Tricia writes:

 

One of the nice things about recreating the jacket is how so many people are interested in the project and sometime we have special visitors with things to share. This sharing is really enriching everyone and also bringing on more and more collaborations between communities.

During this session, Joanna Hill (a well-known textile conservator in the Boston area), brought her own historic embroidered stumpwork picture to show the embroiderers. The picture, shown here, is 3rd quarter 17th century and has not yet been conserved. The piece is not framed and so we were able to examine it very closely. Everyone enjoyed speaking with Joanne about the techniques that were used on the piece. Many of our embroiderers hadn’t seen the complex threads that were on the piece. We saw silk covered purls used for the buildings and flora, wonderful small pearls applied, silk covered wire, and mica for windows.

A lively topic of discussion was the wonderful or’nue that was used on the skirt of the woman, which also lifted up to show more embroidery underneath. More on this embroidery and its fun threads tomorrow with lots of really close of pictures of the threads.