The terrible sketch to the right is my first quick idea for what I wanted in my couching pattern. I knew I wanted the lily, the heart, some flourishing curly ques and possibly a seeblatt or two. I riffed on that for awhile and drew up 5 or 6 more ideas and then stared at them all for days, unable to decide which one to clean and tighten up for use as the actual pattern.
Then I did what I should have done in the first place, since it was so much quicker and easier. Not to mention totally historically accurate. I flipped through some modelbuchs. I found the perfect pattern on page 15 of Christian Egenulf's Modelbuch aller art Nehewercks un Strickens. Its dated 1527, so the time period is really nicely in my portrait's time period. I love this particular modelbuch because all of the patterns are suitable for freehand embroidery. So many of the other compilations are intended for lace or counted work, so its nice to have variety. The entire book is available in pdf if you follow the link. I darkened my copy and simplified it a tiny bit, ignoring the flowers and dots. Then I taped it up on the big window of my kitchen and traced it onto my linen. Quick, easy, painless. I should have started with that.
That's the extent of the progress, however. My house is suffering from serious neglect, so I'll be spending some time cleaning this weekend. We're taking the kids to the Utah Renfest and Fantasy Faire today. It's been raining for 4 days straight so its probably going to be rather muddy, but its the last weekend. We've gone every year since moving here. Last year I didn't get to go since the twins were only a week or two old so I'm looking forward to it. I usually get my Mother's Day present from the faire. Last year my husband bought me a GORGEOUS handforged Francisca throwing ax. It totally made my day, since I was in total mom mode with the new infants, to have him buy something specifically for the part of me that is Hastings and not mom. Counting down the minutes to when we get to go play today.
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