No Charts Needed

With period canvaswork, patterns were always drawn or painted on the canvas, and the modern counted stitch method was not used (Nevinson, xv/ Rhodes, 39). This type of canvas was/is too loosely woven for the pricking/pouncing method to work. Professionals were often employed to transfer designs to canvas, but private individuals could do the same for themselves.

The slip at the left, from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, is a rare example where the original underdrawing is visible.

In period fashion, I relied on manuscript and printed books for my designs. Margaret Swain provides a detailed account of Mary Stuart's use of book illustrations to design canvaswork slips in her book (see bibliography).

In most cases I use a copy machine to achieve the size I want, and a light table to draw the design outline on the fabric. I use my own judgment on color usage. Sometimes I have been satisfied enlarging designs by drawing freehand on a blank sheet, which I then use as the transfer template. In period I would have been able to do much the same by placing a light source beneath or behind the canvas and paper design, or else I could have tried drawing directly on the canvas with no intermediate step.

Above, left: a page from Konrad Gesner's 16th C work on fish and other sea life.	Above, right: Two slips stitched by me. The first step after drawing the pattern outline is to stitch it in black. You can see here the few outlines inside the shell to provide a basic stitching guide.

Here are a few more examples of completed slips taken directly from period design sources. No charting was done, or needed.

A page from Claude Paradin's emblem book...	And a finished slip