I’ve had to pay a little attention to my day job lately. My ‘regular’ work as the Manager of Plimoth Plantation’s Colonial Wardrobe & Textiles Department is to research, produce and maintain the colonial clothing and textiles for the museum’s 1620s role-playing programs. Plus the same for any other program or exhibit that requires colonial (as in not Native Wampanoag) clothing or textiles. This is what I do when I’m not dreaming up insanely involved projects, like, say, reproducing a 17^th-century embroidered jacket.

In just a couple of weeks 6 new employees will begin work in the 1627 English Village and they need outfitting. Mostly this means hours of fitting appointments – all the reproduction clothing is made and fitted to the individual, so when new folks come in there’s lots of trying on – and alterations. Sometimes, like now, it means making new clothes.

I’m going to try to break out of the office tomorrow and get some pictures of the role-players at work ‘interpreting’ history to the public so I can post them here. The weather here is just screamingly beautiful spring and it’s a crime to stay inside.

In between the fittings, we’ve begun lining up activities and yummy meals for the first embroidery session, and planning the Needle Arts Studio film shoot. Tricia is working on pdf files of stitch diagrams and instructions that will be posted here; not only so you can start practicing them before your kit arrives, but also so the information will be added to the general knowledge base. That’s been one of our objectives from the beginning, to add to the body of knowledge about this type of needlework.

No good news on the linen today. (Are you concentrating?) So we’re discussing other options (no, not blackmail and outright theft, but give me another week and we’ll see) and may try reordering a second piece to be shipped ‘overnight’.

A batch of kits with white linen (rather than cream) for the sample pieces will go out Tuesday, so start watching your mail a few days after that.

That’s about it for today. I always feel bad when I put up a picture-less post, so look for two tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 at 9:26 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.