Carey Company

31/10/2025

The finished sweet bag kit

12/08/2023

A new kit coming soon…Based on Jacqui’s ground-breaking research, this sweet bag uses historicallyaccurate stitches.

Make your own sweet bag with all the trimmings.

Kit instructions:
The kit contains instruction covering the embroiderer’s skills of design transfer,‘circular’ tent stitch, Elizabethan ground stitch, Elizabethan plaited braid stitchand bag construction, and the silkwoman’s skills for the trimmings, including braidmaking, twined-edging, knotting, gimp-making and tassel making.

Kit materials
- Linen
- Silk lining (infused with a C17th recipe for sweet bags)
- Silk threads – a multitude of colours
- Metallic threads – gold and silver
- Tassel moulds – handmade from English oak
- Needles
- Weighted bobbin – for gimp-making
- Former – for knotting and tassel making

Launching at the 2023 World Needlework Convention 5th-15th October, with a fully immersive experience:

https://www.needleworktours.com.au/convention/2023-world-needleworkconvention/presentations

12/08/2023

23/11/2022

We are pleased to announce that Jacqui Carey’s book “Sweet Bags: An Investigation into 16th & 17th Century Needlework” will be back in stock from the 7th December 2022.
We are accepting pre-orders that will be posted as soon as they are available.

An Investigation into 16th and 17th Century Needlework. Jacqui Carey has been meticulously analysing English textiles that have survived from the late-sixteenth to early-seventeenth century. The object-based research revealed a range of ‘lost’ needlework stitches, and this book aims to re-establ...

23/11/2022

Maths & Art
It was a privilege to know John Sharp - he was an inspiration and connected together so many strands.
I recently contributed to his memorial volume “Sharp Forms: A life in Art and Mathematics”
It is an ebook with a free version that commemorates John's life and a longer version incorporating the free version but with examples of his work and original articles, which has a small charge. Part of that charge will go to good causes. Do have a look HERE for more details!

Sharp Forms - Life at the Edge of Art and Mathematics

19/02/2021

04/12/2020

At last...its ready and live !

Braids are an integral part of samurai armour, yet often overlooked. Here, the reader is taken through the process of documenting and identifying extant examples. Commentary and context are added, along with detailed instructions for recreating historic braids. Case studies are used throughout, prov...

05/11/2020

Patience.
Give me a tangible tangle of threads any day – something I can see, feel and patiently straighten out. Dealing with virtual techno trouble and covid concerns takes the delay in “Samurai Redressed” out of my hands, and beyond my control...requiring patience of a different kind!

28/09/2020

https://japantextiles.co.uk/exhibition.html

The textile arts of a country can reveal so much about its culture and society. The exchanges of materials, the flow of ideas and advances in technology all help us to understand more about the social and economic changes within history. Over time, the Japanese mastery of weaving, dyeing, embroidery...

08/06/2020

West Dean College has posted a 360degree video of Jacqui Carey's "Bodice: Wearing my colours on the outside". https://www.instagram.com/westdeancollege/

Its made entirely of kumihimo braids.