The December session is over; everyone has gone home. We were small in number this time, but you could never tell that by how much was accomplished. Here’s Tricia talking with Cheryl S on the first day.

The second picture is Sharon, who earned the title ‘trefoil queen’ by completing at least four of the complicated multi-colored, 3-leaf motifs during this session. Even more impressive is that she left early the first day due to illness. Oh, and she also stitched an entire cornflower - calyx and all. Whew. In the background of this picture is Alison, whose move to Atlanta was prompted by just the sort of storm we had here yesterday.

Here’s Melanie Anne, whose friends wanted pictorial proof of how she’s been spending all her free time lately. Melanie Anne’s from Maine. They get lots of snow.

Safe travels home, everyone.

These drawings were sent in by Libbet (thanks Libbet). She copied them from some period representations of columbines. These, to me, look much more like a columbine, but maybe it is only because they show a side view. If the motif on the jacket is a different perspective, that might account for it.

The numbers in parentheses correspond to the master pattern. First up is the maybe the columbine(6). Like I said the other day, it may well look more like a columbine once it’s been stitched. We’re waiting for some of the new colors of gilt sylke twist.

Next one is honeysuckle. This has two numbers - the buds (12) which are stitched in this example, and the petals (11) which are waiting for the yellow gilt sylke twist.

This one is the borage(4). I can’t wait to see these stitched. They’re waiting for the blue gilt sylke twist. I’m pretty fond of blue, and pretty fond of borage flowers. They’re little, about 1/2" in diameter, and they look like tiny stars. They’re pretty cool, even if they’re not red.

This on the left is a pink or carnation (12). Its modern name is dianthus. The edges of the petals are fringed, which is clearly visible on the motif. Before ‘pink’ meant the color pink, it meant ‘little cuts’ (think of pinking shears), hence the name of the flower, which happened to also be the color pink and may well account for how the meaning evolved.

Next up are strawberries(2), with a flower(1).

Here’s a thistle(16). The calyx is ceylon stitch, which really gives the impression of the stiff, prickly thistle leaves.

On the left is a sweet pea flower (10).

I’ll take more pictures tomorrow, which is the first day of the December session. This session is the last one of this year. This feels momentous to me; when we start the next session we’ll be finishing the jacket "this year" instead of "next year".

Vacation alert: Speaking of this year, though, please note that Plimoth Plantation will be closed for the holiday from December 21 - January 2. Also, Kathy and I are both taking some time off around the holiday. We’ll be on vacation from December 14 - January 7. I’ll still be blogging, though.

Penny will be here through December 20 and will be back on the 2nd, so if you need something send her a message at our new laptop’s very own email address - colonialwardrobe@plimoth.org

Speaking of which, I blogged on the laptop today! (Squee!)

One thing we haven’t done yet is name all the motifs on the jacket. We may have mentioned some or talked about twelve major motifs, but I don’t think we have yet listed them all out. To help us with putting directions together and keeping track, we have used a numbering system for each motif. This number of the motif is shown in parentheses after the name. Well, here we go:

Flora

Strawberries (2) and strawberry flower (1)
Borage (4)
Columbine (6)  (note- this flower still eludes us but Susan North feels it might be*)
Pea Pods (9)
Sweet Pea (10)
Honeysuckle (11)
Honeysuckle Bud (12)
Bud or Rosehip (13 or 18)
Thistle (16)
Foxglove (19)
Cornflower (21)
Rose (22)
Pansy (23)
Pink or Carnation (24)

Fauna

Bird (5)
Butterfly with spiky wings (20)
Butterfly with rounded wings (15)
Simple Worm (7)
Worm with Head (20)

What you will notice is that there are numbers that are skipped.  They are the unique types of leaves that exist on the pattern repeat. Those who have been here already know that Motif #3 is a BIG and complex leaf. We call it a trefoil leaf. It can take the better part of a day to stitch. And it is the motif that is more prevalent on the whole jacket!  In all there are 27 motifs for the pattern repeat. What really gets me is that not only do we have these 27 different motifs, but they have color variations too. Plus we have one rogue motif on the piece. We are calling it our ‘where’s waldo’ motif. This folded flower - I suspect it might be a folded pansy or an unidentified bud - exists in one spot on the entire jacket.  Susan North gets the credit for pointing it out to me. The wonderful thing about this is that it exists on the panel at the Embroiderers Guild. More proof that there was a large master pattern that was being modified for each piece. This one was an oops. 

It will be a fun oops. We plan to have a picture of this unique motif on the display so the visitors can have fun looking for it. I won’t tell you where it is either - you have to visit or stitch to find out!

Tricia

Jill adds, Plimoth’s Associate Director of Historic Landscapes and horticulturalist Bob Hoxie was looking at the jacket a few weeks ago. I showed him the mystery flower and asked what he thought it might be, and he also said columbine, independently of Susan North’s opinion. That makes two votes for probably columbine. I’m curious to see how it looks stitched with the modern threads. Some of the period gilt sylke threads have faded which combined with the tarnishing of the silver on them makes them just look sort of a funny grey color. In the modern untarnished full color threads it might look a lot more like a columbine.

I’ll post photos of the motifs a few at a time. Today I have Motif #3, the trefoil leaf, and Motif #19 foxglove.