Silk Ribbon Roses for screen

This is one of three virtually identical embroideries I stitched in silk ribbon and silk thread on tea-dyed silk. They were commissioned to fit three frames on an Art Nouveau French dressing screen that a lady bought from a junk shop in Melbourne in 1961. The screen stands about 6ft high and has 3 tiers, each a little shorter than the other (so that the lady dressing behind it can reveal as much or as little as she wishes to the person on the other side of the screen!).

Each embroidery features spider-web roses as the full blooms, gathered French knots for the new roses, and leave stitch buds. It is filled out with French knots in silk ribbon and fine silk thread. I tea-dyed the silk fabric to give it an antique look, because the only silk I could purchase at the time was too starkly white – up close it now has the patina of a vintage wedding dress.

The gorgeously carved screen was painted cream when I first viewed it, but when I spotted the gilding underneath the paint I became very excited. It has now been restored to its former glory in antique gold, with the original upholstery retained. The gold in these embroideries now looks even better against the gilded timber.

Each embroidery is approximately 5in x 7in, and they are mounted on wooden mounts with wool padding. The embroideries are laced to the mounts to ensure a snug fit and so that the fabric doesn’t get damaged as it would from staples, tacks, etc.

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Tags: Embroidery, antique, embroidery, gilding, gold, More…

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Comment by Meg Mackenzie on May 16, 2012 at 1:00: Good on you, Patty. I am glad that you liked Helen's site. She's a great teacher and has quite a distinctive style/ Her patterns/projects appear quite a lot in Australian craft magazines, which we also get here. She uses hand-dyed lace leaves and Rajmahal art-silk threads in her work, making her embroideries into real treasures.

Comment by Patty Majors on May 16, 2012 at 0:20: Oh, I love this website! Thank you! And guess what.....I went all over Jackson, TN today and NO silk ribbon anywhere! NONE! I'll have to order on line and this is a great place to start. Thanks again, Meg. I'm definitely gonna try my hand at this handy work. :)

Comment by Meg Mackenzie on May 15, 2012 at 15:39: Patty, Judith's books are certainly inspiring! If you are looking for more inspiration, look up this website: http://www.helendafter.com.au/ Helen Dafter is the Australian silk ribbon embroiderer who got me started in the craft. I did a 45 minute class of hers at a Craft Fair in 2008 and was hooked - from then I have gone it alone, but I still enjoy looking at the terrific books available out there. Helen's site has pictures of her work in the form of some of her kits. Really lovely stuff! Thank you for your kind comments!

Comment by Patty Majors on May 15, 2012 at 7:58: Oh WOW! I haven't done any ribbon embroidery YET but it's on my list.... as a matter of fact, I'm getting ready to order a book on it by Judith Baker Montano. I have her Elegant Stitches book and really like the detail in her how to's. Your pictures have inspired me!!!

Comment by Meg Mackenzie on May 13, 2012 at 19:29: Thank you, Nicola. Oh do try it one day. It is surprisingly simple yet very effective - and you can cover a lot of ground with it. For this commission, I could choose what I wanted to do so long as it involved emrboidery, roses, and colours that would fir the lady's decor and the restored screen. I chose ribbon embroidery because although the materials are relatively expensive per metre compared to floss and other threads, they cover a lot of space and are relatively quick. And because the client was prepared to pay me by the hour (a unique situation indeed!), I didn't want to knock her socks off with an enormous invoice. Making three embroideries the same, this seemed the most economical way to go. Almost any flower is possible in silk ribbon, nad they can look remarkably realistic if you work at them. It's very rewarding, Nicola. I hope you get to give it a go.

Comment by Nicola Thomson on May 13, 2012 at 19:11: Beautiful, I have never tried silk rbbon embroidery

Comment by Meg Mackenzie on May 13, 2012 at 18:38: Thank you. It's so hard to buy silk ribbon over here. One usually has to send away for it. Anyone else have that problem?