Table mat

Table mat

Mid 20th century

United Kingdom

Ribbonwork table mat with a floral bouquet in each corner, likely dating to approximately the mid 20th century.

Cotton ribbonwork table mat with four floral bouquets, one in each corner, likely dating to the mid 20th century. The bouquets have pastel coloured flowers made of pink, purple, red and yellow ribbons. Small green and cream coloured leaves also feature within the bouquet and along the trailing vine that accompanies each bouquet. These are also done in ribbonwork. The bouquet holders have been rendered in a gold coloured silk thread using stem stich, with some French knots interspersed between each of their sections. French knots also have been used in the centre of the flowers. A blue and white bow, worked in rows of stem stitches, is tied around the bottom of the bouquet holder and its tails intertwine with the trailing vine, which is also made of stem stitches.

Surrounding this central design is a hemmed border made of drawn thread work (using a variation on diagonal hem stitch), which has four woven webs in the corners. A crotchet border then surrounds the outside of the mat. Blue design lines are visible at some points underneath the stitches of the bouquets, which indicates that the motifs were drawn on or printed before being worked by the stitcher. It is likely that the mat was bought as a kit with premade crochet, drawn thread borders, and floral designs. The stitcher would have then followed the pre-drawn or printed design to create the embroidery and ribbonwork.

width: 63cm
height: 61.5cm

cotton
silk thread
cotton thread
ribbon

Stem stitch 
French knot 
Diagonal hem stitch 

Ribbonwork 
Whitework 

flower
bouquet
bow
leaf

COL.84

RSN 896