Embroideries

The word crewel with a variety of spellings can be found in English records dating back to the 13th century It is thought to have come from the East to Egypt then to Greece and Rome where it traveled with the Roman conquests to England From the 15th century crewel embroidery meant any embroidery technique using fine worsted yarns By the 20th century crewelwork had been redefined to mean surface embroidery with wool.

Crewel by definition is the application of a variety of stitches to the surface of fabric usually linen following a design applied to the fabric The technique is at least 1000 years old it was used in the Bayeaux Tapestry which depicts the Battle of Hastings 1066.

The use of 2 ply wool 2 fold wool twisted yarn gives very tight fine quality stitching use of this type of wool allows more colour variations and sharper patterns.

Single ply wool is relatively thicker wool and gives a rustic look since the edges are not as sharp as produced by double ply yarn.

Today the valley of Kashmir in North India is home to this timeless art where all the stitching is done by hand with the use of a small hand tool known as Aari.