Last time I mentioned that the embroidered handkerchief is being used as a gift in the courtship story in the 1627 English Village. An inquisitive reader (thanks, Amy) asked who would have done the embroidery?

It is very unlikely that much, if any, embroidery was being carried out in Plymouth Colony’s early years. The business of growing, preserving and preparing food occupied a great deal of time. The fact that there was not yet a grist mill for grinding grain into meal meant that hours upon hours of labor were spent grinding grain in a mortar and pestle. Even though at least some of the women living in Plymouth in 1627 must have known some embroidery, we don’t think they were spending any time on it, so the handkerchief must have been brought into the colony.

Like so much else, the specifics of courtship in 1620s New Plymouth were unrecorded. We know that Isaac Allerton traveled to England on the colony’s business in the summer of 1626, returning to Plymouth Colony in the spring of 1627. The written records allude to Allerton bringing items ‘on his own particular’ (or outside his capacity as the colony’s representative) to sell to his fellow colonists, but the record is annoyingly non-specific.

We also know, from inventories of itinerant peddlers, that small, relatively inexpensive embroidered items were available in England ready-made. We’re putting those two bits of information together and ‘interpreting’, or making a reasonable leap from known facts, that this handkerchief was one of the items Allerton brought back ‘on his particular’, and that the suitor purchased it from Allerton.

So who embroidered the handkerchief? It’s possible that professional workshops like those that produced the embroidered jackets also made smaller articles like handkerchiefs. It’s possible that independent embroiderers made items for sale. We know that the professionals in the workshops were mostly men; we don’t know if women embroidered for sale or how or if they were organized in any way. The records of the Embroiderers’ Guild were lost in the London Fire of 1666. What light they might have shed on all these questions we’ll never know. The good news, though, is that modern scholars are continually dredging deeper and deeper into the records that have come down to us. In future posts I’ll be describing some of the many books we’ve been reading as part of our research for this project.

Costume historian Susan Vincent in Clothing the Elite wrote that searching for information on the clothing of the past is like “looking for salt in the sea – the evidence is everywhere, and nowhere.” Sometimes bits of information come from very unlikely sources. If you know of obscure articles or books, or scraps of knowledge hiding in books about other topics, I’d be glad to learn of them. Perhaps through this project and blog we can enlarge the body of knowledge on this topic, to the good of all.

Thank you to everyone who has left such positive and encouraging comments on this blog. Thanks also to those who have told a friend about the project, or in any way have helped to spread the word. We’re really excited by the enthusiastic responses; and, OK, I’ll be honest - also a little relieved. There was this tiny little scrap of doubt about whether anyone else would be as excited about recreating this jacket as we are. What if we committed to this massive undertaking and nobody noticed? Fortunately, that is so not the case.

Update on the kits – for the last several weeks the beautiful linen has been held up in customs. We’ve been assured that the problem has been sorted out and it would be released today (cross your fingers). As soon as we get it we’ll assemble the kits and send them out. BUT we are getting very short of time to prepare for the PBS filming on June 21 & 22. When you order your kit, let Kathy know if you can come in June; those kits will go out first to give the embroiderers and us as much time as possible to stitch and organize the first teams. Don’t worry, though, the rest of the kits will be following as quickly as possible.

And if you can’t come to Plymouth for June, check your calendar for these dates:

Wednesday, August 8 – Friday, August 11

Thursday, September 13 – Sunday, September 16

Friday, October 19 – Sunday October 21

We’re open to suggestions for other dates as well. And, for local embroiderers, there is the opportunity to come more often for shorter amounts of time.

Here’s a picture for today. I don’t have the photography skills to really do it justice. This linen handkerchief was embroidered by Kate Moore, one of the many talented people at Plimoth Plantation. The double-running, or Holbein, stitch was done in red silk. Kate also made and applied the gold thread bobbin lace. How lovely is this? It is being used in a courtship and betrothal story in the 1627 English Village. The suitor, Experience Mitchell, presents it to his beloved, Jane Cooke, one of several little presents they exchange. She receives this hanky rather frequently, since for each day’s visitors the story and the hanky are new. This courtship will culminate in a betrothal (or engagement) ceremony – coincidently on June 20^th – so if you come to embroider you can see it in person.

You may have noticed that this blog’s title refers to embroiderers in the plural. Definitely more than one; more than a few, even. Lots.

The project by its nature requires many hands. Not only is there a lot of work involved, but also to imitate the 17^th-century professional workshop system, we have from the beginning planned to invite as many members of the historic needlework community as possible to become personally involved.

We have developed a simple system to coordinate those who would like to participate in this once in a lifetime opportunity and to ensure that the finished piece most closely resembles an original 17^th century jacket. Each prospective stitcher must complete a sample piece (available as a kit from Plimoth Plantation) and send it to Plimoth Plantation. These samples will, yes, establish skill level, but more importantly and for those whom we know have the necessary skill and experience, it will illustrate each embroiderer’s unique ‘hand’. With samples before us, we will be able to assemble teams of stitchers whose individual thread tension and stitch length match each other. This way we will be able to represent a team of professional workers, and we will be able to accommodate as many embroiderers as possible.

We encourage every interested person to complete a sample, regardless of whether you think you are an expert. Not all the stitches require years of experience. Of course we need embroiderers with excellent skills and attention to detail, but if you don’t love the detached buttonhole stitch, perhaps you would work some outlining, or sew on a few of the 2000+ gold spangles!

Embroiderers are invited to Plimoth Plantation for one or more intensive embroidery sessions. (There is also opportunity for local embroiderers to come frequently for shorter amounts of time.) We are planning a variety of classes, lectures, programs and presentations to enliven the non-stitching hours during the intensive sessions. And of course, there will be the opportunity to enjoy the company of others who also love historic needlework. Some meals will be provided, but, due to budget constraints, participants will be responsible for their own transportation and accommodations.

To order a sample stitching kit, please contact Kathy Roncarati at (508) 746-1622 ext. 8114, or kroncarati@plimoth.org.

Our first intensive stitching session, or embroidery bee, is scheduled for June 19-22. Those dates are carved in stone – the PBS show Needle Arts Studio with Shay Pendray will be at Plimoth Plantation on the 21^st, filming a spot about the project and the embroiderers. If you are available to come to Plimoth that week, please let Kathy know when you order your kit. Other sessions are planned for August, September and October. More on them soon.

Each kit – designed by Tricia Wilson Nguyen of Thistle Threads – includes the same materials which will be used for the jacket, 50 ct cream Kingston linen and Au Ver a Soie Perlee silk, in sufficient quantities to work both the sample (to be returned to Plimoth Plantation) and one complete motif (to be kept by the embroiderer).

The sample does not require a great deal of time to complete. A small area of detached buttonhole stitch and its outline, trellis stitch and its outline, detached buttonhole with free edge and its outline, spiral trellis and its outline, knot stitch, and ladder stitch in silk will enable us to create teams. The kit includes comprehensive directions for each stitch, a color copy of a worked piece for reference, and a label to identify your sample.

In addition, the kit includes instructions and materials for a souvenir butterfly adapted from the inspiration pieces for you to keep. The butterfly is stitched in red, pink, gold and black Au Ver a Soie Perlee silk on 50 ct. cream Kingston linen. It is surrounded by gold spangles and is appropriate for finishing into a scissors fob or ornament (finishing materials not included). A CD Rom of the embroidery in process will be included as well as complete directions.

Samples should be returned to Plimoth Plantation as soon as possible. Once teams are formed, information about attending either mini-stitching symposiums or individual stitching times will be sent so that dates can be reserved. Samples will be retained by Plimoth for use in matching individuals for stitching and also as examples to show the public what the embroidery is like close up.

The sample stitching kit is available for $40 plus $5 shipping and handling (international shipping costs may vary), and includes a $20 tax-deductible donation to the project which will be used to offset the materials costs.

We are excited and encouraged (and a little overwhelmed!) by the enthusiasm news of this project has generated. We are looking forward to working with the embroidery community not only to accomplish this work, but also to bring the research, the finished piece, and the joy of historic needlework to the wider public.

Several months ago, in the planning stages of this project, we decided we wanted to replicate an actual surviving 17^th century jacket, if at all possible, rather than create a new piece inspired by the originals. We outlined several criteria for the ‘perfect jacket.’

We wanted a jacket with a wide variety of motifs and different stitches, both of which would help to camouflage the fact that the embroidery was done by many different hands. We also wanted a pleasing color palette. Tastes change, and some of the color combinations used in the 17^th century are attractive to modern viewers and some aren’t. As long as we had a choice, we thought we’d go with one that is; after all, the finished garment would be part of an exhibit and we wanted people to like looking at it.

Maybe most importantly, we’d need to find a piece whose owner (institution or individual) was amenable to such a project. Fortunately, the Colonial Wardrobe Department had a prior relationship with Susan North, Curator of 17^th & 18^th Century Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London, England. Ms North had helped us on a few previous reproduction projects, providing details of pieces in the V & A’s collections, and generous with her expert advice. She had encouraged our efforts in recreating historic garments, asserting her belief (which we share) that you can gain insights through recreating a garment that won’t be obvious when studying an original.

We were inclined to look carefully at the Laton jacket, in the V&A, because it had been examined by the late costume historian Janet Arnold. She published not only notes on construction details but also a pattern, drawn on graphed paper, in her volume Patterns of Fashion: the cut and construction of clothes for men and women c.1560-1620. Having the pattern pieces would save us the time and trouble of drafting a pattern. Unfortunately, the Laton jacket (accession # T.228-1994) has a narrow stitch vocabulary – mostly detached buttonhole stitch – which is tedious to work, time consuming and requires a great deal of thread per square inch. Even worse, it is a treasure of the collection (that’s not the bad part) so it is permanently on display behind glass (that’s the bad part). We wouldn’t be able to get the detailed photos of the embroidery pattern that would be essential to the project.

We turned to another jacket in the V&A’s collection, 1359-1900. This one has a beautifully colored pattern, a huge variety of motifs, and is not permanently on display, so it could be photographed from all sides. We decided to combine the Laton pattern pieces with the embroidery pattern of 1359-1900.

I haven’t posted links to these jackets as I’d first like to get permission to do so. They’re easy to find, though. On the V&A website (www.vam.ac.uk), click ‘collections’, then ‘search collections’. For the Laton jacket, put in either the accession number or ‘Laton jacket’. For the other, put in the accession number.

On our way to settling on these two jackets, we considered several others, and traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to look at two surviving examples. I’ll post more about these in the future.

This photo is just eye candy. It comes from an embroidered coif (a kind of head covering worn by women in the 17^th century) designed and worked by several former members of the Colonial Wardrobe Department.

Here’s the information on how to join the team of embroiderers.

Welcome to Plimoth Plantation’s newest blog. The Embroiderers’ Story will chronicle the progress of a particular project being carried out by the members of Plimoth Plantation’s Colonial Wardrobe & Textiles Department, along with essential help and support from members of the historic needlework community.

Over the next year, we will be recreating a 17^th-century embroidered jacket, such as that worn by Dorothy Cary, later Viscountess Rochford, in this portrait dated c. 1614-1618. The work will be done entirely by hand, using 17^th-century techniques and modern materials that most closely replicate the original linen cloth and silk and metal threads.

The idea to recreate one of these embroidered jackets was spurred by the planning for Plimoth Plantation’s upcoming exhibit on personal adornment. The exhibit planners wanted a garment that summed up the early 17^th-century English aesthetic of personal adornment and could, along with a Native Wampanoag turkey feather mantle, form the centerpiece of the new exhibit.

For some weeks we (the members of Plimoth Plantation’s Colonial Wardrobe Department) were stumped. Nothing that we could accomplish seemed able to stand as counterpoint to the mantle. Finally we suggested an embroidered jacket, the idea immediately caught everyone’s imagination and we were off. That was in November, 2006.

Since then, we have been overwhelmed with the enthusiasm news of this project has generated. This is definitely an ambitious undertaking; based on time trials we estimate the embroidery alone will take between 2000 – 2500 hours of labor. That figure doesn’t include the time required to make and apply yards of metal bobbin lace or assemble the embroidered pieces into a finished garment. We’re going to need as much enthusiasm, support, and help as possible.

This blog is the direct result of a suggestion from members of the needlework community who would like to keep up with the jacket as it progresses. As the Manager of the Colonial Wardrobe & Textiles Department, I intend to post 4-6 times per week in order to keep everyone abreast of the project, make historical information and a bibliography available, supply links to the manufacturers of the supplies we’ll be using, provide information on how to join the team of embroiderers working on the jacket, report on what we learn as we carry out the process, and generally build a community. I hope you’ll check back often, and let your friends know we’re here.