Picture, woolwork

Woolwork picture worked on sail canvas. Made by William Roberts of Dwyran in 1870 who became captain and sailed around Cape Horn. Depicting a three-mast ship, blue sky with cream clouds and brown and cream sea. The maker used a redundant piece of sail cloth as the ground fabric. Sailors on long voyages away from home would often make woolwork picture to pass the time.

Cream, red and different shades of blue and brown wool have been embroidered onto light brown canvas ground. Using very long stitches on the front face and very small stitches on the reverse. For the rigging, cream, grey, mid and dark brown cellulosic threads have been used. For some of those stitches, two threads have been twisted together and have been used as one. Woollen embroidery threads: 4-ply, S twist. For the sea, the cream and brown threads are thinner: 2-ply, S twist. The cream and grey cellulosic threads are Z twist and the mid- and dark brown ones are S twist. The canvas ground fabric has a red horizontal stripe running across the fabric just below the centre, made up of two red yarns.