Roses and Needlework


Earlier this month I had the opportunity to hear two different lectures by Kathy Staples, in which she mentioned a connection between the appearance of elaborate rose motifs on samplers and the then "newly popular" hybridization happening in the world of rose horticulture. Being both a sampler lover and an avid gardener, I found this connection very interesting. Similar connections to the "latest" gardening craze have affected needlework, especially samplers, for many years.

Flower shape played an important part in what showed up in embroidery. The double, or Tudor, rose (white for the House of York and red for the House of Lancaster) flourished in the decorative arts, especially embroidery, as did the moss rose which appeared in gardens in 1730, and soon after showed up in embroidery. Yet the single and double light yellow tea roses of the late sixteenth century did not appear in seventeenth century needlework.

Field flowers (pansies, cowslips, primroses, columbine and cornflowers) brought into the garden from woods and meadows in the mid-sixteenth century also became the favorites in embroidery into the seventeenth century. Formerly the focus on plants had been for medicinal, culinary and cosmetic properties. Now they were being noticed for their extraordinary beauty, and were often described in terms of embroidery. One connoisseur, Lord Burghley, writes of sunflowers as having a middle "made of unshorn velvet" or cloth "wrought with the needle." The intense colors and jeweled appearance as well as a wide range of colors made daffodils, marigolds, columbines, roses and carnations popular in embroidery.

The development of double flowers began during the end of the sixteenth century, and embroiderers followed suit making their flowers as showy as possible, utilizing needlelace and detached buttonhole stitches to create three-dimensional blooms, and eventually free-standing flowers. The embroiderer was not limited by the gardeners' problems in breeding, and flowers in embroidery became more and more novel, often not even resembling the real item.

In 1724, Robert Furber's catalogue, The Flower Garden Display'd, promoted not only plants from his nursery, but designs useful "for the Ladies as Patterns for Working." Two editions of The Lady's Drawing Book, illustrated by A. Heckle, were described in 1785 as "an Extensive and curious collection of the most beautiful flowers…the whole adapted for the Improvement of Ladies in Needlework." As designs drawn on silk became readily available in the late eighteenth century, there was less adaptation from botanical illustrations. Then in the nineteenth century the prevalence of Berlinwork exactly coincides with the most active years of the nineteenth century florists.

In a departure from the formal parterres and beds of carnations and tulips fashionable in the late 17th century, Joseph Addison had a garden resembling "a natural Wilderness". Soon this "natural Embroidery of the Meadows" caught on, and many gardeners adopted the informal planting. Embroidery reflected a similar change at this time, and slips and interlacing patterns gave way to a great "Luxuriancy and Profusion" of branches, sprays and garlands of flowers. This was mostly seen on embroideries used for upholstered furniture, or table and bed furnishings.

Roses were in such high demand in the 17th century that they and rose water were used as legal tender, for barter in markets, as well as payment by the common people to royalty. In the late 18th century, cultivated roses were introduced into Europe from China. This caused the division in rose groups of "old roses" (cultivated in Europe prior to 1800) and "modern roses" (cultivated at the turn of the 19th century in England and France). Up until this time, all roses in Europe were shades of pink or white, with red roses coming from China around 1800 and bright yellow roses not showing up until around 1900.

Cultivation of roses in the early 1800s took the numbers of roses from tens to hundreds of cultivars, with the height occurring in the 1820s. The most striking change in rose history occurred between the 1830s when cultivation between the European roses and Oriental repeat blooming roses increased, and the 1840s when the "Hybrid Perpetuals" overtook almost all other groups. Around this time, interest in rose shows and competitions increased, and with it a "standardized" concept of what a rose blossom should look like. Tea roses (named because of their scent) were introduced to the west by the British in 1810 and 1824, and are considered by many to have the best color and form of all roses, but the blossoms were susceptible to weather damage, especially in England.

Cultivation of roses was not restricted to England and France. Around 1800, in Charleston, South Carolina, a fragrant, pink rose was developed by John Champneys. A neighbor introduced the rose through his brother to France, and by 1825 there were more than a hundred varieties of this original rose (called a "Noisette").

Hundreds of new varieties of roses created a period of tremendous excitement for rose enthusiasts in the early nineteenth century, both in gardens and their use in embroidery. It is around this time that you begin to see the large, stylized roses and rosebuds appearing on samplers. Instead of being utilized in a band or border, they become more of a focal point for the sampler. Often there would be a large bud or blossom worked over two threads, with the same bud incorporated in a stem of flowers done in over-one stitches in more detail.


With the history of influence of gardening and flowers on embroidery, it is no surprise that the history of the rose is also tied to embroidery styles and patterns.

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Beck, Thomasina - The Embroiderer's Flowers (David & Charles, 1992)

Breeze, Mabel S. G., "Notes on the Origin of the Moss-Rose", Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, Vol. XLVII, 1922.

Dickerson, Brent, "Introduction and General History", Old Garden Roses and Beyond, 1999.

Linen - From Field to Fabric

"She was a woman of great endurance, though slender, and had a faculty for accomplishing work which was a marvel. She did not possess great physical force, but managed to accomplish no inconsiderable amount in rearing a large family and providing for their temporal and spiritual wants, clothing them, according to the custom of the time with the wool and flax of her own spinning. The raw material entered the house from the farm and never left it except as warm, durable garments upon the backs of its inmates … My mother had nine operatives at this time, of different ages, and not a drone among us all. All were busy with the little picking machines, the hand cards, and the spinning wheel, and the loom." Azariah Bancroft of his mother Elizabeth Spelman Bancroft

My 5th-great grandmother, Elizabeth Spelman, was born in 1740 and married Lieut. Samuel Bancroft in 1759 just one month short of her 19th birthday. She lived to 96 years of age, and saw her husband, son and other relatives off to fight for American Independence. As stated in the quote above by my 4th-great grandfather, Azariah, she was well familiar with linen from field to fabric, and I suppose my love of linen could be genetic!

In earlier times, each family grew flax and wove the linen for their own use in most countries, as did my ancestors. But the linen industry has existed for over 4,000 years. Fine linens found in Egyptian tombs were woven to 200 threads per inch. During Medieval times, linen was used for rope, clothing, towels and tablecloths, and was commonly woven in what is known as tabby ("linen") weave. However, there were also fancy twills, Huck, diaper, Damask and brocade weaves.

Linen, yarn or fabric, is from flax (Linum usitatissimum), a vegetable fiber - in fact, it is the strongest of all vegetable fibers, which is why it has lent itself well to a vast number of uses throughout history. Because the stem of the flax plant contains the fiber, it is a bast fiber. The seeds of flax are often used for medicinal and nutritional purposes dating back to early Greece, as well as to make linseed oil. The plants decompose in acidic soils, but in Switzerland there are some alkaline bogs where evidence has been found of brightly colored linen woven by the Swiss Lake Dwellers in 3000 BC. A needle-netted linen headpiece from Nahal Hemar Cave in Israel from 6500 BC may be the earliest known example of preserved linen.

Modern flax does not seem to grow as fine as it must have in medieval times, based on the finer linens that remain from that period. The more densely the flax plants are spaced and the poorer the nutrients, the more slender the plant and the straighter the stems. This combined with harvesting of younger plants produces a finer fiber. Flax is harvested by pulling the plant up by the roots or cutting it near the base of the plant, and then the plants are allowed to rot in water. Depending on the method of this rotting (called "retting"), varying colors of linen will result: grey fibers come from retting on grass with dew; yellow-brown fibers come from retting in still-water ponds; and light yellow fibers come from retting in streams of running water.

Once retted, the fibers are dried and then beaten with various tools to loosen the woody portions of the stem - a process called "skutching" which is done between August and December. Stems are then scraped, and a second beating with mallets may be done. Short bits and wood pieces are then combed out with hackles in several steps, coarse to fine. The results are bunches of long fibers all aligned (called "line") which are then bundled into a strick. The stuff left in the combs is called "tow" and is made up of the shorter, lesser quality fibers. Line will make stronger, finer fibers when spun.

When it is wet, flax fibers usually spiral into natural "S" twists, but most European linen was spun into "Z" twists, to be made into thread, and flax was not normally plied if it was being used for cloth. The type of spin can affect the tightness of the woven fabric, as well as how light is reflected. In some finished fabrics, yarns spun in one direction for both warp and weft tend to track when woven. If the weft is spun the opposite direction as the warp, it tends to lock the warp and weft together when woven, creating a tighter weave.

After reeling the spun fibers into skeins using reels, or niddy-noddies, the skeins are boiled in washing soda or soap to remove pectins, waxes and impurities, and then treated with lye, which strengthens and further cleans and whitens the fibers. Skeins may be beaten again with a hammer while wet to soften the fibers, and if desired, bleaching might be done with lye or wheat bran. Bleaching can also be accomplished after fabric is woven by laying the fabric on grass in the sun where the sun and chlorophyll act together to whiten the fabric. Once woven, linen may be finished by "mangling" -- pressure is put on the wet fabric by rolling it with wooden rolling pins or glass "rubbers" while it is on a hard surface, or by beating it with mallets, generally producing a flat appearance with a sheen on the fabric surface.

Heat breaks down the fibers, but since they are stronger when wet you can safely wash linen in very hot water, but you should not dry it in a dryer because the dry heat will turn the fibers into lint. Also, use a steam-iron to iron linen (again, you don't want dry heat).

Because linen is highly absorbent and a good heat conductor, it makes great clothing, keeping the wearer cool. It is two to three times stronger than cotton, smooth, and gets softer the more it is washed. But, if you fold your linen always in the same place, the creasing will crack the linen fibers and break the threads, so don't iron-crease your linens, and if you are storing linens, cushion all the folds so they don't crease from the weight of other objects. Luckily for needleworkers, linen is resistant to moth or carpet beetle damage, but it is subject to mildew. And the slubs often found in linen are actually considered defects associated with lower quality - finer linens will have a consistent diameter with no slubs.

Quality linen fabrics are still produced primarily by niche producers in Ireland, Belgium and Italy, and top quality flax is mostly grown in Western Europe. In the 1970's about 5% of linen was used for clothing, but by the 1990s apparel was using around 70% of all linen produced.

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Spelman Family History

A Short History of Flax - Jennifer Munson

Linen - Wikipedia

Beyond Warp and Weft - The University of Texas, Austin (Natural Fibers Information Center - as of August, 2007 no longer exists)