Embroidering stitches onto a foundation is a centuries-old art form that entices designers and collectors still today, according to NYC antiques dealer Laura Fisher. For this holiday season she has gathered an abundance  of embellished quilts, table mats and table cloths, pillows, samplers and needlework pictures to tickle your fancy. The stitchery is in wool, silk or cotton on backgrounds of wool, silk, linen or cotton. The texture and color of all this fancywork provides a visually fulfilling contrast to the minimalism and neutrality of interior design that has been around for a while.

Fashion industry leaders like Dolce & Gabbana and Valentino adopted needlepoint as this season’s must-have look, as was the case with patchwork several seasons ago. To copy antique forms for contemporary furnishings and clothing amuses antiques devotees who have long appreciated folk art forms in which needlework offers visual  and tactile pleasure from technical skill in an historic context. Thankfully the old bias against such textiles – devaluing them as women’s work - no longer distorts collector attitudes.

Folk artists used embroidery techniques in which stitch counting did not guide the hand as in other needlework.  For example, table mats fashioned on wool suiting could be whimsical or formal, exhibiting imagination, dexterity and  beauty. Shirred and clipped loops added dimension to sewn works. Such hand worked table pieces including larger table covers are a cherished needlework form showing avariety of detail including fruit, flowers, animals, personal motifs.

Designs for fancywork to copy like Kate Greenaway figures were published in ladies periodicals. Crazy quilts were embellished typically over all their seams with stitchery; the most desirable have their random shaped pieces embroidered with infinite details like flowers, figures and symbols popular among Victorian and Edwardian quilt makers.

Samplers and pictures with alphabets, phrases or images sometimes drawn from the Bible were intended to teach schoolgirls proficiency in needlework and were prized household decoration when made, appearing from the late 1700s onward in the U.S. Sampler collecting is an area in which discoveries are often documentable  if signed, dated, sometimes with the name of the teacher and school.

Visit: www.laurafisherquilts.com/