This is the last installment of the Gilt Sylke Twist story. I think saying that this tale was “interesting” is putting it mildly. Even those of us who were there, and/or knew the end result, were eager to hear the next bit. I didn’t read ahead, either, even though I had them all at once – I read them as I posted them. And personally, I’d like to thank Tricia for writing this up and sending it to me in blog-installments at a strategic time – it made my time off a real vacation without undue interruption for all of you.

I hope that this glimpse into the process of getting a reproduction thread back to market was interesting to those reading the blog. While there are many more details, I wanted to give a glimpse into the industryso all might realize how things get done, how hard it is, and how valued these artisan businesses should be. There are very, very few ‘mega-businesses’ in needlework and of these they had to diversify into technical yarns to stay in business. The vast majority are individual proprietors or businesses with a handful of employees trying to keep a rich legacy alive. When you finally get your hands on a tube of these fantastic threads – realize that there was an entire year of love and determination by a group of people poured into it – those who were inspired to ‘see what it must have looked like 400 years ago.’

As a personal after word to this story, I will tell you what happened the day I first stitched a petal on the jacket with gilt sylke twist. I chose Redde and was working a Pink/Carnation in the middle of the back. Because I have to write the instructions for each motif (as I work it), I work on that piece at home. It was night and I have a set of halogen lights in my ceiling. If you have ever noticed how diamonds sparkle in a jewelry store – halogens are the reason. It is the light closest to candle light without the flickering.

Well, the tubes were sitting there sparkling and as I finished the first petal, I could see what the jacket would look like as I moved the frame. I started crying as it was so beautiful and alive. I also realized it was the first time in a very long time that anyone had seen what it must have looked like when those talented embroiderers of the past applied it. Chills.

When John (Director of Plimoth Plantation) saw the thread for the first time, he immediately asked the staff to put a lighting study on the list of things to do for the exhibition. He realized also that the light needs to be right and change to give the full effect of when the jacket was originally worn. I can’t wait to see it. It will be as if the flower fairies sprinkled glitter on our embroidered garden!

Tricia

Tricia continues:

Lamora has promised to fill us in someday on the process she used to name the threads. But we were thrilled to learn that she didn’t use a numbering system. Instead, she named them using 17^th-century names and spellings. How appropriate and indicative of the detail she puts to everything.

Gilt Sylke Twist is the “official” name for the thread. The colors that have been made are (modern color name in parentheses):

- Bisse (Cream)
- Isabella (Yellow)
- Carnacion (Pink)
- Redde (Red)
- Grene (Green)
- Graie Blewe (Light Blue)
- Indico-Blewe (Dark Blue)
- Purple (Purple)

As mentioned before, seven of these colors are for the jacket. When the last batch of silk was sent to England to be spun, Lamora decided to gift herself the purple. We have found that the effect of the gold is best on medium and dark colors, so she was very interested to see a purple. It is beautiful!

Access Commodities has found that it spools up nicely on their larger standard spool and the spool holds 35 meters. The pricing was almost set a few weeks ago, but the continued fluctuation of the US Dollar against the Euro along with a just-announced price increase to the base silk thread has sent them back to the drawing board. Waste in the process and the increasing costs of gold are just two of the factors they have to get their calculators around. Hopefully all the calculations will be done soon and we can let that number out.

Some other notes about the threads and their up-coming release:

• The colors will be limited edition. As explained before, for timing and historical accuracy we had to use base silk that was available in the archives and some of those colors will not be able to be dyed again. If sales are good, then those will be replaced by a close match.
• The release is delayed (it was going to be January 1^st) because of the re-pricing but also because of our need to hold back thread for the jacket, since some of the colors are limited edition. The yield of the manufacturing process is not yet fully calculated so we aren’t sure exactly how much of the limited edition colors there will be. The runs aren’t finished yet. Once we are sure that we have held back enough of the colors for the jacket, we can release the excess for sale. Guess I’ll be spending some of the January session doing some calculations on those colors for the jacket. Glad we’ve been keeping such close records!

Tricia

Actually, my take-away message on that last point would be: let’s use the next few sessions to make a big chunk of progress in the gilt sylke twist embroidery and speed up the release of the limited edition colors! We still have openings in the popular Friday – Monday sessions: February 8 – 11 and February 29 – March 3. Call me [508-746-1622 X 8119 or email jhall@plimoth.org] to let me know you’re coming.

More from Tricia:

Once Lamora and I had determined that the thread could go ‘commercial’, it only made sense to turn over control of manufacturing to her and Bill. I would take the role of active consumer and promoter of the thread, trying to find ways to use it and make the needlework public aware (watch for magazine articles and projects in the future). Now I just had to OK the color palette and wait for goodness to happen.

Well, I think that the colors have been the most difficult part of getting this thread made. We started with the colors we needed for the project and the colors that had already been purchased for the jacket. We were already embroidering with them and weren’t going to rip anything out! Immediately I knew we had a big problem with the blues and yellow. While we had found an acceptable set of blues in the Soie Perlee, the Soie Ovale line didn’t have a close match.

Blue was only dyed using either indigo or woad in the 17th century. These blues have a ‘blue jeans’ cast to them. Using something with a lot of purple, yellow or green undertones wouldn’t look historic at all. Dyeing silk is complicated by many factors including the August vacation (most of France is gone), the amount of silk that must be dyed (enormous), and the planned schedule of the companies (there are thousands of colors in the AVS line). All of these factors were conspiring against us - they didn’t match up with our need to get the jacket done by June, 2008.

The next problem is dye lot and having enough of something to make the thread. I don’t know how many times I talked to Access Commodities and they talked to Au Ver a Soie. The cones of silk were taken out of the warehouses of both companies and estimates as to ‘how much’ was left were made. Sometimes a promising color had to be set aside because we didn’t have time to dye new and there wasn’t enough to make what we estimated we needed. Little spools kept coming. I twisted them and compared them to the photos and silks we were already using.

Quickly we found that the red, cream and pink could be sent over to England (for the addition of the gold wire). But a few months passed trying to hone in on the rest of the colors. Some had to be sent from France. Some were special colors, never to be dyed again and leftover from former special projects at AVS.

We got the first shipment of the thread back from England in October I think. At Plimoth, we had coined the term ‘glitter thread’ but Lamora surprised us with a great and well researched name: Gilt Sylke Twist.

Tricia

More from Tricia. We’re almost to the end of the story!

Lamora and I discussed my trials, sent pictures, and passed little samples back and forth. We discussed in detail my opinion on how well the average stitcher would do with the thread. It’s one thing for someone with years of training with gold threads and another thing for someone who looks at it and decides to try some other stitch for needlepoint! In the end, we decided that it was versatile enough to be given a chance. (Now all of you have to give it a chance and make this a success for the three companies involved so they make more neat threads!)

Bill was surprised that the round wire version worked the best; he had been concerned that as soon as we pulled it through the fabric that it would strip off the silk. We all decided that these first versions were so good (trust that experienced maker to get it right the first time!) that we didn’t need to test anymore and could now pick colors and get silk to Bill to make more.

I am going to fast forward here to a few months later and the moment that I verified the thread against a historic piece. A textile conservator friend of mine was letting me examine her breathtaking stumpwork picture. I had the Gilt Sylke Twist with me and was able to lay it on the glass above the piece and look at the similar thread under it and compare. Wow, they were almost identical in size. What luck to get it so close on the first try! I look forward to comparing it to the jacket someday in the future! I’ve added photos of this stumpwork piece. What was sooooooo coooooool about the wire wrapped thread on this piece - it was crocheted! WOW.

I told Wendy White about the historic crochet the next day and found out that she had successfully done it that week with a piece I had given her from the trial spool. Hmmmm. We also got a wonderful email weeks ago from a researcher who is interested in this thread for knitting. Apparently, there are very delicate knit gloves from this period of history made from this type of thread. Now the applications are really going through our heads!

Tricia

Tricia works with the sample threads for the first time. Think about that – this kind of thread hasn’t been available for, how long? Centuries? And there she is in her living room, working with prototypes, bringing the materials and the technique back to life.

Having worked with many different metal threads, I was concerned that while the thread may look good, it might not stitch well. The biggest fear was that the wire or strip might break while doing detached buttonhole or Ceylon (the two stitches on the jacket that use this type of thread) and bunch up on the thread. Even if you could stitch with it, if it required too much care to keep it from breaking or broke too often (such as every other stitch) it would not be feasible to use for the jacket and definitely not become a product.

Here you can see pictures of my trials with the strip (less red shows) and round wire (more red shows). The first thing I found was that the strip was harder to work with because the thread was stiffer. This was because the amount of the silk covered was more than the round-wire-wrapped thread. If the width of the strip was narrower or the number of wraps per inch was lower, it would be more flexible and stitch better.

What I found was that the net density of the detached buttonhole was lower for the strip-wrapped thread than the wire-wrapped thread. So the resulting detached buttonhole looked airy and the linen showed through. So the wire-wrapped was the winner.

Now, how often did the wire break? Almost all the breaks happened at the needle eye and not where the thread was pulling tight at the stitch. Our modern needles have stamped eyes with sharp edges and burrs in the metal. At the time the jacket was made, there were needles made with bored holes (round or egg-shaped eye). Bored needle eyes are smooth inside. You can still get this type of needle from the Japanese Embroidery Center in Georgia. I use them for goldwork as they make the gold go through the linen so easily. But they are expensive as they are handmade and rare.

I found if I only kept a ½” – 1” tail in the needle eye, if it did break then I didn’t lose too much thread. Also, I could cut off that tail and if the gold wire had stripped down and bunched up, I could grip the wire with my thumbnail and pull it back up on the thread, effectively rescuing most of the thread. I found that it might break once or twice at the needle eye for every 20 inches of thread I was using. If I used a better quality needle, that got better. So I was confident enough that the thread would work for the jacket. Now to report to Lamora on my trials.

My first words were – “You won’t believe how much it glitters in the light!”

Tricia