AND ONE MORE POST because this foolish machine is smarter than I am.

 

Here is some of Abigail’s needle lace – also called reticella. And here’s a LINK to a bigger picture. It was amazing and beautiful and rich with hours lavished on it. It seemed like there was an extravagantly long strip of it but I can’t remember exactly how many motifs she made. What I do remember is that after she became familiar with the pattern, “it took only 11 hours to do one repeat.” Wow.

 

Take that, Bloggie. All the pictures I wanted and only three posts. Pfffft.

Part the Second.

 

Abigail brought some treasures, too. Here she is wearing the coif she made from Plimoth Plantation’s coif kit. Is that the smiling face of a woman who has been able to devote four days in a row to stitching?

 

 

 

 

Here’s another view because you can either see the coif or the wearer but not both at once.

OK. Bloggie has won. I’ve been trying for 40 minutes to put what I think are a reasonable number of pictures in this post. Bloggie (grrrrr) thinks my picture use is excessive. SO. TWO POSTS. Take that. Here’s the first bit.

 

Thanks for giving me last night off. I’d fully intended to blog after winding up the September session, but I was all done in and fell asleep pretty early.

 

It would be hard for me to choose a favorite part of the embroidery session. I love to hear Kathleen talk about food, I learn something new every time I listen to Peter and I enjoy meeting the embroiderers so much. But a truly special treat is the show and tell day. This happened spontaneously during the first session but I’ve scheduled it in ever since.

 

Here is Norma with her needlework treasure. This exquisite christening dress was made in Portugal for Norma’s 3x great-grandfather in 1831. The close-up doesn’t do it justice.

 

The second picture is Norma’s very first needlework project. Norma also brought TWO PIECES that I mistook for Tricia’s work. They were from Tricia’s kits but Norma made them. I’d seen Tricia’s originals at an earlier show & tell and thought she’d brought them back again. (Click the link – shrinking them to bloggie-size is too small.)

Today was a good day, but long. One embroiderer chose to see Plymouth Cinema’s first screening, La Vie en Rose. A few others opted to go for a late dinner and embroider while they waited for her to join them. These ladies put in a very long day of stitching. I’m exhausted just watching. So tonight I have for you a short post and a photo. These are Lyn’s hands. Lyn came all the way from Ontario to join us. I love to watch skilled hands at work. This photo was taken by Lilia and severely cropped by me so I wouldn’t have to shrink it too much. Lyn’s working on a foxglove. I was saying that this doesn’t look much like a foxglove to me, and Wendy disagreed. Carol said she didn’t think she could recognize a foxglove if it was in the room. So here’s A FOXGLOVE, courtesy of Wikipedia. And Wendy’s right. These embroidered ones do look like the individual blossoms.

 

Thanks for the comment, Lia, and welcome. I’m glad you enjoy the blog. Tricia is going to do a series of posts on the threads, both silk and metal. The short answer is we’re using Au Ver a Soie Soie Perlee and a brand new thread called Gilt Sylke Twist (silk wrapped with a gold wire). Stay tuned for the long answer!

Yesterday we had an excellent lunch of turkey sandwiches, carrot salad and frozen pumpkin ice cream with gingersnaps. Anything that comes out of Marcia’s kitchen is worth walking a long mile for, and this lunch is getting to be an embroidery session tradition. Marcia runs the behind-the-scenes Foodways kitchen for the Colonial Interpretation program. She provides support for the on-site cooking projects in the 1627 English Village and on board Mayflower II. There’s a plot to publish a collection of Marcia’s recipes from the embroidery sessions in a small book. I think the cranberry chutney and rolls that surround the turkey and the frozen pumpkin dessert will definitely be in there.

 

While we eat Thanksgiving-inspired foods, Kathleen Curtin, Plimoth’s Foodways Historian and Visitor Advocate, tells us what our traditional Thanksgiving dishes reveal about our family’s ethnic and geographical origins. She puts all the traditional and not-so-traditional foods in a timeline, too, telling us when they joined the Thanksgiving menu. This presentation has proved to be a great way to get to know each other and we’ve done it the first day of each session so far.

 

I realized the first time I heard this interactive lecture that my kids have no idea what a traditional Thanksgiving looks like, which is ironic since we work at Thanksgiving central. Every year since before they were born my husband and I have worked on Thanksgiving. Plimoth Plantation is open to the public and our regular programs go on as usual while in the Visitors’ Center and other modern buildings literally thousands of guests eat one of several different Thanksgiving dinners. Potluck dinners are held behind the scenes for the staff of the different sites. That’s what my kids’ traditional Thanksgiving is. For the past 19 years it’s been my Thanksgiving, too.

 

Back when we used to go over the river and through the woods to my Grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving, though, the traditional dish peculiar to our family was a huge antipasto. I know in Italian cooking antipasto is just the dish before the pasta, but in our family it’s a turkey-platter-sized composed salad of various pickled vegetables, hot peppers, plenty of olives (the yummy kind as well as the kind you wear on your fingers) and Italian deli meats and cheeses. That, plus bread and butter, was really all I ever wanted of Thanksgiving food. Well, that and pie. I love pie.

 

We had an excellent day today. Lots of embroidery happened, some shopping, another yummy lunch, a collections tour with Karin Goldstein, and LACE. Penny and Karin did their first stitching on the real pieces, Penny on the coif and Karin on the forehead cloth. Several of the veteran embroiderers began working with the Gilt Sylke Twist thread. Today was also my favorite session day – Show & Tell Day. I love show & tell. This session’s participants brought some truly special treats to share. I remembered to take pictures (sometimes just in the nick of time), but right now getting them out of the camera is beyond me. Plus, I want to make sure to tell you everything, and there’s a better chance of that if I go slow. I have a whole month to update everyone on this session before the next one begins!