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Tent stitch canvas work in wools and silks proved a fertile ground for domestic embroidery in the middle of the nineteenth century. Patterns for men's slippers and braces, bags and purses, needlework items, and women's shoes and slippers appeared in considerable quantities in women's magazines like The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine and The Queen. Middle class women, who were socially discouraged from earning a living, and who were often not highly educated, were encouraged instead to embroider and sew, thus developing a useful domestic skill for the marital home. Canvas work offered obvious ideas for handy gifts and presents for friends and relatives, and the many surviving accessories attest both to the popularity of this syle of embroidery, and to the many female domestic stitchers.

These tent stitch shoes from about 1850 show highly skilled embroidery, with realistic flowers such as carnations, roses and lilies of the valley against a deep green ground. Such shoes were only worn indoors and were not weatherproof; outdoors kid or morocco leather was usual.

Full item descriptions:

"shoes" [1951.404]

Related Themes:

Women's Shoes
Embroidery