Print this page

Gretchen Embroidery

Gretchen embroidery is a decorative needlework technique that combines couching and embroidery, and popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the USA.

Gretchen embroidery was often worked on a linen or cotton ground. This form of embroidery was used, for example, for making a flower by outlining the individual petals with a cord that was couched down and then the petals were filled in with more of the same cord. The central part of the flower was often filled with satin stitch, French knots or something similar.

There is an advertisement for Gretchen embroidery in The Wanamaker Diary (1916:443). According to the advertisement, the Ideal Art Needlework Company supplied this form of embroidery in its showroom at 31 West Union Square, New York. It would appear that this and other types of embroidery were produced for them via their workshop and headquarters at 40th and Market Streets, Philadelphia. In addition, according to their advertisement they were the originators of the following forms of embroidery (in the order they gave): Tapestry punch; Pompadour embroidery; Coronation rose embroidery; Gretchen embroidery; Pierrot embroidery and Limoges embroidery.

Sources:

GVE

Last modified on Tuesday, 24 January 2017 17:47