I made these tassels for a friend's event some months back. I have wanted to try to recreate the style of woven tassel heads I have seen in some extant Elizabethan pieces, and this was my first experiment.
The tassels are created in by winding threads over the hands, as seen in this picture tutorial: : http://broidermebethan.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-century-challenge-simple-tassels.html
The tassels were made out of crochet cotton because I wanted a fairly robust tassel. Silk would look very nice, I think.
Once the tassels were made up, I took a length of crochet cotton and anchored it with a big knot inside the head of the tassel, bringing the thread up near the centre of the tassel head. I then worked a detached buttonhole stitch around and around the tassel head, anchoring it to itself with a discreet knot when I reached the bottom. I then hid the tail of the thread back inside the body of the tassel before trimming the length.
The final part of the exercise was to add the rings of blue and white buttonhole stitch around the base of the tassel head.
I'm really pleased with how these turned out. I would like to experiment a bit more with this style of tassel and examine images of extant ones. I think I remember seeing tassel making in Jacqui Carey's Sweet Bag book, but, as is always the way, I did not have a copy to hand when I needed it, so I had to work from vague memories and imagination.
via Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/292945150746851405/
The tassels in Jacqui Carey's book have the heads covered with Turks Head knots, FYI. ;) Fionna
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