Just a few notes tonight; I’m suffering from a surfeit of Thanksgiving.

I’m sorry about the problem with the text and pictures from the other day. My sister noticed that reading the blog using Firefox as the web browser showed them fine; I have been using Firefox and don’t know if that’s affecting things. I’ve asked Rich what to do.

Several folks have pointed out that the lace on the Laton jacket is quite obviously NOT the lace on the jacket in the portrait, which means that at some point after the portrait (circa 1620) the lace was replaced. The lace that is on it now doesn’t look glaringly like a much later century. The construction techniques don’t argue for a later date, either, according to the lace makers working on the reproduction. My feeling is that we really can’t reproduce the lace on the jacket in the portrait but some excellent photography on the V&A website means we CAN reproduce the lace that’s on the jacket now, so that’s what we’re going ahead with.

For the knitters and spinners - several people have asked for the breed of sheep one should use to spin for knitting yarn. I don’t have an answer off the cuff; I need to do some research. Sheep have changed a lot since 1620, and so far I haven’t looked into what kinds of modern sheep’s fleece most closely match the fleeces they could get or were using in early 17C England. I can do the research, and I’m thinking how I could perhaps get an intern to help me, but it is going to take a while, both for me to get to it and to actually do it.

I would say for now, and totally off the top of my head, that Jacob should be OK (I’d separate the colors and spin white or black; or card together and spin grey); Romney should be good, too, especially one that isn’t too soft, particularly if you’re thinking of spinning for stockings. But don’t go out and buy fleece to spin based on that. I know that England’s textile industry in the 17C was using woolen yarn from carded wool as well as worsted yarn from combed wool, and that sheep from different regions of the country yielded fleece that was better for one vs the other. And after all, right now we’re using yarn commercially spun from "wool" so handspun is a step towards greater accuracy. Don’t use merino or cashmere or baby alpaca or a wool/silk blend, though. I know I need to get you wpi and yardage; I’ll give myself a deadline - look for that tomorrow.

Today the seasonal interpreters cleaned out the reproduction houses of the 1627 English Village, removing the textiles (and bringing them up to us in Colonial Wardrobe) and other artifacts. They also returned (to us) their period clothing. We must have had 25 people turn in full sets of clothes today. Another 15 or so will bring their stuff back over the next 10 days. The contents of 8 or 9 houses and all the passengers’ textiles from Mayflower II came back as well. We do not have a huge office. It looks like a clothes bomb went off. We’ve got 10 working days to shipshape the place before the start of the next embroidery session. It’ll take us all winter to wash & mend the clothes and textiles. The next 10 days are just for, well, hiding the mess and making the place presentable. Today was so crazed I didn’t even have a chance to take a picture for you. I’ll try to do that tomorrow. It isn’t pretty.