What is Mountmellick Embroidery?

Mountmellick Embroidery is a dimensional white on white embroidery done in white knitting cotton on a heavy white cotton satin jean. Although sometimes referred to as 'Mountmellick lace', eyelids or open work are excluded. Motifs include a variety of natural floral designs, usually fairly large in scale, and pieces are often finished with buttonholed and fringed edges.
There are three embroidery stitches specific to Mountmellick work:

• The cable plait stitch
• Mountmellick stitch
• Mountmellick thorn stitch.
  
  Other commonly used stitches include:
• Bullion
• Long cable or cable chain
• Thorn
• French knot
• Stem
• Blanket stitch
• Button hole (can be sawtooth, houndstooth or plain, with French knots in some cases)
• Leaf fill
• Cable plait
• Satin (can be padded or couched)
• Snail trail
• Chain
• Seeding
• Lazy daisy
• Feather stitch

Although many stitches are available, some of the best work make use of only three or four.

Designs were originally inspired by plants growing along the local Owenass River bank: blackberries, acorns, dog rose, ivy, oak, barley, woodbine, wild clematis. Cultivated plants, such as passion flower, cyclamen, tiger lily, snowdrops and daffodils also appear frequently in the designs, and even butterflies, seashells, birds and birds nests. The passion flower seems to be a particular favourite among current workers.

The embroidery was traditionally done on tablecloths, coverlets, christening gowns, cushion covers, pillow shams, and laying out coverlets. Sometimes on old work, almost the entire surface of the material was embroidered. Today pieces are often framed, and may be given as a gift to celebrate a wedding or the birth of a child...
The cloth may be a natural colour although bright white is traditional. The cloth is steeped overnight in cold water, then vigorously boiled to bring it up snowy white.

One of the features of Mountmellick work is, in fact, its serviceability. It is meant to be used, and repeated washing has given older examples of the work a particular softness and 'patina'.

Being white on white, it is difficult to photograph... but in person one cannot help but admire the detailed stitches, and feel somewhat in awe of the amount of work that has gone into each piece. Many pieces are now viewed as family heirlooms, to passed from one generation to another.