(Under construction)
The project is based on a sweet bag or purse with attached pincushion, from around 1600, in the Victoria and Albert museum..
It measures 14cm in each dimension, and is worked in silk threads using tent stitch and gobelin stitch on linen canvas. The following picture shows some detail of the stitches:
I have charted the design and drawn myself a coloured version of it to figure out what colours of silk I need.
Design for purse (in coloured pencil)
I traced the design onto 24-count linen canvas, outlined the design in black silk, and started filling in the details, judging the shading by hand based on my pencil drawing:
The two shades of purple I chose don't stand out very well in this scan. I think the original may have had more contrast. Oh well. You can see the subtle shading quite well in the real item, though... it's subtle, but it's there.
I used two strands of Eterna mini-twist for the tent stitch foreground items (flowers, leaves, etc) and three strands of the Eterna for the gobelin stitch for the background (the purple).