Jacobean Embroidery

I am now working on a Jacobean embroidery sampler. I found a design sheet in my collection and started working on it. The colour combination is very dull. So I removed the stitches and started over with my own colours. I wonder if there are any rules to colours in Jacobean embroider
I discovered that colours used in Jacobean embroidery are mostly muted pastels. Check out the site www.accomplishments-shop.com/070303.htm.
This will give you and idea of what typical jacobean embroidery looks like and the colours snd stitches used. I'll post a picture of my Jacobean piece as soon as I get it photographed.

Meanwhile there are a host of interesting links I found educative and interesting.
Sharon B's blog inaminuteago.com is a real treasure house of information. needlecrafter.com has a stitch dictionary and a wonderful desisgn library. The stitch diagrams look exactly like those in Mary Thomas's Stitch dictionary.

A picture at last. I found this style of embroidery very convenient for learning about colour combinations. I've tried all three styles - monochromatic, analogous and complementry in this piece. Stitches used are jacobean couching, seeding, chain filling, open chain, stem stitch filling and outline stitch, satin stitch, french knots, straight stitch etc.