Grace Christie (1872–1953)

I Was recently gifted with a copy of "Embroidery", a 1909 volume edited by Mrs. Archibald Christie (aka Grace Christie). She wrote most of the articles that appear in the volume. Her famous article and diagram of the Plaited Braid stitch is here, and since this was published in 1909, is clearly out of copyright now.

I recognized several of the authors from their books outside the field of embroidery. There are two articles about Opus Anglicum (note the spelling) by Louis de Farcy, translated from the French. There is an article about embroidery in heraldry by W. H. St. John Hope, and a couple on color embroidery by Walter Crane. Mrs. Christie has an article about the jacket we now call the Layton jacket, from a time when it was in a private collection. She identifies it as 16th century, and calls the motif "scrolling stems." I have often wondered where that term came from. Her husband wrote several articles on design, and A. F. Kendrick discusses an English Hanging of the 17th century.

There are also 24 Plates, in color, with a discussion of how they were embroidered. They appear to be original to the author discussing them (i.e., contemporary, not historical).

I found the book to be fascinating, for showing some of the history of the scholarship on some of the items. For instance, modern scholarship dates the Layton jacket to the first quarter of the 17th c. now. So take the discussions of historical pieces with a grain of salt, because current scholarship may have found out new things. But as a picture of what was known and done at the turn of the 20th century - fascinating!

Nota bene - the subtitle listed on the cover is different from the subtitle listed on the title page. I find that very odd.… (more)