Embroidery Definitions — definitions of embroidery techniques, stitches and needlework terms from Apparel Search
Whitework embroidery refers to any embroidery technique in which the stitching is the same color as the foundation fabric, traditionally white linen. Styles of whitework embroidery include most drawn thread work, broderie anglaise and reticella. Whitework is one of the techniques employed in heirloom sewing, for blouses, christening gowns, baby bonnets and other small articles.
Styles of whitework embroidery include most drawn thread work, broderie anglaise, and reticella.
Whitework embroidery is one of the techniques employed in heirloom sewing for blouses, christening gowns, baby bonnets, and other small articles.
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/whitework_embroidery). 1/15/06 |
|
|
Whitework is embroidery's exercise in restraint: remove color, and every other variable must work harder. Designers combine stitches that sit at different heights — padded satin stitch stands proud, drawn thread work sinks into open bars, broderie anglaise cuts actual holes — so the pattern reads by light and shadow as the cloth moves. That is why whitework rewards fine linen and close, even stitching: at conversational distance a whitework blouse reads as simply white, and its quality only declares itself at the distance heirloom pieces are actually handled, passed hand to hand at a christening or laid out for inspection. The discipline also makes whitework a training ground — errors of tension and spacing that color would disguise are fully exposed.
The association with christening gowns, baby bonnets and fine blouses is practical as well as ceremonial. White linen can be washed, boiled and bleached as colored work cannot, so a garment meant to be worn by successive children can be kept white across decades; the embroidery, being the same color and fiber family as the ground, ages at the same rate and never fades against it. Drawn thread borders finish hems while decorating them, broderie anglaise gives eyelets and scallops their finished edge, and reticella supplies lace-like panels — a complete vocabulary for making small white garments elaborately without introducing a single colored thread. Modern heirloom sewing by machine reproduces the same effects, but the definition of the style has not moved: thread the color of the cloth, design carried by texture alone.
Broderie anglaise shows whitework at its boldest: holes are cut into the fabric and their raw edges are immediately overcast with dense buttonhole stitching, often around a raised satin motif, so the pattern is partly the cloth that has been removed. Scalloped edges are built the same way, padded and buttonholed before the excess fabric is trimmed. The technique punishes hesitation — a cut edge left unstitched frays — and rewards the precision that whitework training instills, which is why it became a standard test of a needlewoman's finish.
Color discipline: the stitching is the same color as the foundation fabric, traditionally white on white linen. With no color contrast available, the design is carried entirely by texture — raised satin stitch, open drawn-thread areas, cutwork holes and shadowed stitching.
Most drawn thread work is whitework, and broderie anglaise — white embroidery with cutwork holes edged in buttonhole stitch — and reticella, the drawn-thread and needlelace form from 16th-century Italy, are whitework styles. Hardanger also belongs to the whitework family in its traditional white-on-white form.
Whitework is a technique of heirloom sewing, used for blouses, christening gowns, baby bonnets and other small articles, as well as household linens. Its white-on-white refinement suits garments made to be kept, handed down and closely inspected.