The BAC Stitch Group hasn’t been posting, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been researching and presenting. In May 2021 we shared our paper ‘Dogs, Deer, Bears, and Ghosts: The Hunting Scene on the Bacton Altar Cloth’ at the Medieval Dress and Textile Society Annual Conference. In May 2022 we returned to the same conference to present ‘Digital Reconstruction of the Embroidered Fabric that became the Bacton Altar Cloth’ and followed this presentation with a longer and more casual
Upcoming Paper at the Annual Medieval Dress and Textile Society The members of BAC Stitch are all members of MEDATS, so naturally we presented our first real paper there last year, titled ‘Dogs, Deer, Bears, and Ghosts: The Hunting Scene on the Bacton Altar Cloth’. This year the conference theme is Changing Textiles: Upcycling, Recycling, Remaking, Reimagining and Reusing, which naturally lends itself to papers about objects like the Bacton Altar Cloth, which have obviously had multiple forms and uses
My previous post (First Motif: A Daffodil) about motifs 1, 58, and 61 on my map of the Bacton Altar Cloth explained our thought that these were daffodils. As we studied the embroidery more we noticed two general rules that made us doubt the species identification: Although motifs repeated, sometimes with slight variance in colouring, no species seemed to be represented by different shaped motifs. While flowers might be exaggerated in size, both the flowers and the leaves seem
One of the great pleasures in studying the Bacton Altar Cloth, even from afar mostly via photographs, is that so many intriguing questions present themselves. What materials were used? Who stitched the designs? How was the fabric and embroidery used before it was an altar cloth? How would contemporary viewers have interpreted the work? To answer such conundrums clearly will take considerable time devoted by many people with diverse expertise. One question seemed easy enough, but has dominated our initial
On Saturday 9 January our little study group held a public but relaxed and conversational online meeting about the Bacton Altar Cloth as part of a lockdown-inspired series of more smaller, more accessible events hosted by the Medieval Dress and Textile Society. We shared our photos – ok, mostly my photos – of the Bacton Altar Cloth taken last winter when it was on display at Hampton Court Palace, answered queries from some of the nearly 120 people who joined
Before the first MEDATS Study Day I needed a “map” of the Bacton Altar Cloth so that I could communicate with others about which of the original floral motifs we wanted to discuss. I have not assigned numbers to the secondary embroidery that was added later – the animals, insects, trees, and other smaller figures squeezed between the original motifs – only to the professionally embroidered flowering and fruiting plants. Here is the same image without the numbers over