Just a short note tonight. Two more sets of stitch instructions: detached buttonhole and knot stitch. This ought to give you something fun to try in between Memorial Day parades and cookouts.

This was a busy week and a great deal got accomplished, but now it’s Friday and a good thing too.

See you tomorrow.

Bad news first. There’s nothing new on the linen front. Despite all efforts, the linen is trapped until a government official gets to it, which might be tomorrow and might be six months from now.

We’re working on contingency plans, one of which involves choosing a completely different linen from a different manufacturer, one whose US distributor has a piece large enough for us in stock. The second, and now the favored plan, involves buying up all the remnants of the chosen linen in the US and trying to get the whole jacket from the biggest piece. I’m a little concerned about dye lots, but have an idea for compensating should we have to use two pieces from separate bolts. I’m not hugely worried; too many things have fallen into place in order to make this project work for this to derail us now.

Now the good news - treats! Tricia sent instructions for reverse chain stitch and Ceylon stitch, two stitches we’ll be using on the jacket (more stitch instructions over the next days). Rummage out some cloth, needle and thread and give it a try. (You’ll need Adobe to open these.)

Great strides were made today on the schedule for the June embroidery session. We’ll have a presentation by Kathleen Curtin, Plimoth Plantation foodways historian and author of Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie. She’s an entertaining speaker, and knows more about the foodways of the 1620s English Colonists than just about anybody. We’ll also have a tour of Plimoth Plantation’s collection led by Karin Goldstein, Curator of Original Artifacts. Karin will show us Plimoth Plantation’s two 17^th century samplers and some sewing-related items. And, Tricia has generously offered to teach a small project. I’m working on more fun activities for the non-stitching time.

So hopefully the progress I made on the schedule excuses me for never making it out of the office. The gravitational pull of the telephone and email were just too much for me. I humbly offer you a picture of fitting a jacket to one of the role-players. This was taken in the fall of 2005. This pink wool jacket is cut from a pattern taken from an embroidered linen waistcoat in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Scotland. The shape of the pattern pieces is very similar to that of the Laton jacket at the V & A. On page 121 of Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion: the cut and construction of clothes for men and women 1560-1620, are the patterns for both jackets, drawn on graphed paper.

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.

We have just four weeks left until our first embroidery session. An awful lot needs to happen in those four weeks, not least of which is the release of our linen from customs. Despite all last week’s assurances, the cream linen is still tied up in customs. Since time grows short, for the kits we have decided to use white linen, inexplicably released from customs while its sister - the cream we chose for the jacket - still languishes. We will soon post diagrams and instructions for the project stitches here so anyone may practice them without waiting for their kit.

About the kits, we want to encourage you to stitch a sample, or a partial sample, if you are at all interested in working on the jacket. Please don’t count yourself out, or assume your stitching isn’t ‘good enough’. We want to make this experience available to as many people as possible, not just because we need help but because a project this good begs to be shared. We need a sample of your stitching so we can make sure the embroidery on the different motifs matches in terms of thread tension and stitch density.

Don’t feel that you have to be a master of every stitch in the sample, either. If there’s one you hate, skip it. The important thing is to get involved. We’re looking forward to meeting you!

We’ve begun planning the schedule for our first embroidery bee, June 19-22. We’ll have good food, good conversation, plenty of time to stitch, and special presentations by some of Plimoth Plantation’s resident experts. Check back for details.

I have treats for you today! Two beautiful photos, one of the stitch sampler from the kit (see? not too much sewing time); and one of the souvenir motif. The butterfly is inspired by one on the original jacket. Look carefully, and see how the wing is detached? Some of the original jackets have these free-edge detached buttonhole stitch details, either on a wing like this, or a leaf, or most sweet of all, the top layer of a pea pod which folds back to reveal peas underneath. This photo shows the butterfly finished as a scissors fob. Please note that the kit includes the finishing instructions but not the finishing materials.

The sample kit was designed by Tricia Wilson Nguyen, who has been consulting with Plimoth Plantation on this project. Many of you know Tricia from her busy teaching schedule, others from her beautiful embroidery designs and her needlework company, Thistle Threads. We’re very fortunate Tricia was available and willing to work with us on this project.

Everybody think liberating thoughts about a certain piece of cream linen, and hopefully I’ll have good news to report tomorrow.

YAY! This is just what I was hoping this blog could be. PF left a comment to let us know that some records of the Embroiderers’ Company DO survive from before the fire – see below.

“Some of the records of the Embroiderers’ Company of London (called “Broderers’ Company”) do survive from before the great fire. The minute books don’t start until 1679, but the receipt books include some records from 1557-1640. The Family History Library has these London records on microfilm, (FHL BRITISH Film 1068861) and they can be ordered from Salt Lake City to be viewed at your local FHL (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).”

I had read in more than one book that ‘the records were lost’ and never looked into it, which just goes to show you shouldn’t just believe everything you read. Has anybody read through them?

To keep on this bibliographical theme, I’m going to offer a review of one of the books we’ve consulted as we researched this project.

Epstein, Kathleen. British Embroidery: Curious Works from the Seventeenth Century. Austin, TX: Curious Works Press and Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 1998.

This volume was created as the companion to an exhibit of the same name which was displayed at Colonial Williamsburg in 1998-99. It is thoroughly illustrated, with many color plates, but it is more than an exhibit catalogue. The text is an excellent introduction to 17^th-century British needlework. Not only does it describe the different sorts of embroidery but it explains who was embroidering, how they learned the skills, and begins to plumb the depths of the importance of embroidery to this society. The only defect, really, is that it is too short. I wished for more information on the materials of embroidery and where they came from. But that’s just quibbling with an excellent book, well worth reading.

This squirrel is from the same coif as the bluebird. The coif was designed and worked by members of the Colonial Wardrobe Department in the mid 1990s. It was a tour de force at the time, and we were justly proud of it. However, I’m also proud to say that we’ve come a long way, baby, since then. I wouldn’t do that project the same way now, we’ve learned too much in the mean time. But it remains a beautiful object, full of the skilled work of human hands.