Two Couched Goldwork Designs

Over the weekend, I attended the Athena's Thimble Embroidery Schola, which was an SCA event focused entirely on embroidery.  There were about 15 classes, along with a potluck lunch and an Athena's Thimble panel. 

One of the classes I took was Introduction to Goldwork.  It was a 2 hour class, with a lecture as the first half and hands-on the second.  I learned a lot about Goldwork, and was super excited to actually try it. 

The first hands-on project was a couched design on linen, sewn with DMC Color Infusions Memory Thread.  According to the instructor, this thread, which is a copper wire wrapped with thread and polyamide, acts much like actual gold wire. 

The second project was on velvet (my first time working any embroidery on velvet), and was done with jap gold.  Jap gold is imitation gold, made in Japan.  It is cheaper than real gold, but can be a bit fussy.  This thread was much smaller than the memory wire, and I couched two threads side by side to make it slightly heavier looking and to echo medieval examples.

I paneled the first design, and achieved competency in Metal Thread.  This makes 3 competencies!  I think next up I will tackle counted thread, and I'm thinking that my chosen project will be this German bag.