to contain a good deal of blue, but they may be toned off into bronze, so as to carry on the colouring of the former and bring it into relation with the gold thread.

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I find that last paragraph giving detail on how to pick the colours absolutely fascinating…..

This entry was posted on Monday, August 22, 2011 at 6:05 PM and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

4 comments

I find this fascinating as well!!!

August 22, 2011 at 6:49 PM

Me too!!

August 22, 2011 at 11:17 PM

It embodies a fairly simple technique to apply, as well, to make picking colours a bit more organised!

August 23, 2011 at 7:35 AM

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing!

August 24, 2011 at 4:25 PM

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