“An Unstitched Coif…”

needleworkes ♦ April 22, 2023 ♦ 1 Comment

I was recently reading the Historic Embroidery Group in Facebook, and came across a link to this post by Kim Salazar: “An Unstitched Coif…” I was immediately fascinated and wanted to be a part of this exciting project.

At the beginning of March 2023, Toni Buckby put out a call on her Facebook page:

“Artist and needleworker @tonibuckby is looking for 40 experienced embroiderers
to take part in a co-created art project as part of her PhD on the Blackwork Embroidery
collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum“

The call was then expanded to include just over 100 other participants from around the globe…. and I am one of them! So all up, we have just over 140 embroiderers working on their own version of the same pattern. It will be fascinating to see how we each choose to stitch the design.

Toni is working on her PhD in embroidery, focussing on the experience of the embroiderers themselves. While researching in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Toni had the opportunity to study the imaginatively named “Panel, unknown” in the V&A collections. This coif was partially stitched and then unpicked, but the pattern is still clearly visible. It’s a somewhat busy but rather charming compilation of flowers and whimsical bugs.

Toni Buckby says that: “One of the main goals of the project is to capture a part of your embroidery-making experience, which is entirely missing from the historical Blackwork embroideries I have been working with.”

To this end, there will be face to face workshop sessions in the U.K. and also Zoom meetings for those located in other corners of the world. ( I am in Western Australia). Toni has also set up a website for the project: Blackworkembroidery.org (still under construction).

Even though I am a fairly experienced embroiderer, I have only ever done counted blackwork before, and have never attempted blackwork fills, so this is definitely going to be a learning curve for me for sure!