During the last embroidery session we had a behind the scenes tour of the Colonial Wardrobe Department. Our office and workrooms are not part of the public area of the museum, so many people find it fun and interesting to come see what we do and how we do it. In this picture Lyn and Linda are examining the “pocket goods” of one of our interpreters (also called role-players). He’d brought his clothes in for their annual cleaning/mending/sprucing and hadn’t emptied his pockets. They’re looking at some reproduction early 17^th-century coins, a flint and striker (for fire-starting) and odd bits of matchcord (for matchlock firearms), bent nails, and a modern watch.

Anyway, during that tour and discussion I mentioned that we don’t have the person-hours to keep up with knitting for the role-players. They need way more pairs of knitted stockings, which in the early 17^th century were cheap and readily available, than we can provide, so we rely on volunteer knitters. I also mentioned that our pool of volunteer stocking and glove knitters (we need gloves, too) had shrunk over the last couple of years, for various reasons. We still have a loyal group of knitting volunteers through the Weavers’ Guild of Boston, but the supply hasn’t been equal to the demand for a few years now. We’ve fallen back on faster to make but less historically accurate stockings sewn of cloth.

The next day, Beth from New York, in what I now realize was a mastery of understatement, said “Some embroiderers knit, you know.”

She repeated “Some of us knit. You need stockings. Have you asked?”

The penny dropped with a clunk. No, I hadn’t asked. Beth put me in touch with some of her friends in a historical reenactment group. Abigail, from nearby Dorchester, MA, offered to mention our need to a knitting friend of hers. Suddenly I was overwhelmed again. Penny packed up and sent out three stocking knitting kits (yarn and directions) to Beth’s friend Jackie to distribute to people she knows. Penny also sent off a gorgeous “cake” of handspun, vegetable dyed glove yarn, directions and needles to Abigail’s friend. I ordered three dozen cones of stocking yarn from Harrisville, and Monday we’ll be sending out a dozen more stocking kits to Jackie and friends of hers.

I guess I should have known, based on the response to the embroidery project in the first place, that another community would respond as generously as needle workers have, if only they were asked. Thanks to Beth and Abigail for getting the word out, and to Wendy for encouraging me to put it on the blog.

If you’re interested in knitting gloves or stockings to warm the fingers and toes of Plymouth Plantation’s historical interpreters, drop me an email. jhall@plimoth.org The need is ongoing, and it’s always 1627 here, so we’ll be glad to get them even if it takes a while, or if you’d like to knit after the holidays, or whatever.