Tricia wrote this for me, as I’m supposed to be on vacation. Over several days she’ll be telling us the story of the development of the gilt sylke twist threads. I was there through this process, and I’m finding it fascinating reading! I hope you enjoy the story as much. JMH

We had a wonderful event last week at the session - we added the first blue colors to the jacket. As you can see in the photo, we are working on the cornflowers using the two new gilt sylke twist colors. It looks lovely!

I promised before Thanksgiving that I would tell the story of this wonderful thread, an odyssey that has been a semi-secret for almost a year now. Well, it all started with the first meeting at Plimoth between myself and the staff and John, the director of the museum. We were talking about the threads that would be needed for the project and I pointed out in some of the photographs that many of the threads used in this time period are composite threads. Composite threads are those that combine two or more materials.  You are familiar with gold threads - a flat strip of metal wrapped around a core (silk, cotton, or linen) such that the wraps touch and you don’t see any of the core. Well, there were a wide variety of threads that were made, some of which I have pointed out in earlier blogs.  In particular, many of the jackets are embroidered with a silk thread wrapped with a very thin wire such that much of the silk shows. The effect of doing detached buttonhole with this type of threads would be that the flowers would appear sprinkled with glitter. John and the staff were mesmerized by this description.

Well, John asked me if it was possible to get some of these threads so we could be accurate with our reproduction. I told him that they weren’t made anymore. Well, he laid down the gauntlet and asked if it was possible to have them made.  As both an engineer and historic embroidery teacher, I have been working towards getting many of these threads made again. Usually it involves a great deal of effort to provide an economic reason and to solve raw material sourcing problems with a manufacturer you are working with. I was thrilled that he was committed to accuracy for this project and promised that I would see ‘what it would take’ and give it a try. 

Trying to have an entire line of threads remade at the beginning of a big embroidery project is crazy. Very crazy.  It is better to start out with all your materials ready and in your hands so your progress can move forward.  But this was one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunities. The project held the potential to give that ‘economic reason’ to the manufacturers of gold threads. We would need a great deal of thread and thus it might be worth their while to figure it out.

Tomorrow - tests and trials

Tricia