Slip (needlework)

Illustration of a stool cover with a slip of borage worked in tent stitch on canvas and then applied to a velvet ground, Hardwick Hall, early 17th century.[1]

In needlework, a slip is a design representing a cutting or specimen of a plant, usually with flowers or fruit and leaves on a stem. Most often, slip refers to a plant design stitched in canvaswork (pettipoint), cut out, and applied to a woven background fabric. By extension, slip may also mean any embroidered or canvaswork motif, floral or not, mounted to fabric in this way.[2][3]

Isolated motifs arranged in rows are common in English embroidery from the 14th to the 17th centuries, and small floral slips were the most popular.

  1. ^ Holme, Charles, editor: Art In England during the Elizabethan and Stuart Periods by Aymer Vallance, p. 100-102
  2. ^ Thomasina Beck, The Embroiderer's Story, describes "a slip of a coach on a chairback" (p. 22)
  3. ^ Digby, Elizabethan Embroidery, p. 132