This coif was embroidered by Catherine Hill as part of a project called an unstitched coif . . . in 2023. The project was created by Toni Buckby, a Collaborative Doctoral student at the V&A Museum and Sheffield Hallam University, exploring many aspects of 16th and 17th-century blackwork embroidery. Toni devised an unstitched coif . . . to reconstruct the creative, mental, physical and social contexts of blackwork embroidery. She found an early 17th-century coif in the V&A’s collection with its embroidery design drawn with pen and ink, T.844-1974. Toni made a digital version of the design, printed 40 copies of the design on linen and sent out a social-media invitation for volunteers to embroider them. The invitation went viral and hundreds responded. After the initial forty designs had been distributed, Toni made the digital design available on her website https://blackworkembroidery.org/unstitched-coif-design/ , inviting others to print it on material of their choice. Seventy-seven embroiderers submitted their coifs for display and inclusion in Toni’s PhD and have been acquired by the V&A as the collection, an unstitched coif . . .

Catherine Hill received one of Toni’s templates printed on linen and here is her story:

"My name is Catherine Mary Hill (maiden name is Steeple, born in Littleborough, Rochdale), 54 years old, married mother of two children and a self-taught hand embroiderer. In my professional artist statement, I describe myself as ‘a multi-award-winning contemporary textile artist from Lancashire, based in the UK.’ I’ve always stitched since I was a child and have been making patchwork quilts by hand and sewing machine for over 30 years. More recently in the past 10 years, I’ve evolved my work to include more surface design and finer stitchwork. I first exhibited my embroidery in 2019 with the Embroiderers’ Guild UK. The piece was called ‘Take Time to Smell the Roses’ (a piece that incorporated stitched text) and it received the Artistic Director’s Award for Innovation. This was the encouragement I needed to start creating and exhibiting more of my stitched textile art. Since then, I’ve experimented and introduced more stitched text in my work. Pieces that narrate my childhood memories growing up in Lancashire in the 1970’s as well as work recording contemporary stories like the UK Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the UK drought of 2022. These pieces are stitched by hand in vintage Sylko red thread (as a nod to the red rose of Lancashire) onto cotton cloth. My work has been exhibited across the UK, New York, Germany, Switzerland, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Brazil and Australia.

Design & Aesthetic Choices
At my first meeting at the V&A London with project curator Toni Buckby in April 2023, I was taken aback by the historical importance of the Unstitched Coif Project. This was my first sight of the linen coif panel. Initial thoughts were that the printed panel was smaller in scale than I first imagined, and that the linen was very crisp, had a very high thread count and was beautiful to handle.
My mind went into overdrive with the stitching possibilities, and it took a few months before I took a needle and thread to the coif. I experimented with ideas and considered whether to recreate the work as it would have been when it was originally designed or to stitch it as a contemporary modern piece. I thought through several design choices and tested threads of varying textures and thickness on a sample of the linen.
I researched the stitches, styles and techniques of traditional Elizabethan black work and my original idea was to complete the entire piece in vintage Sylko Turkey Red cotton thread (a thread I use in my own work) creating my own version of a monochromatic blackwork coif. My one concern was the conservation quality of using vintage thread. As an alternative, I found a brand-new modern replacement of similar thickness - Aurifil 12 weight cotton thread. The Aurifil thread was available to purchase in a rainbow of colours which swayed me to rethink the design completely as a multicoloured piece, incorporating tones from light to dark.

I chose to stitch in a way that was very different to traditional black work. To treat the piece as if I’d received it in the 21st century and been asked to complete the piece as a contemporary embroiderer. Embroidering it with stitches I like to use in my own work.

The panel was more daunting to start than I thought it would be and a huge learning curve for me. It felt like a commission piece, and I felt myself doubting and second guessing my design choices, feeling like I had to please the recipient rather than myself – a bit like being faced with a white piece of paper and making your first mark. This dissipated after my first few hours of stitching. I found it easier to infill the flowers and leaves with colour before I stitched the outer lines and stems. Some areas needed extra touches of colour – seed stitch or long stitch - to balance the colours across the panel. Some of the stem colours felt too solid and needed softening with whipped running stitch.
As I was stitching the coif I found my mind drifting, thinking about how it would look assembled and worn as a garment and who would be wearing it. I’ve stitched clothing before and there is something special about wearing a hand embroidered piece of cloth.

Each member of the project received the same brief and ran with it in their own way creating such diverse results. This project has produced quite a few challenges and difficulties for us stitchers. We’ve been a very supportive group offering advice and guidance to one another. Between meetings in Sheffield and the V&A there’s been sharing of ideas on-line on the Discord forum, on Instagram and social media.
I feel honoured to have been one of the 40 core embroiderers for The Unfinished Coif Project 2023.

Materials and Techniques:
Needle: John James Quilting Big Eye size 11 needle (JJ12511)
Material: Printed Linen Cloth
Thread: Brand new Aurifil 12 weight cotton thread. Colour swatch of threads stitched into the panel and a knotted sample of threads attached to the hem with safety pin.

Thread numbers and colours:
4241 Very Dark Grey
2630 Dark Pewter
2390 Cinnamon Toast
2395 Pumpkin Spice
1103 Burgundy
2260 Red Wine
2250 Red
2265 Lobster Red
2230 Red Peony
2235 Orange
1133 Bright Orange
2145 Yellow Orange
2120 Canary
2134 Spun Gold
2860 Light Emerald
2865 Emerald
2870 Green
2735 Medium Blue
2725 Light Wedgewood
2805 Light Grey Turquoise
5005 Bright Turquoise
2810 Turquoise
4182 Dark Turquoise
1125 Medium Teal
2545 Medium Purple
2540 Medium Lavender
2520 Violet
2535 Magenta
4020 Fushia

Preparation: Stretched onto a rectangular wooden frame.
Stitches: Hand embroidered in Seed stitch, Long and Short stitch, Couching, Daisy / Detached Chain stitch, Fly stitch, Cross-stitch and Whipped Running stitch."
Catherine Hill