Cut out and embroidered just for me

Today - 30 July - is World Embroidery Day 2024. Stitchers are sharing images of their work, celebrating their needles, and choosing their threads.

I am very particular about terminology when it comes to stitchery, so I don’t consider myself an embroiderer. Rather, I am naturally a quilter - in that I mostly work with three-layer pieces, linked together by thread. But I do occasionally stitch one layer of fabric on its own, and the resulting pieces are technically embroideries. I suppose that makes me a quilter who dabbles in embroidery from time to time.

My embroidered work include pieces such the Cromwell Thames Rolls, which pick out the river themes in Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell Trilogy, and combine stitched text and images. The Thames Rolls grow from time to time, as they are ongoing work - good for sewing in scraps of time, and on the go. Most of them were stitched on train journeys.

Cromwell Thames Roll One - Across the Narrow Sea. Photograph by Michael Wicks.

The Thames Rolls, near the River at Mortlake, 2022. The wall on the right is Cromwell’s wall from the remains of Mortlake Manor.

Cromwell Thames Rolls Four - Visitation. Photograph by Michael Wicks,

Cromwell Thames Rolls in the studio. The patron saint of the boatmen is present. This is the last photograph of my work in progress that I sent to Hilary in September 2022.

Remembering Gyllam the Embroiderer

Last week, I was re-reading Thomas Avery’s surviving account books, kept for Thomas Cromwell between 1537 and 1539. As I have noted before, account books and inventories are treasure troves of information. If you can decipher them.

I am in the mood for material culture at the moment - I am busy stitching items that Cromwell owned - so I was picking out items from the account books that might someday form elements of my current large Cromwell Cloak piece. Artichokes. Cherries. Hobbyhorses. Bells. A chain for Lord Cromwell. Then my eye fell upon a name - Gyllam. Gyllam the Embroiderer.

On 18 December 1539, 5d. was paid to Gyllam for ‘brodering’ my lord's apparel; then a week later, on the 23rd, a further payment was made to Gyllam for ‘embroidering apparel for Mr. Gregory and for 152 oz. of "pirllis of damaske golde" at 4s. 8d. the oz., and 3 lb. of fine Venice silver at 50s’.

Now of course I am desperate to know what was embroidered on my lord’s apparel; not to mention whether that gold and silver thread appeared on clothes for Mr Gregory. Of course the answers will be lost to time. But I have been able to find out a little bit about Gyllam the Embroiderer. I have obtained a copy of his will - the will of one William Gyllam, Merchant Tailor and citizen of London - made in 1540.

I haven’t spent much time with Gyllam’s will yet, so I haven’t managed to transcribe it properly, but an early reading indicates he was married to Elizabeth, to whom he left most of his goods (did she assist him with embroidery - or did she stitch in his name?); and he wished to be buried at Saint Peter’s Church on Cheap (Cheapside). Next week, I hope to get my hands on some legal proceedings in which he was a party.

William Gyllam has piqued my interest - and I thought it would be nice to remember an embroiderer who came before me. So here is my short note about him for World Embroidery Day, 500 years after he was stitching.