In the fall of 2023, I started the first module of the Royal School of Needlework certificate, which focuses on Jacobean Crewelwork Embroidery. This style of embroidery originated in England in the early 17th century and uses wool yarn on linen cloth. Motifs are nature-themed and objects are disproportionate.

Our brief instructed us to include a minimum of 14 crewelwork stitches from four categories: outline, fill, texture, and accent. We were to use 2 primary color families of Appleton crewel wool, with 5 hues each, preferably from the same number range. An additional accent color with two hues was also a requirement.

The design could use individual elements sourced from third parties but the overall design itself had to be of our own construction. I opted to design both my own objects, as well.

My theme was the Central Pagean mountains, an ancient range that once connected North America and the United Kingdom. I researched flora and fauna that the two areas had in common. I narrowed it down to native natural elements from North Carolina and Scotland, because I live in North Carolina and many Scottish people settled in North Carolina (as depicted in the television series Outlander.) I have a handful of traceable ancestors from the UK and one of my most recent ones was from Renfrewshire, near Glasgow.

After deciding on objects, it was time to arrange them into a design, choose colors and create a stitch plan:

From there on out, it was a lot of stitching. At first, I sampled to make sure the stitch plan would be what I wanted. After I started on the final piece, some areas gave me trouble and I had to unpick and restitch them. It was hard to not keep striving for perfection. At a certain point, I had to say, “good enough,” and move on.