Medieval Linen Embroidery

  Last year the Heron Corn Mill, Beetham provided seeds for people to grow flax as part of a  Heritage programme exploring the flax industry in Cumbria from the Middle Ages. 

Flax plant

Retting of flax

The flax was then cut and the fibre extracted. It was woven into a narrow cloth which you can see below on the embroidery frame.

You can also see the linen threads which were dyed with plant based dyes.

The Corn Mill put out a request for embroiderers to reproduce the plants used for dyeing and I volunteered to embroider Madder.

I designed my  madder plant set within a loose frame with a medieval dyer at work. Part of the frame was a range of sample colours obtained from madder varying from pale colours to pinky-reds.

The dye is obtained from the root so I made sure that was given prominence.

The dyer was embroidered working with Madder. 

As another part of the frame I stitched some of the Medieval beasts using a range of plant dyed threads.

The name madder was also stitched

Below is the finished panel.