One of the earlier projects I did was a blackwork partlet. The Partlet is a small piece of clothing much like a modern dickie made to be worn over the shoulders and chest underneath a low cut gown. I made mine to go under an Elizabethan gown. Here is a picture of me wearing it. It is not a great picture of the partlet, but you can see how it should be worn. The pattern on this piece is from the Italian sampler made in the late 1500s. The pattern was originally posted online, I believe, on Bronwen's blackwork library. This site no longer exists. I have heard she took it down to publish the patterns, but at the time it was a viable source for the pattern. Nowaday I always create my own patterns. It is not difficult to take a piece of graph paper and play around with it until you get a pattern that is similar to the one you are trying to recreate.
Here is a close up of the partlet by itself. I chose to make the blackwork pattern only lining the front opening and collar. When blackwork first started appearing on partlets in the mid 1500s the geometric patterns often outlined only these areas. For an example see:
Here is a close up of the pattern. It does look a lot like the pattern I used to make the blackwork hood which I wrote about a couple days ago. I like that Italian sampler as a source of patterns. It is currently housed at the Victoria and Albert museum, but unfortunately does not appear to have a picture up at the moment. I chose to execute the pattern in backstitch because I was not expecially comfortable with double running (Holbein) stitch at that time. Also the back of the pattern was not going to be visible. There is some indication that backstitch was commonly used for blackwork where the back would not be visible. However, at this point I have no proof of this, having never been priviledged to see the back of any pieces. The fabric is an evenweave linen, and the pattern for making the partlet came from one of Margo's patterns.
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