Surface embroidery may be performed on plainweave, such as crewel work, goldwork, stumpwork, cutwork, and candlewicking. Embroideries that can be performed on plainweave do not require the crafter to perform stitches at a precise thread count. Most woven fabrics that were not specifically manufactured for the purpose of embroidery qualify as plainweave. Traditionally, linen plainweave is the preferred fabric for crewel embroidery.
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Her works had a hint of seventeenth-century crewel-work and her designs featured floral forms with angular stems and a strong decorative quality. She also imported the new Glasgow style lettering into her embroidery designs. Students who took part on her embroidery classes did so as an extra subject, or because they hoped to earn a livelihood as professional embroidery workers. At the turn of the century the Scottish Education Department issued guidance which envisaged embroidery as an important part of the national school curriculum.
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Women may also have used designs from printed fabric for their crewel work. From surviving Colonial crewelwork and written references such as letters, it is known that most projects were embroidered on linen. However, the preferred background fabrics were fustian (a twill fabric that generally had a linen warp with a cotton weft, though may have been all cotton) or dimity (which has fine vertical ribs and resembles fine corduroy). The range of wool colors that needleworkers in colonial New England could call upon were rather limited.
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The end of this period saw the rise of the formal sampler as a record of the amateur stitcher's skills. Curious fashions of the mid-17th century were raised work or stumpwork, a pictorial style featuring detached and padded elements,Embroiderers' Guild 1984, p. 81 and crewel work, featuring exotic leaf motifs worked in wool yarn.Fitwzwilliam and Hand 1912, "Introduction" Canvaswork, in which thread is stitched through a foundation fabric, and surface embroidery, in which the majority of the thread sits on top of the fabric, exist side-by-side in the English tradition, coming in and out of fashion over the years.
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Wool from Worstead in Norfolk was manufactured for weaving purposes, but also started to be used for embroidering small designs using a limited number of stitches, such as stem and seeding. These were initially often executed in a single color. However, the color and design range expanded, and embroidery using this crewel wool began to be used in larger projects and designs, such as bed hangings. Rich embroidery had been used extensively in ecclesiastical vestments and altar drapings, but after the Protestant Reformation, the emphasis moved to embroidery, including crewel work, for use in homes and other secular settings.
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There was a resurgence of interest in crewel embroidery in Deerfield, Massachusetts when two women, Margaret Whiting and Ellen Miller, founded the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework, thus starting the Deerfield embroidery movement. This society was inspired by the crewel work of 18th-century women who had lived in and near Deerfield. Members of the Blue and White Society initially used the patterns and stitches from these earlier works that they had found in the town museum. Because these new embroideries were not meant to replicate the earlier works, members of the Deerfield Society soon deviated from the earlier versions with new patterns and stitches, and even the use of linen, rather than wool, thread.
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Deerfield embroidery developed from the efforts of the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework in Deerfield, Massachusetts in the 1890s. Margaret C. Whiting and Ellen Miller formed the society in 1896 as a way to help residents boost the town's economy by reviving American needlework from the 1700s. This society was inspired by the crewel work of 18th-century women who had lived in the Deerfield, Massachusetts area. Members of the Blue and White Society initially used the patterns and stitches from these earlier works, but because these new embroideries were not meant to replicate the earlier works, the embroidery soon deviated from the original versions with new patterns and stitches, and even the use of linen, rather than wool, thread.
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