Techniques Being Used in the Slips Project

I've had a few people ask questions about some of the techniques being used in the slip project. So I am going to cover them in one post:

Glue - glue was used alot during the Elizabethan period as a method of finishing items made from fabric, including clothes and embroidered items. It was used to reinforce or finish edges to stop fabric from fraying. That is how it is used here. I could've just glued around the edges, but because of the types of fabrics involved, I decided to glue the whole project stabilised by linen.

Linen Backing - The linen backing is glued to the back of the embroidery to give the whole piece more stability. Once it's cut out from the surrounding linen canvas, it becomes quite floppy because of the open nature of the weave of the canvas. By gluing the fine linen fabric to the back of the embroidery, it pulls the whole thing together. Also, because the linen backing is glued to the linen canvas and silk thread, it stops the edges fraying when it is cut very close to the edges to allow the couching with the gold thread.