Editing Crewel embroidery (section)

=== United States ===
==== Colonial America ====
Early fabrics made in the Colonies tended to be plain in both weave and in color. Fabric was made from white and black wool, and indigo dye was used. With the use of these materials, the fabric was gray, brown, or blue. Needlework was a way to enliven this fabric. and the earliest forms of needlework used were [[turkeywork]] and crewel embroidery.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|9}}[[File:America, Massachusetts, Boston, 18th century, 1st half - "Fishing Lady" - 1996.1003 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif|thumb|Fishing Lady crewelwork, 18th century, Boston (Cleveland Art Museum)]]

While early American crewelwork, and embroidery more generally, followed in the tradition of their English counterparts regarding fabric, designs, and yarn, there were some differences. Early American works tend to display a smaller range of individual stitches, smaller and less complicated designs, and the designs cover less of the background fabric.<ref name="Swan1976" />{{rp|82–83}} A study of New England crewel embroidery found that the primary colors, blue, red, and yellow, were the most used. The stitches used most often were outline, seed, and economy, and the designs most frequently used showed plants.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|Abstract}}

Crewel embroidery was a pastime primarily in New England. There are some surviving examples from the mid Atlantic region, primarily New York and Pennsylvania, but these designs differed. Indeed, there were also stylistic differences within New England, with one region being the Massachusetts coast area centered on Boston, and another Connecticut.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Rowe|first=Ann Pollard|date=1973|title=Crewel Embroidered Bed Hangings in Old and New England|journal=Boston Museum Bulletin|volume=71|issue=365–366|pages=101–163}}</ref>{{rp|104–105}}

Young women in New England in the 1700s were expected to become adept at needlework. Day and boarding schools that taught different types of needlework existed, as evidenced by advertisements in colonial Boston newspapers.<ref name="Terrace1964" />{{rp|77}} They would embroider items both utilitarian, such as bed-hangings, curtains, clothes, and bed linens, and ornamental, such as wall hangings.<ref name="Townsend1941" />{{rp|26}} In the early colonial period, the master bed was often located in the parlor, and thus on public display. Crewel bed-hangings provided both decoration and comfort, while serving as a status symbol.<ref name="Swan1976">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/winterthurguidet00swan|url-access=registration|title=A Winterthur guide to American needlework|last=Swan|first=Susan Burrows|publisher=Crown|others=Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum|year=1976|isbn=0517521776|location=New York|oclc=2151073}}</ref>{{rp|68}} Women would also create smaller items decorated with crewel work, such as the detached [[pocket]]s that were worn tied around one's waist and envelope bags carried by men and women that were popular in the second half of the 1700s.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Weissman, Judith Reiter.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/29315818|title=Labors of love : America's textiles and needlework, 1650–1930|date=1994|publisher=Wings Books|others=Lavitt, Wendy.|isbn=0-517-10136-X|location=New York|oclc=29315818}}</ref>{{Rp|113–115}} 
[[File:American_crewel_valance.jpg|thumb|Detail of linen valence ca. 1760–1770 embroidered with crewel wool, American]]
Many of the embroidery patterns they worked from included common motifs: trees, birds, flowers, groups of figures or animals. This indicates that these patterns may have been variations of a small number of originals.<ref name="Terrace1964">{{Cite journal|last=Terrace|first=Lisa Cook|date=1964|title=English and New England Embroidery|journal=Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts|volume=62|issue=328|pages=65–80|jstor=4171406}}</ref>{{rp|77}} Landscape patterns with figures were more realistic in the 18th century than they were in the 17th century, and seldom involved scenes from the Bible, as had earlier patterns.<ref name="Townsend1941">{{Cite journal|last=Townsend|first=Gertrude|date=1941|title=An Introduction to the Study of Eighteenth Century New England Embroidery|journal=Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts|volume=39|issue=232|pages=19–26|jstor=4170793}}</ref>{{rp|26}} Many of the New England embroidery designs in the 1700s included rounded and curving elements.<ref name="Terrace1964" />{{rp|78}}

Patterns for crewel designs were obtained in a number of ways. Patterns in both England and New England were often derived from elements taken from engravings of English and French artists. These elements, often figures or groups of figures, would be taken from various works and combined in different ways.<ref name="Townsend1941" />{{rp|26}} In colonial New England, women used pattern books or sketches in magazines (such as ''The [[Ladies' Magazine]]'') that were obtained from England. Design books of other types, such as gardens and furniture, were also used. Custom stamped fabric could be found in larger cities at times, as could custom-drawn sketches. Women may also have used designs from printed fabric for their crewel work.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://d.lib.msu.edu/etd/7977/datastream/OBJ/View/|title=Crewel Design of Colonial New England and the Environmental Influences|last=Richards|first=Mary Lynne|publisher=Michigan State University|year=1975|type=M.A. Thesis}}</ref>{{Rp|10–11}}

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).<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/plainfancyameric0000swan/page/105|url-access=registration|title=Plain & fancy: American women and their needlework, 1700–1850|last=Swan|first=Susan Burrows|publisher=Holt, Rinehart, and Winston|year=1977|isbn=9780030151217|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/plainfancyameric0000swan/page/105 105]|oclc=2818511}}</ref>

The range of wool colors that needleworkers in colonial New England could call upon were rather limited. Many New England households grew [[indigo]], which allowed wool to be dyed in various shades of blue. Other natural materials, used with or without [[mordant]]s, used to dye wool included: [[Juglans cinerea|butternut]] shells (spring green); hemlock bark (reddish tan); [[Haematoxylum campechianum|logwood]] (purple brown, blue black, deep black purple); [[Carex scoparia|broom sedge]], wild cherry, [[sumac]], and [[Solidago|golden rod]] (yellow); onion skins (lemon and gold yellow); and [[cochineal]] (purple, deep wine red).<ref>{{Cite book|title=American needlework: The history of decorative stitchery and embroidery from the late 16th to the 20th century|last=Harbeson|first=Georgiana Brown|publisher=Bonanza Books|location=New York}}</ref>{{Rp|30–31}}

==== Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework ====
{{Further|Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework}}
There was a resurgence of interest in crewel embroidery in [[Deerfield, Massachusetts|Deerfield]], Massachusetts, when two women, [[Margaret C. Whiting]] and [[Ellen Miller (artist)|Ellen Miller]], founded the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework. 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.<ref name=":4" /> Because these new embroideries were not meant to replicate the earlier works, society artisans soon deviated from the earlier versions with new patterns and stitches, and even the use of linen, rather than wool, thread.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book|title=The Needle arts : a social history of American needlework.|publisher=Time-Life Books|others=Time-Life Books|year=1990|isbn=0-8094-6841-7|location=Alexandria, Va.|pages=104|oclc=21482166}}</ref> Miller and Whiting used vegetable dyes in order to create the colors of the wool threads, and handwoven linen fabric was bought for use as the background.<ref name=":5" /> Members of this society continued their stitching until 1926.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=Deerfield embroidery|last=Howe, Margery Burnham.|date=1976|publisher=Scribner|isbn=0-684-14377-1|location=New York|oclc=1341513}}</ref>