The Unstitched Coif 2023 Core embroiderer for the Unstitched Coif, part of a PhD thesis by Toni Buckby exploring re making museum artefacts and ensuring they are more accessible to the public. The embroidered coif was exhibited in 2023 at The Bloc, Sheffield and is now in the V&A Archives. The coif can be found here.

I spent some time researching the coif itself, looking at the archive listing and the information available about both this coif and coifs in general. I combined this with research from previous projects and chose to create a blackwork embroidered coif in the style of the late Tudor period, which is when the unstitched coif was designed. I chose to use those stitches and threads that were popular during this time. This meant black outlines for the embroidery using stem stitch and back stitch. Areas of the coif were filled in with a speckling stitch. Working the speckling stitch really brought the coif to life. The outer edge of the coif was completed with a double backstitch. All embroidery was worked in silk thread.