Embroidered Caskets
Detail of circle motif
Circles are a design device seen on many medieval caskets and I have used them on this casket. One large circle appears on the upper slope of the lid and three smaller circles are placed on the lower part of the box.
- Front view of casket
The techniques used are a mixture of hand and machine stitch. the background textures are made first and then embellishment added using hand stitching, beading and other decorative methods.
Saints casket
This casket has embroidered panels on each of the four sides, attached to the wooden core in the tradition of the medieval caskets. The inspiration for this tiered box came from looking at medieval architectural details of figures set into arches.
Detail of saints casket showing St Bartholomew and St Paul found on a textile in the V & A museum in London
Courses:
The courses I have led on the making of caskets have proved to be very popular. Courses are designed to run for one, two, or more days according to preference. A one day course will cover the basics of putting a box together but decoration will necessarily be simple due to constraints of time, although a design session is included. Longer courses include demonstrations of technique and more time can be given to the embellishment. This is a course to come and use the skills already learnt and to put them into practise whist learning how to construct a simple box using the methods I have developed over a period of time.