Tanya Bentham: Opus Anglicanum and Stitching Abelard in "Inspriations" issue 131

[00:00:01][music] [music] [music] >> Welcome back. I'm Gary Parr and you are listening to Fiber Talk, the twice weekly podcast for needlework artists.

[00:00:37]Our artist this time is Tanya Bentham.

[00:00:39]Tanya, welcome.

[00:00:41]>> Hi.

[00:00:42]>> And welcome back. Actually, this is um uh well, I will start with this is a special a series of Fiber Talk podcast videos in that we're doing these in collaboration with Inspirations magazine. So, what what we're doing is is inter- viewing uh all the designers who have projects in issue 131.

[00:01:05]And the idea behind this is to there's there's so little room in the magazine after they give all the project information that there's you don't get a chance to learn about the designer and the design. So, we're doing these videos so that you can meet the designers, we'll give a little background, learn a little bit about them, what they do, how they go about it. And then uh talk about the project.

[00:01:30]And Tanya's project in 131 is actually second in a series.

[00:01:36]So, we have Abelard in 131 and that follows Heloise in 130, issue 130, which most people our readers already have. And so, we'll get to hear a little story for how that comes came about. Uh um I'm sure in your head. So, [laughter] um so, we'll we'll get to hear about that.

[00:01:57]But, let's let's start. So, September 21, 2025 was the show that we did with Tanya, where we spent an entire hour just learning about Tanya, her background, her interests, and so on and so forth. So, and I'll put a link in the show notes, so you can go back and listen to that show. But, Tanya, let's just talk talk about Opus Anglicanum and your interests. I mean, this is this is the focus of your of your stitching life these days. Talk about how this came to be and how you are just hooked on this this era and this type of stitching.

[00:02:33]>> Well, Opus Anglicanum, the words, it's Latin, it just means English work.

[00:02:39]Because from about 9th 10th century onwards, the English were famous for the quality of their needle work, which was exported all over Europe.

[00:02:48]Because of the Reformation and many pieces being destroyed in this country, quite often literally just thrown onto bonfires uh to burn away anything that wasn't the gold and the silver in the threads. A lot of the surviving pieces actually have European names rather than English ones. So, we have the the Pienza Cloak and stuff like that, because a lot of it survived because it was given as diplomatic gifts between popes and kings and bishops and sent all over Europe.

[00:03:21]So, for me, Opus Anglicanum is very much material dependent.

[00:03:30]It's A lot of people will say it's split stitch and it's underside couching, and that defines Opus Anglicanum. I'm absolutely insistent that it's not just split stitch silk, it's very, very specifically split stitched filament silk, because Sorry, I'm rummaging around on my desk here.

[00:03:56]If you compare the shine on this skein, the one and only skein in the house of DMC cotton, it's very [laughter] it's quite Well, I I only have this for doing demonstrations of why you should be using silk instead of cotton.

[00:04:11][clears throat] So, it's the only skein of cotton in the house.

[00:04:14]>> [laughter] >> So, you can see it's quite flat and quite dead. I'm not sure how well it shows up on a camera, but if you compare that to the shine on this sheen of skein of devore's silk, this is not just any old silk.

[00:04:29]I've got another skein here. This is a spun silk. So, this is short fibers of silk that have been spun in the traditional manner, same as you would use cotton or you would spin wool. It's short fibers twisted together, whereas this one, this is filament silk. And you can see there's a huge difference between the shine on the two, even with the rubbishy camera on a computer.

[00:04:56]That because this is the silkworm cocoon literally reeled straight off the cocoon, there are no breaks in the fiber. It's pure smooth shine.

[00:05:10]And for me, if you say that oh yes, I did opas angika and I used cotton or I used a spun silk, it's like saying you'd learned to swim sitting on your living room sofa.

[00:05:24]Because they you know, it's all about the shine.

[00:05:29]That's what this this is about. It's all about the shine. And only this silk brings light and shine into the work in the way that we're looking for. So, the one I have lying around on my desk is This is called the Zoomies. This is a modern piece of opus Anglicanum.

[00:05:49]So, it's all done to 14th century stitching rules, 13th, 14th century, but it's a modern image. And I just wanted to play with a new idea, um a new technique of using the dappling stitch that's very common.

[00:06:05]And you see the way the light from my window is shining across that silk?

[00:06:10]That's what we're playing with with opus Anglicanum. It's about sculpting that light as it bounces off the silk. And only filament silk gives you that light. Only it only brings that light into the work. No other thread will do it in exactly the same way.

[00:06:30]And cuz you're using this very I'm not going to lie, this is a difficult thread to use. I often describe this as the ADHD child of embroidery threads. It will >> [laughter] >> catch, nag on anything. You know, if it can find a way to misbehave, it will.

[00:06:48]So, you've got to learn to handle it.

[00:06:49]You've got to sort of smooth off your hands and polish them. And you've got to learn to handle this silk and how to use it. And underside couching as well is a very different technique to what modern gold work is used. Modern gold working is done by stitching a gold thread down onto the surface of your canvas.

[00:07:12]And a couple years ago, I was giving uh a talk for a group of modern gold workers. And this is the uh my teacher's canvas from a an online underside master class that I did.

[00:07:28]One of them said, "What is the point in underside couching?"

[00:07:33]Because surface couching is so much quicker and easier to do. So, I said, "Because if you do this >> Oh, John.

[00:07:45]>> [laughter] >> And the woman in the front row was SITTING THERE GOING BECAUSE SHE KNEW as well as I did that if you do that with modern gold work, you might as well just stick it in the bin.

[00:07:57]Underside couching has resilience built into it.

[00:08:01]>> Okay.

[00:08:01]>> Because this was a form of embroidery that's just meant to be stuck on a wall and never moved. This was purses, almoner purses, it was copes, it was chasubles, it was miters, and it had to have movement. But you can do that with opus Anglicanum because the the underside couching has this resilience built into it. The ugly yellow you see at the back here, um this is just a teacher's canvas from an online masterclass that I run.

[00:08:31]The ugly yellow at the back is my linen thread, which doesn't show at all.

[00:08:36]Um and you can see on the back of this one that you've got a little pop of the metal thread that comes through to the front with every stitch you do. And what you're doing is you're putting a really sharp bend in that very stiff metal thread, and you're building movement and resilience into it in a way that you don't do with surface couching. And if you think, "Oh, well, you know, these were expensive things. People wouldn't abuse them."

[00:09:02]You know, the an almoner purse was the equivalent of a a Louis Vuitton bag or a Hermes Birkin. It was, you know, the designer bag of its day. And the copes and the chasubles were holy relics of the church. I mean, I have one of my students at my Oxford class, a lovely lady called Cath, who's been coming for years, and she's very devout, and she admits to some considerable frustration with seeing the way that, you know, bishops abuse their embroidered vestments.

[00:09:34]>> [laughter] >> And she's very devout, and I don't think it was any different in the Middle Ages.

[00:09:39]This one of the journals of clothing and textiles, someone translated a lot of laundry accounts from some nuns who were doing ecclesiastical laundry. And you can hear the frustration in, you know, that they're saying things like, you know, "Father Alfonso got egg yolk on his chasuble."

[00:09:58]>> Oh, no.

[00:09:58]>> Again.

[00:10:00]And you can kind of you can hear it between the lines of these laundry accounts that, you know, the these people were not looking after these fine textiles as well as you would think.

[00:10:10]>> Right. Well, and the the other part of that is, if if I understand the history, when garments were made in that time, they were made to last for ever. I mean, they they they they weren't just throw away like we do today.

[00:10:25]>> I know we have sort of designer textiles now that are very valuable, but for ordinary working people, one of their main assets was the clothes that they wore. We take clothes for granted because we have fast fashion, we have disposable clothing. But I mean, in the 17th century, people were inventorying their underwear in their wills.

[00:10:48]>> Oh, no.

[00:10:50]>> a journal of the Costume Society where someone traced the life of a silk dress in New France, which was what Canada was called at the time, through four, five generations of women, maybe, because it was such a valuable asset that it was handed down. I think we've kind of lost this grasp of why textiles were so valuable. I mean, I I was at a conference, someone was talking about how when people were doing Elizabethan needlework, they were actually adding to the wealth of their family >> Mhm.

[00:11:20]>> by using these hangings and things like that. This is um one of the things I was playing with um when I did my piece Maiden, Mother, and Crone, where all the backgrounds to this sort of archetypal figure of the maiden is underside couch designer logos, cuz we've lost that language where, you know, someone in the medieval or the Renaissance, they would look at a painting and they would read the clothing.

[00:11:48]>> Mhm.

[00:11:49]>> And we kind of lost that, but we have designer labels instead.

[00:11:54]>> Yeah. I I love I love the way you're you're you're very devoted to that to it being done and done right. Uh talk about this the pre- and post-Black Death techniques and what you you're you're pre, right? That's your your your uh >> [laughter] >> commitment.

[00:12:13]>> Yeah, about within um a book proposal, my my editor's been nagging me to do a second opus Anglicanum book, which is going to focus on the post-Black Death technique.

[00:12:25]But, couple of years ago, I was at a conference at St. John's College in Oxford, cuz they have a small but absolutely gorgeous collection of opus Anglicanum vestments. They're a Catholic college, and a lot of them were bought in after um Catholicism started to become more acceptable again in this country. So, they don't fit most of them to the before the the Reformation. But, someone was saying that I forget who it was. They said that it's not that the post-Black Death opus Anglicanum, a lot of people say it's it's lazy, it's easier techniques, it's quicker to do. They said, "It's not that." He said, "It's just different."

[00:13:09]And no, actually, it is that. Um I mean, post-Black Death techniques are quicker and easier. They go to using surface couching because it's easier than than underside couching because it's quicker, and the stitches get really sloppier. Um I was at the Towneley collection uh the Whalley Abbey vestments in Burnley a few weeks ago. And I went purely to research the images for the second opus book that I want to do.

[00:13:42]And ended up coming away thinking, "Actually, I need to write a paper on this." Because >> [laughter] >> they have some pieces displayed together as though they belong together. And I think any needleworker would look at them and say, "No, that's two different workshops completely." Because, you know, burn is underside couching and it's lovely precise stitches sort of pre-reformation. And then the the piece that's displayed with as though they were part of the same chasuble is long sloppy stitches, very much late period style. It's the figures are done separately and slipped into the gold background. The gold background is surface couch. There's so many little details on this thing that you just look at it and think, "No way that was done by two the the same people." It's it's two completely different workshops. I mean, possibly even, you know, years between them. They've just survived history together. So, I I'm sort of thinking I want to write a paper on that as well.

[00:14:45]>> So, when it when it the Black Death sort was kind of the dividing line then. So, uh what what was it just a mental change toward needlework after that? That people just said, "Let's do it quicker.

[00:14:58]Let's do it faster." Um >> Here it is. The because a lot of the plague in this country was concentrated in your in London. Because London never got round to building a pesthouse like other large European cities did. They They would other cities like Paris would basically they would have a hospital outside the city where if you were traveling in you had to have a health check. There was any suspicion, you were quarantined for a few days, you were given medical treatment, and then you were allowed back into the city once they were certain you weren't carrying disease. London never got round to building one.

[00:15:34]So, we had these people coming in from all over the world and bringing disease, so when it hit London, it hit it hard.

[00:15:41]Um there was a I think a plan to build one under Henry VIII and they just never got round to it. It was you know public funds went elsewhere as public funds do these [laughter] things. But, the theory is that the plague hit London so hard and it was kind of the main center of production that many of the needle workers died.

[00:16:03]And that about the same time, there was a surge in cheaper imports from the low countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, places like that. And there is, you know, you can see a distinct continental style in in the later stuff.

[00:16:18]And there's there are always differences between English and European embroideries.

[00:16:24]Um so that you know, they couldn't compete with their older, more expensive style with the underside couching and the lovely sculpted stitches and all of that. So, they switched over to, you know, if you can't beat them, join them.

[00:16:40]>> Okay.

[00:16:41]>> Started doing the newer style. So, it's where you get things like the Fishmongers pall, which is done very much in the later style. And that's sort of late 15th century. But, I mean the worst of the Black Death was 14th century, but we I mean there was cases right up until the 20th century and it's still endemic in wildlife in certain parts of North America.

[00:17:03]>> Mhm.

[00:17:04]Yeah.

[00:17:05]>> It's just that it went pandemic at the time.

[00:17:08]>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so >> So, yeah.

[00:17:11]>> So, economics economics come in come into the picture once again as they always do. It's uh always Yeah.

[00:17:19]So, then then for for you though, you stick to the the pre Black Death, uh the old the old more Well, I guess it really appears thing then. You you want to you want it done the way that that it was.

[00:17:36]>> I think in and technically the earlier period is chewier. It's more difficult, and it's just more exciting.

[00:17:47]>> Okay.

[00:17:47]>> Um it's things like uh counterpoint couch and which isn't isn't a later period. Can I Can I just take my headphones off and show you a piece in counter So, this is Oops.

[00:18:11]This is the maiden, mother, and crone that I was telling you about.

[00:18:16]And this all of the background is done in counterpoint couching. So, here on the maiden this is the underside couching that we're using in the Abelard and Heloise pieces, but it's a slightly more advanced technique because what you're doing is you're creating pattern by uh working in two directions cuz this is a very very simple flat filling stitch. It can only go in one direction or the other. Very rarely goes around curves. And when it does go around curves, it's only a few uh rows of stitching deep. But if I I tilt this to the camera See, you see how the background to the mother can you see the lettering in there?

[00:19:08]>> Oh, [clears throat] yeah.

[00:19:09]>> Oh, there is. Yeah.

[00:19:11]>> It actually spells out "I want some bloody sleep now.

[00:19:14]>> Right there. Right there. Oh, right there. No, go back.

[00:19:18]Right there.

[00:19:20]>> Yeah.

[00:19:20]>> Wow.

[00:19:22]>> And then the maiden, I always get this wrong on camera. The maiden has designed a logos behind her worked in the same technique.

[00:19:31]>> Wow.

[00:19:33]>> So, can you see just behind her bum there's a Chanel logo?

[00:19:36]>> Yep. Yep. Oh, wow.

[00:19:39]>> That's some This is one of the hardest pieces of opus I've ever done, purely and simply because some of that counterpoint couch and behind them was very, very difficult. And I included counterpoint couching in my book, but I used traditional patterns that came from corpse. But I just I find myself getting more and more excited about this technique because I think it just has some wonderful modern applications. I mean, there's little bits of it we do it on the the underside couch and masterclass. So, that one there which looks very 1970s, is one of the patterns that we used in the opus book. So, that's an original one from one of the corpse. And then you've got a a sort of more free-form style where you're creating a pictures sort of like tendrils and vines and things.

[00:20:30]Um >> [clears throat] >> Got it. It's downstairs, but I also did a piece called Memory of Lost Love, which was done creating an entire figure in silver underside couching cuz the the concept of the piece was that it's about loss and memory and love. And I wanted him to look like a ghost, but it actually works more than I ever thought it would because you only see the figure from certain angles, so it shifts like a real memory.

[00:21:00]You know, it's it's a couple of facing.

[00:21:02]And from one angle the woman is on her own and there's just a silver background. then from another, she's embracing this ghost.

[00:21:10]I I I I just find that that the counterpoint couching technique is just endlessly fascinating to me.

[00:21:19]Really difficult and it's very technical, but it just has so much potential beyond that sort of reproduction thing. And one of the things I was quite sort of keen on when I wrote the book was that Opus Anglicanum isn't this dead dusty thing that you do to reproduce archaeology and artifacts.

[00:21:39]It can be a beautifully expressive and very interesting form of embroidery in its own right and can be applied to modern applications. Hence the maiden, mother, and crone. Hence the the zoomies with the cheetah.

[00:21:54]>> Well, and and that's the thing about your work is is you've taken this this ancient technique and and if people go to your website and see all the modern things that you've put together, there's so much fun in them with this ancient technique and and of course the colors and the shine and all the things that just make them so beautiful, but uh that's I mean that's what I enjoy about yours is you you actually this very serious old uh technique, you you have fun with it and uh uh make it come to life and it's I think it's just great.

[00:22:27]>> I I've given so many talks where people have come at the end and and said, "Oh, I nearly didn't come cuz I thought this is going to be so boring cuz it was just going to be about the Bayeux Tapestry and we've heard it all before." And I mean one of the things that really prompted me to start exploring other types of needlework is for many years I did reenactment and I had a tent with, you know, bits of Bayeux Tapestry in it.

[00:22:49]And I genuinely lost uh lost count of the number of people who saw this tent from 20 ft away very loudly went, "Oh, >> [laughter] >> not the Bayeux Tapestry." and stomped off.

[00:23:03]So, it's it's there are preconceptions, [laughter] I think, that this stuff is dry and dusty and academic, and it's really not. It's It's It's an exciting and viable technique. And I would love write a modern opus piece for Inspirations. I have told them.

[00:23:21][clears throat] >> [laughter] >> Hint, hint. Yeah, all right. Well, speaking of inspirations, let's talk about um the the two. Now, in issue 130, we have Heloise. And uh here's here's Heloise.

[00:23:35]And then uh then we have her partner um in 131, Abelard.

[00:23:41]And so, tell tell the story for these two pieces and what the inspiration behind them and how it all come comes together, cuz there's got to be a story when you have a guy and a girl, uh there's got to be a story.

[00:23:54]>> They were famous medieval lovers. I can't remember the story offhand. You uh Help me out. But, honestly, what happened was In- Inspirations said, "Write us something." I said, "What do you want me to write?" And they said, "Well, what about a nice medieval face?"

[00:24:10]And they I said, "Fine. Do you want a male face or a female face?"

[00:24:14]And they said, "We don't know." So, I I drew a female face in the little shape, and I drew a male face, and because I tend to name everything that I'm working on, I mean, the animals and the humans and the Yeah, I mean, the the teacher is called Camilla.

[00:24:34]Everybody gets a name. So, I just because I I If I just label them female face one and and male face one.

[00:24:42]>> That's boring.

[00:24:43]>> Isn't it? So, I just thought, "I'll just call them Abelard and Heloise. That's That's fine. They can choose which one they want." And they said, "Oh, we love the idea of Abelard and Heloise and these famous lovers. So, let's do both."

[00:24:54]>> [laughter] >> Okay.

[00:24:56]>> And you know, it's it's really embarrassingly simple. It was just a random name that I slapped on a picture that drew.

[00:25:02]>> [snorts] >> Okay. Well, they sure sound like a couple, so it worked. Well done. Yeah.

[00:25:07]One of One of the questions I have and there there's several things in here is there seems to be a style to the face.

[00:25:16]Talk about the face and stitching it in the style there.

[00:25:22]>> Um it's a very distinctive style to Opus Anglicanum.

[00:25:26]And it's again it comes back to that thing of using light. And also breaking down the face into geometric shapes. Um many years ago I was reading a book by a man called Alexander Nagle. It's a very dull academic art history book. And he was talking about how Picasso was influenced by medieval art and how he was particularly influenced by Opus Anglicanum. And honestly, I just sat there and I read it and I thought, "What?"

[00:25:54]What are you talking about?

[00:25:56]And then the next time I did an Opus Anglicanum face, I got it because I mean this is a canvas um that was done as a sample canvas. Oh, I've lost I got the wrong one in.

[00:26:08]Um when you do an Opus Anglicanum face, you split it into the geometric face. So, it's almost like a Picasso portrait. So, you do do two spirals from for the cheeks and that sets the whole face. So, with Abelard because he is young and and handsome and he does look a little bit girly, but that was the fashion in the 14th century and he is a very 14th century young man about town.

[00:26:38]We have a high firm apple to the cheek.

[00:26:41]Whereas if I was doing an older gentleman, I would make those cheeks more sort of oval and a bit sagging right down into here.

[00:26:52]>> Oh.

[00:26:54]>> a triangle for the nose, which is very Picasso, and you have a round shape for sort of the muzzle round here. And then the forehead is just a flat block. And it's about connecting those stitches up so that they become one piece of flesh. So, if you look on Abelard, this I'm sorry, I'm pointing at the screen.

[00:27:20]Because I can the line that runs down from sort of here runs up and joins up with that circle and goes around. And there are lots of tiny little filling stitches, cuz when we do the faces, we're only using two strands of thread. Whereas the the the robes, the the um the background and everything, we're using four. And that sort of makes perfect sense, because if you your own face, your skin is softer, it's smoother on your face, hopefully.

[00:27:53]Um and and you your pet cat or your dog, they have much shorter fur on their faces. Birds have much shorter feathers on their heads and their faces.

[00:28:02]>> Mhm.

[00:28:03]>> So, it all makes perfect sense to go down to this much smaller thread and much smaller stitch for the face itself, and it allows us to get a lot more detailing to the face and the hands that we don't necessarily need on his tunic.

[00:28:21]>> Okay, yeah. All right, all right, I see that. All right, so now you got me studying. Now, see, this is the trouble with these things. Now, you got me studying it. So, the dark thread that is at the base of his neck, top of his shirt, that and then I see it wraps all the way around, you define a chin with it, and then you go all up just that one side, and then the eyebrow comes down to become the nose.

[00:28:46]>> Yeah.

[00:28:47]>> Okay. it's a I often say with all medieval embroidery there are distinctly cartoonish elements to all medieval art.

[00:28:58]And right down to, you know, sort of emphasizing the most important figure in an image by making them a bit bigger or giving them an extra outline, so they have a double layered outline stuff. So, what we do with the face is we start off by putting that outline in because that's what allows us to hang the flesh off it. So, we do the face, the outline, the sort of outside of the face, and it's very, very sketchy, it's very sort of quick, it's impressionistic.

[00:29:26]Just the outline and that nose to brow and then the eyebrow and then the eyes.

[00:29:32]We do those first, and we do those actually in a um four strands of thread rather than the two because you can see, if you look closely at the image, that I sort of nibble into it a bit, so that thicker outline often gets minimized.

[00:29:46]And beginners often find that what they'll do is they'll completely obliterate one of the eyebrows.

[00:29:52]>> [laughter] >> afterwards. So, you cuz you really need to pack those little stitches together, and you sort of use it to nibble away at them. And the other thing is >> let me let me back you up then. So, when you put that outline in, it's actually thicker than it appears when you're all done because of the fact that when you put the flesh in, you uh you just chew into it a little bit, so it it actually gets down to the size that you want it to be.

[00:30:19]>> Well, not necessarily the size that I want it to be. It just it just does get minimized a bit. I mean, with all outlines. You might even when you're doing the treaty, you might put the first outline and think, "Ooh, ooh, that's that's a bit thick. That's a bit heavier than I wanted that color to be."

[00:30:35]But, when you're packing rows of stitches against one another, they sort of they get a bit cozy and they smoosh up.

[00:30:43]And you can >> Yes.

[00:30:46]>> a little bit that way as well. But with the face work, cuz we're using the outline as kind of an anchor for the other features, then you do tend to sort of nibble into it a little bit.

[00:30:58]>> Mhm.

[00:30:58]>> Because Okay.

[00:30:59]>> it stops the two stitches from separating from one another, and you don't ever, in opus Anglicanum, want to see the linen canvas underneath.

[00:31:09]>> Yeah.

[00:31:10]>> So, with some of the original pieces, you can see the linen canvas underneath.

[00:31:13]There are pieces where you can even see where they've done their original sketch in charcoal or whatever they've used or pounce. But that's because the silk has degraded over time and it's rotted away.

[00:31:25]>> Mhm.

[00:31:25]>> With the you'd never have seen any of the linen at all.

[00:31:30]>> So, and the eyes are very stylized thing.

[00:31:34]Or they seem to be. [snorts] >> Yeah.

[00:31:36]I I I'd like the ones that have quite big eyes. I think that appeals to me.

[00:31:41]But you do get ones with quite smaller eyes. I think he his his I've gone for quite a big eye and it's quite anime, cuz I think that's easier for a beginner to do. But one of >> things again, anime cartoon elements again, is you really need to be careful when you're placing your first stitches for the eyes that you get them level.

[00:32:04]And they need to be not horizontal to the image, but horizontal to the face.

[00:32:12]So, if you think of the face as having a line that runs down the middle of the forehead, down the middle of the nose, and down the middle of the mouth. And then the other line, the line of the eyes, goes right across that at a right angle. So, it makes a a sort of perfect cross shape.

[00:32:29]So, if you vary that a little bit, it can look like someone's had a stroke, cuz their eyes can be, you know, 2 mm above one another, which is fine for the castle, but not if you're trying to do a sort of proper up standing countenance.

[00:32:44]So, one of the things I always say to people is check because just half a millimeter off can, you know, make a huge difference to the face. So, it it's not horizontal to the image cuz quite often the heads in these things, especially sort of the Virgin Mary, they're on a tilt. So, you have to work horizontally to the face, not horizontally to the image. So, where my head is now, then the line of my nose is sort of going there, and the line of my eyes is not straight, either.

[00:33:19]So, it's it's true to the face, not to the I mean, his head is pretty much upright and standing up.

[00:33:28]>> Okay. And so, but if the head were at an angle, then you really have to be careful how you put the pin.

[00:33:34]>> I quite often, if I'm in any doubt or when I'm demonstrating, I have some very long pins. They're about 2 in long, and I quite often level those over the eyes and say that's where we want to put our our our eye line.

[00:33:49]>> Okay.

[00:33:50]>> And it's also, you know, when you're doing something, he's holding a flower, you want him looking at the flower. So, you've got to sort of make sure his eyes are looking at the flower and not looking up to the heavens cuz that would be a different image.

[00:34:04]>> Yeah, okay. All right. And then I the other thing and and I'm hung up on the face here. Last thing on the face is there's just a few stitches for the mouth. It Everything is in the eyes and the nose and the eyebrows. Uh is that intentional or just worked for this piece?

[00:34:24]>> It varies a bit, but you don't tend to get huge mouths in the Middle Ages. And the only time you see teeth is on evil faces.

[00:34:35]Because they're bare they're growling and it's quite a sort of animalistic. So, they're always a closed mouth if the person being shown is a good person, not an evil figure.

[00:34:49]There's a distinct language to it. So, where face on him is done completely in one color, you see in embroidery and in manuscripts, you see faces done in two colors and they're quite often they're two quite unnatural colors like two shades of green or two shades of blue.

[00:35:08]And that's like seeing the guy in the black hat in a western because it's in showing you this person is evil. It's how the faces of those who are jeering at Christ on the cross are usually shown in sort of two colors, bared teeth, and instead of, you know, the big eyes that we've got there, they'll have tiny little pinpoint pupils. Yeah. So, and it's a huge difference. I did a an online class of doing five different faces. So, we did a male and a female, an old and a young. We did a profile face and we did full frontal face and then we did an evil face. People had so much fun with the evil face cuz it was the last one we did.

[00:35:49]>> [laughter] >> And you know, we're blacking out his teeth where they were bared and the >> [laughter] >> his his skin colors. And people had huge amounts of fun doing these evil face on [laughter] the class that I did with the five faces.

[00:36:06]So, you know, it it it's it's learning the language of it cuz you see the same language in manuscripts as well. But there are that you do to depict the evil.

[00:36:16]So, doing the face in one color is sort of a way of doing things purely.

[00:36:22]I've actually started doing more mouth on my pieces than I used to because I never used to put lips on. It was always just a hard black line for the mouth.

[00:36:33]Because that's how the originals look.

[00:36:36]And I think when I was first doing them, I hadn't really taken into account the fact that colors fade, and pale colors fade faster than others. So, when I started looking more and more intently at the faces, I actually realized that there were stitches that depicted the shape of a lip.

[00:36:56]But, perhaps they'd been done in a very pale color, so they'd faded. So, I've started doing a colored lip, because I think that that's what's happened, that many of the original faces that colors don't fade evenly.

[00:37:13]>> Right. Right.

[00:37:14]>> Pale colors fade faster than than dark colors, cuz they've got less pigment to lose. It's like they say, you're more likely to get dementia if if you're of a lower IQ than a higher one, cuz you've got less to lose in the first place. So, it's kind of on that basis that I've started putting more lip in.

[00:37:33]Um quite often though, the lip is an area that people want to adjust, because it's come out too full or too thin for what they want.

[00:37:41]>> Yeah.

[00:37:42]>> So, I always you want to adjust something like that, don't just go in there with, you know, your full battery of threads. Take one single strand of filaments, which is incredibly difficult to handle, I will grant you. But, it's kind of softly, softly catch you monkey.

[00:37:57]Just do one stitch, and then do another one, cuz it's better to put four individual stitches in, than have one stitch of four threads, which will just stick out like a four sore thumb. Cuz it's all about blending these stitches together.

[00:38:15]>> Okay. Uh so much in that face. Talk about the hat and the feather.

[00:38:21]>> Um the hat is a typical bicocket hat of the 14th century. I told you he was a fashionable young man. And I wanted the feather to go in to be a reference to the little bird that Heloise is is holding in her hand. So in the little bird we worked the uh the tail feathers in this underside couching feathering technique, but we used um silk, which is much easier cuz actually the silk you can just go ahead and sew with it.

[00:38:51]Whereas this is the same way of constructing the feather, but doing it using underside couching and curving as well, so that was a bit tricky. So it's kind of referencing her birdie, but taking the technique one step further making a tiny bit more difficult so that you're making some progress on this. So in this one as well we've progressed by doing a pattern in the underside couch background that we've done a sort of twill pattern diagonal in the background, whereas Heloise's a straightforward sort of flat filling in a brick stitch.

[00:39:28]>> Okay.

[00:39:30]All right. Talk about here before we run out of time.

[00:39:34]Are there areas that are going to be challenging for people or have we already covered those in the face and the hat? Are >> I think a lot of people are intimidated by faces. I I I get the impression that a lot of embroiderers don't like doing things with faces in and that's why flowers are so popular.

[00:39:51]>> Uh-huh.

[00:39:51]>> But personally the world has enough embroidered flowers. Um >> [laughter] >> They're much more interesting and if you don't keep challenging yourself then you're not going to keep learning. The drapery on her is uh on Heloise and on Abelard is very very similar. It's that I think it's slightly more complicated on Heloise, but then shading reds I find is always more difficult.

[00:40:19]The only thing is I did try to make there some progression of technique, as I said, by giving him a slightly different feather in his hat, and by giving a different background stitch with the underside couching, so that you're trying something new.

[00:40:34]>> Okay.

[00:40:34]>> in but I didn't want them to be too different different in techniques, because they need to talk to each other.

[00:40:42]>> Mhm. Yeah.

[00:40:44]Yeah.

[00:40:45]And the around the outside, what do we have? It looks like we've got the dark and then a light and then talk about that border.

[00:40:53]>> The border is just a very very plain one. Um, you quite often find in many medieval manuscripts that they'll have like a dark outline just as usual, so that's just one row of stitch with four.

[00:41:05]And then they very often put this white line inside the dark one, because it really gives a sort of sparkle to the outline having that little bit of white in it. And it's it's something you see very commonly in manuscripts. So, it just it just looks nice. And you see it occasionally in copes and things where they've got a border. This sort of quatrefoil border is a very medieval shape.

[00:41:32]So, and it's a shape that's used in a lot of ecclesiastical embroideries, as well. And then it's basically put those two outlines and then you work out from it. But the outline that the border piece is always the first thing that we do. So, when when I teach a piece, I try to structure it so that you can screw up the first bit a little bit without it look different. So, when we do the silk work, we progress, we start with the border, because that gets you used to the filament silk. And by the time you've run around and around and around seven or eight times, whatever however many number you choose to do, then that will have got you used to handling the silk and any little snags and mistakes that you make in the border are not going to be as as visible to someone looking at it. I mean, I think this is the thing a lot of embroiderers are are really sort of obsessive perfectionists and I understand that, but you have to allow yourself to make mistakes because if you don't make a mistake, you never make anything.

[00:42:35]So, border is is kind of practicing just getting the stitch right before you try and move it around and do anything fancy with it.

[00:42:45]>> Okay.

[00:42:46]>> So, I always start with the border and then we do the clothing because that's one step of difficulty up from the border and then we did the flower cuz that's a little bit more technical. It's got a little bit of um trellis couching in the middle.

[00:42:59]And then we went to the hat and the feather.

[00:43:03]Well, we left a gap [laughter] for the feather. Then we do the hands cuz the hands are the same uh two threads that you use for the face. So, that's practicing using two instead of four.

[00:43:13]Then we do the face, which is really the hardest bit. Then we do couching cuz that's a different technique and it's much better. Most of the original pieces, they think were done with the goldwork last and then the silk first cuz it's actually very You can work underside couching around your silk, but working the silk around the underside couching is really difficult.

[00:43:41]So, it makes sense to do the gold last.

[00:43:45]>> Okay.

[00:43:46]>> So, every do I try to structure it as though it's a complete beginner.

[00:43:50]So, even with the the piece you're commenting on behind me, that's my next underside couching. That's my next opus class for online.

[00:43:58]We started with the border.

[00:44:00]And then we did, you know, we did the inner border. We did the drapery on in dress. Then we moved over, and we did all of the foliage cuz I mean, foliage you can learn a lot and there are techniques in it.

[00:44:14]But, it's a plant. If you screw it up, it's still going to look like a plant.

[00:44:19]>> [laughter] >> Then, we did the feathers on the dragon.

[00:44:23]Then, we did the faces and the hands.

[00:44:25]And now, we I'm just finishing off the underside couching on her.

[00:44:29]>> Yeah.

[00:44:31]>> All very structured so that a beginner can cope with it.

[00:44:34]>> Right. Right.

[00:44:36]Okay, Tanya. We better stop here. So, that that's that's so interesting that you lead people through from simple to most difficult. So, because you know, a lot of people I'm sure want to give this a try. And you help help them get through it step by step. Yeah, okay.

[00:44:54]>> I'm I'm very structured about the way I do any projects. It's I think you should always start with the easy bit and then, cuz even if you've done it before and you haven't done it for a while, you you need to get back into the rhythm of it. So, it makes sense the the simple bits.

[00:45:12]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:14]All right, excellent. So, Abelard and Heloise issues 130 and 131, um get out your your silks and uh use the right silk and uh and enjoy them. Thanks, Tanya, for uh doing this.

[00:45:28]I appreciate it.

[00:45:29]>> Thank you.