Emblems for a Queen
Emblems for a Queen

Author: Michael Bath

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13:

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"The many pieces of embroidery by Mary Queen of Scots or by Elizabeth Countess of Shrewsbury ('Bess of Hardwick') are among the best-known and most fascinating examples of historical embroidery. However, many questions surrounding their meaning and purpose - and, above all, the sources and patterns used for their imagery (including birds, fish, flowers, monograms, emblems and other devices) - remain unanswered." "In 1548, the five-year-old Queen of Scots left her native Scotland to begin her French upbringing as the future Queen of France and it was here that she learned the art of decorative needlework, continuing with the craft during the last twenty years of her exile and confinement in England. Many of her embroideries have survived and can be seen at Oxburgh Hall (Norfolk), the Victoria and Albert Museum and elsewhere, but many more have since disappeared. In this new study Michael Bath not only describes and illustrates the surviving embroideries, but also documents from early records a large number of those that have disappeared." "Many of these embroidered panels use emblems, combining a symbolic image with a learned adage, and Professor Bath shows how, in their own day, these were believed to hold moral, political and religious messages which expressed the Catholic queen's values, purposes and intentions. For this reason we find records of them in the forgotten files of the Elizabethan secret services. Mary's emblematic embroideries shed new light on issues surrounding one of the most controversial figures in English and Scottish history. At the same time, this new study shows exactly what sources - prints, engravings, book illustrations - the embroiderers drew on for their patterns, and it includes the first full catalogue raisonne of all the known embroideries created by these two remarkable women."--BOOK JACKET.

Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots
Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots

Author: Margaret Swain

Publisher: Crowood

Published: 2013-08-31

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1847976786

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Although a large body of needlework has always been attributed to Mary Queen of Scots, little attempt was made to authenticate these pieces or to explain how so energetic and impetuous a woman could have found pleasure in the meticulous craft of embroidery. This is the first comprehensive study of the Queen as a needlewoman describing all the works associated with her. For the first time every piece marked by her cipher or monogram is illustrated in full. A biographical outline provides the framework for understanding her work by setting it in the context of her unsettled and stormy life. It recounts the influence of her formative years in France and her absorption in needlework during the years of imprisonment. Many of the embroideries can be seen in British country houses and in Scottish collections. A significant work in the history of costume and textiles and sheds a new light on those little known aspects of Mary Queen of Scot's life. The first comprehensive study of the Queen of Scots as a needlewoman and how such an energetic and impetuous woman could have found pleasure in the meticulous craft of embroidery. Illustrated in full with 12 colour, 70 black & white photographs and 20 illustrations. Margaret Swain is an expert on the history of costume and textiles and was awarded an MBE for her work on embroidery and tapestries.

Tudor Roses
Tudor Roses

Author: Alice Starmore

Publisher: Courier Dover Publications

Published: 2017-02-15

Total Pages: 179

ISBN-13: 0486817180

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This volume of Tudor Roses presents new and reimagined garments based on the original Tudor Roses published in 1998. Alice Starmore looks to historical female figures of the Tudor Dynasty as inspiration for her stunning knitwear, and her modernization of traditional Fair Isle and Aran patterns has created a sensation in the knitting world. Through garment design, Starmore and her daughter Jade tell the stories of fourteen women connected with the Tudor dynasty. They weave a narrative around the known facts of their subjects' lives using photography, art, and the only medium through which the Tudor women could leave a lasting physical record in their world — needlework. Tudor Roses includes fourteen patterns for sweaters and other wearables that follow the chronological order of the Tudor dynasty. A different model portrays each of the Tudor women, from Elizabeth Woodville, grandmother of Henry VIII, through Mary, Queen of Scots. The stunning design and photography appeals to knitters seeking designs that offer an attractive balance of historic and modern elements.

Threads of Life
Threads of Life

Author: Clare Hunter

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2019-10-15

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 168335771X

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This globe-spanning history of sewing and embroidery, culture and protest, is “an astonishing feat . . . richly textured and moving” (The Sunday Times, UK). In 1970s Argentina, mothers marched in headscarves embroidered with the names of their “disappeared” children. In Tudor, England, when Mary, Queen of Scots, was under house arrest, her needlework carried her messages to the outside world. From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry, World War I soldiers coping with PTSD, and the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World, to the AIDS quilt, Hmong story clothes, and pink pussyhats, women and men have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances. Threads of Life is a chronicle of identity, memory, power, and politics told through the stories of needlework. Clare Hunter, master of the craft, threads her own narrative as she takes us over centuries and across continents—from medieval France to contemporary Mexico and the United States, and from a POW camp in Singapore to a family attic in Scotland—to celebrate the universal beauty and power of sewing.

Mary Queen of Scots
Mary Queen of Scots

Author: Susan Watkins

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780500288177

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The fascinating but ultimately tragic tale of Mary, Queen of Scots, holds eternal appeal. In this beautifully illustrated book, Susan Watkins re-creates the world in which Mary lived the landscapes, the palaces and the courtly culture, and the fine details of the domestic scene in vivid word pictures, which give life to the wealth of historical illustrations and specially taken photographs by Mark Fiennes, who accompanied Susan Watkins on her journey in search of the true story behind the Queen across three countries.

Pens and Needles
Pens and Needles

Author: Susan Frye

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2011-11-29

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 0812206983

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The Renaissance woman, whether privileged or of the artisan or the middle class, was trained in the expressive arts of needlework and painting, which were often given precedence over writing. Pens and Needles is the first book to examine all these forms as interrelated products of self-fashioning and communication. Because early modern people saw verbal and visual texts as closely related, Susan Frye discusses the connections between the many forms of women's textualities, including notes in samplers, alphabets both stitched and penned, initials, ciphers, and extensive texts like needlework pictures, self-portraits, poetry, and pamphlets, as well as commissioned artwork, architecture, and interior design. She examines works on paper and cloth by such famous figures as Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Bess of Hardwick, as well as the output of journeywomen needleworkers and miniaturists Levina Teerlinc and Esther Inglis, and their lesser-known sisters in the English colonies of the New World. Frye shows how traditional women's work was a way for women to communicate with one another and to shape their own identities within familial, intellectual, religious, and historical traditions. Pens and Needles offers insights into women's lives and into such literary texts as Shakespeare's Othello and Cymbeline and Mary Sidney Wroth's Urania.

Mary Queen of Scots
Mary Queen of Scots

Author: Susan Doran

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13:

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Returning to Scotland, she married again (unhappily), gave birth to her only child, who would later betray her, suffered the horror of her secretary and second husband being murdered, endured abduction and rape by a third, and finally captivity and escape from a remote castle in the Highlands. Her last eighteen years as a prisoner in England, while certainly quieter, continued to be marked by conspiracy and intrigue, and a fraught relationship with her cousin Elizabeth I.