A book on beetle embroidery I picked up yesterday pointed me to a costume collection I’d never heard of before at the Narrya Heritage Museum (hadn’t heard of the museum before, either)!

The book, The Stumpwork, Goldwork and Surface Embroidery Beetle Collection, mentions a Victorian dress from the Narrya collection. The dress is trimmed with net embroidered with beetle wing cases – and manages to be gaudy in spite of being full coverage and made from a somber black silk.

The most interesting thing about it is that the scraps of trim left over from making it came to the museum along with the dress! That’s pretty much unique.

I’d love to hear whether any other collection has a garment and its scraps!

As for the beetle embroidery book, it’s beautiful and it’s set ideas for incorporating beetles in a design for an Elizabethan embroidered jacket or doublet – or maybe a vest – running around in my head.

More on that later, when I’ve finished reading the book & decided what I’m actually going to make…