RSN Certificate Jacobean Module

I have to confess that Crewel Work and the Jacobean style of embroidery are not my favourite technique or style, however since completing the Jacobean Module on the Certificate course, I do have more appreciation of both the style and technique.

The first module to completed on the Certificate course is Jacobean and it has quite a strict brief. The design has to be in the Jacobean style, stitched on linen twill and using Appleton’s crewel wool. There is a restriction on the number of colours you can use - 2 colour families with a maximum of 5 colours in each range and up to 2 accent colours. The maximum area the design can cover is up to A4 and needs to include some large open areas to accommodate the mandatory stitches such as trellis and long and short.

After quite a bit of research, I had some sort of idea for my design. I wanted to include a pomegranate and a peacock, but I did not want hillocks - a common feature in the tree of life designs and appearing in most Jacobean designs. So my design was a tree of life branch with different leaves, fruits including a pomegranate with a peacock sitting along the branch.

Pesky Peacock, Jacobean Embroidery by Tania Clarke - the completed piece

I realise now that having hillocks in the design gives you the large design areas for the required stitches. I also struggled to find design elements that I really liked, despite the wealth of design resources both on the internet and at the RSN. I was pleased with my design but soon came to realise that some of the elements were not in proportion with each other and that there was too much empty space in the bottom right hand corner. About half-way through embroidering the module, I really wanted to re-design it. My tutors encouraged me to persevere and helped me adjust the design. It was a good lesson, and learning to design was one of my reasons for doing the course.

I really love the colours I picked for the design. I love it’s vibrancy and how they work together. The idea for the scheme came from some beautiful tiled peacock panels that area in an old shopping arcade in Norwich - Royal Arcade. These tiles also inspired the peacock in the design. Despite loving the colours, they were difficult to work with. The cornflower blue range only had 5 colours in the family and the lightest and the darkest colours both seemed a couple of shades away from their next nearest colours. The orange/red family had more colours to choose from, but they were very close in shade to one another and it became difficult to differentiate between the shades. Having these issues has been another learning point and will help me consider colour choices more carefully in the future.

I have learnt so much about embroidery, design and colour choices in just one module. All of which is transferable to the following modules on the course and my own embroidery. I have also learnt that I should be more confident with my embroidery and to be open to different techniques and styles.

Would I do the technique again? Yes I would, I would really like to re-design my project - keeping some of the elements, but changing others or choosing different elements. I would definitely change the blue colours to different ones and replace the orange/red colours, instead using them as the accent colours.

At some point, I will return to Jacobean Crewel Work, but not until I complete the other modules on the certificate course.

The Appletons Wool colours I used are as follows:-

Cornflower Blue range - 465, 464, 463, 462, 461

Orange Red range - 448, 445, 444, 443. 441

Accent colours - Bright Yellow range - 551, 553