Embroidery

So, The Child is keen on all this re-enactment stuff and suggested I teach her to embroider (The Child is my youngest and is the impressionable and delicate age of 19...). She was a little daunted by the whole concept but willing to give it a go, and after I'd showed her a few basic stitches was surprised how easy it was. Then it was just a question of what she was going to do as a practice piece.


She's still a little horse-crazy and by sheer luck (and minimal research) we stumbled across a Bestiary dated 1220-1230 (British Library, Harley MS 4751, Folio 68r) with a rather nice hippocampus, so I drew it onto a piece of linen for her and dug out a bunch of coloured wool I'd dyed up about 8 years ago and let her go for it.

Well, it took about a week all up to complete, then we sewed it into a pillow slip with a dark blue linen back. Then we had to make the pillow - note to self: stuffing feather pillows is to be done OUTSIDE next time!