blackwork

English

Queen Elizabeth I wearing blackwork

modern blackwork designs

Etymology

From black +‎ work.

Noun

blackwork (uncountable)

1. (sewing) A form of counted-thread embroidery that is usually stitched on even-weave fabric with a twisted thread.
   • 2020, Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light, Fourth Estate, page 334:

     All those garments are long gone since, that Katherine embroidered with Spanish blackwork.

2. (obsolete) Work connected with funerals, as an undertaker's assistant or a maker of mourning clothes, etc.
   • 2016, Haewon Hwang, London's Underground Spaces:

     In Mary Barton (1848), the seamstress sewing black mourning clothes is referred to as being engaged in 'blackwork', while the manufacturing company, the Courtaulds, held a monopoly on crapes from the onset of funeral practices […]

Related terms

• redwork
• scarletwork

See also

• blackwork on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary