Lace sample arrived from Bryce W.

Several lacers have asked this question - when you send back the sample, we only need 3 repeats of the lace motif, that is 3 scallops of the lace, not 3 of the gold + silver repeat, or 6 scallops overall.

I had an update from Mark yesterday. He’s been busy, traveling to different places to seek help from other skilled metalworkers. Next step is to confer with Tricia and Wendy regarding how much or how little the current trial looks like the original spangles (the teardrop shaped kind). He thinks it is possible that we’ll be ready to make lace at the end of March. The living history exhibits will be open again by then. We’ll all know more after the Spangle Questers have met, hopefully on Friday.

Emily’s gone back to Bennington, and we miss her. But, by working very hard and very fast, she finished the pair of stays for Norah before she had to go. I missed the very end of her stay, including the final fitting, due to yet more germs. It’s been the worst winter for illness around my house; I hope yours has been much healthier. Thanks to Penny and Shaina for taking these pictures and helping Emily with the last bits of finishing.

Notice Norah’s jeans in the first picture; they add to the outfit, don’t you think? The second shows more how they’ll be worn, with a petticoat over. Nearly all the time she’ll also wear a jacket or waistcoat over top; only within the house she may sometimes work in either just the smock-sleeves and stays, or with a loose house-jacket over that.

Plimoth Plantation’s living history exhibits re-open to the public four weeks from Saturday. We’ve got a lot to do.

At our last session, Chris was our only new stitcher. She was also our only stitcher from out of town - from Michigan. I think (I hope) some folks are waiting for our spring sessions to avoid the New England winter weather. But for some, like Chris, and like Catherine and Deb a few weeks ago who are from Kansas, a trip to Plymouth is a beach holiday compared to the weather at home.

It was great to meet Chris, a talented stitcher and fun to be around. She showed us a pair of her granddaughter’s jeans that she is embroidering. These have an underwater theme - fish and kelp. Chris turned the ruffles on the side into a coral reef by blanket-stitching the edges. These are the second pair her granddaughter asked for; the first have flowers on the bottom of the legs and a bouquet on the pocket. What a special gift for a precious child. And I bet she’s so proud of her one-of-a-kind jeans and her talented grandmother.

Chris was having a real vacation after leaving us; she was headed to visit friends in Florida. She’s on her way home to frozen Michigan now, and I hope she’s had safe, happy travels.

The bird on the blog header is indeed the same as the bird on the jacket, as Mary says in the comments. The bird on the jacket will be a little smaller, though, and the stitches may be a little different. Since we traced and Tricia worked that sample we’ve received more detailed photos of the original. Last I talked with Tricia about the bird she was musing that there might be something more interesting and complicated going on than she’d first thought. She has to study the photos some more, and maybe consult with Ms North at the V&A. I can’t wait to see what she finds out. Of course we’ll share with you too.

Speaking of sharing, tonight I have pictures of Robbin (of the laptop donation) and one of her treasures. Robbin brought in the piece of antique Honiton lace that was her wedding veil.

I learned that Honiton lace takes its name from the place in the west of England where it has been traditionally made. Honiton is worked in pieces or motifs and sewn to a net ground. Long ago the net was made by hand, but the piece Robbin has dates from around 1900 and the net is likely machine made. Robbin explained that Honiton was made by the cottage system, where workers made individual lace motifs which were then put together to make big pieces of lace. A worker might make one motif, the small flower with leaves perhaps, over and over and over and over.

Robbin bought this piece of lace intending it for her veil and then shopped for a dress to go with it, like the dedicated textile lover she is. Here’s a detail of the veil.

Robbin also brought her lace pillow with her sample lace still affixed. She thought I would like to see it that way, and take pictures for the blog. She was right. I was fascinated to see the lace on the pricking with some of the pins still in, and the bobbins still attached. Robbin was careful to mention that these bobbins are not the kind recommended for working the sample, but she has lots of them and not lots of the recommended (Dutch) kind. They worked tolerably well, she thought, and was willing to put up with their drawbacks as it was less trouble than hunting up enough pairs of the other.

These are the lace bobbins with spangles - bobbin spangles, not the kind of spangles that will be worked into the lace. Yeesh, this is confusing.

Hi everyone,

ELIZABETH N PLEASE CALL KATHY. She got your request for 2 kits, but not your contact info. 508-746-1622 X 8114 or kroncarati@plimoth.org

Thank you for your very kind compliments on my little leaf.

Hi Suz, yes, there will be critters on our jacket, but the embroidery pattern we’re using isn’t from the Laton jacket. We’re using the garment pattern from the Laton jacket partly because it is drawn out on graphed paper in Janet Arnold’s book Patterns of Fashion: the Cut & Construction of Clothes for men and women c.1560-1620; partly because the shape of it puts it firmly in the time period we are interested in - early 1600s (the ones with scooped necks are probably of later date, there’s some discussion about this); partly because it belongs to the Victoria & Albert Museum (London, England) and we had a prior relationship with the curator, Susan North; partly also because it is a famous example, existing as it does along with a portrait of the owner wearing it.

But we’re using the embroidery pattern of a different jacket in the collection of the V&A - 1359-1900. You can find it by going to the V&A website, search collections, and put in 1359-1900. (I can’t link to the V&A website here due to licensing issues.) We chose this embroidery pattern because it has a good (better than Laton) variety of stitches and motifs, a pleasing color palette (in my opinion also better than Laton) and it is not on permanent display, which allows Ms North to photograph it when we have questions which is really pretty often. She’s been absolutely fantastic about this.

So the short answer is, yes. Our jacket will have at least two different kinds of worms, two kinds of butterflies (both with needlelace upper wings, so they’re 3-dimensional) and a truly spectacular bird with a spiral trellis head. Click on honeysuckle to see a portion of the design that includes the bird, both worms and one butterfly. The other butterfly has rounded wings.

Thanks for asking about this because I haven’t talked about it in a while.