Lots going on …
around here.
Thanks, Jen, for offering to check your photos to see if you saw blue “strawberry” flowers on coives at the MFA when you were here. I’d appreciate the info.
I think Lauren, mj, and others may well be right on with the thoughts about symbolism in the embroidery. It will be fun to look up those references, but I bet we’ll never really know.
I’m also glad to see embroiderers of all ages participating, and hopefully some not-yet-embroiderers will be moved to try it out – whether this style or another.
The exhibit that the jacket will be an honored part of is scheduled to open in May, 2009. When we began we were working with an opening date of summer, 2008 (gasp!) but other elements, like funding, didn’t move along on that schedule. Honestly, I’m just as glad; trying to build an ambitious clothing & accessories-heavy exhibit while making the jacket was not an appetizing prospect. That’s partly why we’ve maintained the original production schedule for the jacket despite the change in the exhibit opening – this way the jacket will be safely finished before we start work on the exhibit….
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, yesterday Wendy joined Kris, Heather, Shaina, and Emily (our winter intern) in the embroidery “studio.” Apparently they had a giggle-filled day, which makes me wonder just what they were up to!
They all joined Karin in the collections storage room to see the samplers. Joining the two 17th century samplers is an early 18th century one which was embroidered by a descendant of one of the Mayflower passengers.
Two of the photos (all courtesy of Wendy again today) show Karin opening the frame of the 18th century sampler (but those fingers look like Shaina’s).
Wendy writes:
This is becoming more interesting by the moment, the colors, the genealogy and the fact that she was stitched to very BAD cardboard ( fortunately not glued as Karin had feared)– she seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she was opened. A very interesting tale indeed and one we will spin out for you over the course of the next few months! Stay tuned for our surprises!
The first picture shows Kris embroidering. Today, Kris and Heather were going to work until late afternoon, then find Heather some real New England seafood for supper. Instead, they packed up by 10 AM and headed out to beat the snow. The SNOW. This makes THREE sessions shortened by weather. Yes, I am taking it personally. Enough already. I have a deadline here!
Speaking of, I’m working on planning sessions in April, May and June. Stay tuned for exact dates. They’ll all be Friday to Monday weekends, as that has proved by far the most popular configuration. By then there’ll be no snow to deal with. I hope.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:07 am
The sigh of relief when the sampler was opened may have been Wendy’s, I’m sure she was holding her breath
.
Looked through my files and notes on embroidered coifs and caps and so far no luck on blue strawberry flowers, in fact I haven’t really seen another one where the strawberries have flowers. The little coat made from coifs at the MFA has groups of 3 berries but no flowers.
Another theory for blue; it was often the color used for the Virgin Mary and the borage flower is usually blue. Strawberrys and Borage were often grown together.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:15 am
I sent Jill a picture I took of a coif in the MFA’s collection, accession number 43.249 that has blue strawberry flowers on it. In fact unlike the current jacket pattern repeat, this coif pattern has two strawberry motifs next to each other, two white roses side by side (two rows up), as well as other clumps of motifs. The other two coifs we looked at had strawberries but no strawberry flowers on them that I could spot. Alas, we can’t post these pictures since they are for personal research purposes only, but there are definitely blue small five-petaled flowers directly off a stem of two strawberries.