I am often asked why hand embroidery is so expensive, or why I would do it, as it 'takes so long', or why I do not have an embroidery machine as they are 'faster' and 'more professional.' The everyday world has become so accustomed to the simple chain or satin stitch of machine embroidery, on t-shirts, hats, and what-you-will, that this is regarded as 'normal', even preferable to fine hand embroidery.
Yes, handmade embroidery is very time consuming, but it requires real workmanship, and is inherently more valuable than mass produced, machine-made embroidery. High quality handmade embroidery is collectible while machine-made embroidery is not. And that is why I do it.
Of course I have used machine-made entredeaux and laces for everyday items, because making lace is also a time-consuming, therefore expensive art, and hand-made insertions increase the time and cost of everyday items. But for embroidery, I definitely do not want something that is a cousin to Mouse ears from Disneyland.
The question of hand-versus-machine is not new, and is central to the impetus that gave birth to the Arts & Crafts Movement; it has its origins in the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 18th and 19th Centuries, along with cotton gins, weaving machines, and steam engines.
The first embroidery machine was made in France, in 1828, patented by Josue Heilmann. It was run by four people, and could do embroidery work in about one quarter the time of the fastest hand embroiderers. The machine posed a serious threat to the hand-embroidery industry at the time, and they were largely banned in Switzerland. But even there, embroidery machines caught on, and in 1863 by Isaac Groebli invented the Schiffli machine, which could stitch in any direction. Singer touted its sewing machine - while still in the treadle stage - as being useful for machine embroidery, done with a hoop as in with modern free-motion machines. Eventually, Singer developed its own embroidery machine.
There are those who would aver that the embroidery of these machines cannot be distinguished from hand work. However, there are notable differences: machines connect motifs, whether on a border or in a central design; the stitching is 'regular' - of an even length but not necessarily fit to the motif, so the work can look choppy; and until the advent of digitised machines, there were a limited number of stitches possible. The main drawback is that the machine (digitised or not) cannot cope with subtle shadings or make stitch and design choices which distinguish art embroidery, including couture. Yes, couture pieces are hand-embroidered, with the embroidery being fit to the design of the garment the colour, the scale of the wearer, and so on.
From the Middle Ages, most professional embroiderers were men belonging to a Guild which had strict apprenticeships and rules of working for journeymen; women were left to embroidering personal items and decorative arts for the home. Church vestments, spotting of fabrics, men's tailoring, all these were embroidered by men. We have Mr. Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement to thank for bringing women into the profession, as designers and producers as well as cottage-industry workers.
There is a charming and false view of the domestic use of embroidery machines as a family enterprise in the 19th Century: 'As easily used at home as in a factory, a downstairs room of a suitable size would be needed to house the machine. If a machine embroidery business existed in a home, the entire family was usually involved in the process. Generally, the father would oversee the machine’s operation and the wife and children would thread the bobbins, tend to the thread, and so forth.'
Given the size and expense of embroidery machines, and the size and income of the average 19th Century hovel, this is a quaint and dangerously erroneous vision of 19th Century life. I have ancestors who worked in wool and linen and thread mills - father, mother and children of both genders - and they'd have had to amass quite a sum of money to afford one of these machines, or room for it, something hardly possible on the wages of the time.
This brings up the real reason why modern embroidery is so cheap, and if one happens to find something hand-embroidered, it is not cheap, but was produced in China, Maylasia, India, or Indonesia, by people who are earning less than a dollar a day, or worse. They are working in the same miserable, noisy conditions as our 19th Century ancestors, going blind or crippled, for a pittance, while the Boss Man makes all the money.
It is true that the cost of fine craftsmanship in the Arts & Crafts was detrimental to its goal of 'Art for the People', but it is possible now to pay a reasonably fair wage - the $15 an hour much-touted fair minimum wage - and produce beautiful, unique, handmade items in conditions which are humane.
This is why I am a hand-embroiderer, and offer hand-embroidered goods.
