All you need is glove (and Mom’s help)

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that I don’t embroider (except recently by machine). But I sure can trace! So I drew out three sets of gauntlets to be embroidered by Mom (henceforth known as the Fockett & Cox Sweatshop ;-). Adorable Elizabethan designs based on two embroidery books I bought for her at Costume College (and I’d cite them here but Mom has the books now — she was very excited to get these and learn new stitch combinations and see all the neat projects, like sweet bags and such).  We discussed colors and additional decorations, like tiny spangles and beads (Mom loves the bling; something I did inherit from her).

I’ll tack the embroidered cuffs onto several pairs of vintage gloves collected by Sarah and me. Add a little lace edging, and voila, a very simplistic facsimile of these. My designs aren’t anywhere as dense because I wanted to make sure Mom could finish a couple of them in the month we have before Much Ado About Sebastapol. I simply drew two or three connected motifs on the front of each cuff and one on the back. Still, they should look pretty and evoke the period examples.

Front of strawberry glove embroidery, finished

Back of strawberry glove embroidery, finished

Back of strawberry glove embroidery, in-progress

Design of the cherry glove embroidery

Design of the floral glove embroidery, back

Design of the floral glove embroidery, front

Design of the strawberry glove embroidery

Well, by Labor Day, Mom finished one complete set of the cuffs, and they’re gorgeous!

I added a heavy interfacing behind the embroidery and lined the cuffs in white twill. Then I started sewing each cuff to the gloves. I’m debating what to use to cover the join. In Seventeenth-Century Women’s Dress Patterns, one of the pairs of gloves described has a pretty pink-silk ribbon, gathered into a little ruffle that covers the cuff join. Something like that would be easy to make, but I have to find the right color of silk. Several of the gloves in the V&A’s collection have gold braid or lace trims covering the join, but matching the gold braid to the gold lace I have is proving not easy. I want to use stuff from The Stash and avoid trips to the store and/or rush orders online. We shall see…