A time for reflection and surprise

Whilst i was in london last week i visited my old work place,the V&A! my intention was to see, at last, the new Medieval and Renaissance galleries which i must say are looking rather splendid and these photos don't do them justice (i blame the camera!)
it was such a pity that they weren't open when i did my Opus Anglicanum study and that it took a funeral for the opportunity to see them. if anyone is working on their Opus study i highly recommend a visit to give you some idea of the pieces 'in the flesh', albeit behind glass and some unfortunately at the back of the cases when they would have benefited from being much closer to the viewer (John of Thanet being one).There are some stunning pieces and the one you can get closest too is amazingly intricate.
it was also a very pleasant surprise to see displayed the small burse panel depicting St.George slaying the dragon and St.Catherine which i had conserved some eight years ago (oh dear cat out of bag!).

Opus Anglicanum, its been a mighty opus but hopefully its all stitched up!

Never one to miss an opportunity to make a book, and, after much deliberation on how to present my study on Opus Anglicanum i came up with this!
A concertina of various elements found on Opus textiles. When viewed close up it reminds me of theatre scenery!
I found the study very absorbing and also somewhat frustrating as a) the V&A's new Medieval galleries are not open yet, and it is always useful to see primary sources and b) a lot of publications have very inadequate photos. Web pages too left a lot to be desired. I remembered that in my past i had intimately known at least 2 pieces of Opus Anglicanum so there was much rummaging in the attic to find photos.
Its not easy to get everything in unless you are writing a thesis, so i hope this gives a detailed enough outline.
I decided to draw most of my images as this gives an understanding of the design elements and is somewhat reminiscent of the cartoon like designs of the period.
I firstly concentrated on the design features that enclosed images such as roundels and cruciform shapes.
I included designs inside the enclosures although they didn't necessarily go together originally so i hope this isn't misleading.

I have placed the shapes fairly chronologically, as are the architectural shapes at the end.

It was interesting to see how designs were worked from extant drawings and how often the designs would appear in more than one textile, also how design features were presented on the costume of the period.



I particularly liked areas of pattern worked with the same threads but using the stitches in different directions.
I did my samples of underside couching on a double layer of linen and found it quite tricky to get the tension correct. I also found that if the needle didn't go in the same hole in both directions then the loop was virtually impossible to pull through. How on earth they did it on velvet i have no idea and probably at speed! I have included a bibliography on the reverse side of the last 'page'. I will post photographs of the underside couching in Chapter 3. Finally back to untarnished glitter, one more sample of hand couching for Chapter 2.
I cut up lengths of 'Cello foil', crinkled them with heat and applied them to a photo of spray paint details.