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.

We had a new embroiderer on Monday. It was me! I stitched a plain, single-color leaf in #325. I chose the location carefully; there aren’t that many single leaves left; they’re one of the “training motifs” we’ve been using as first work for those new to the jacket. (The other training motif is the bud/rosehip – there are precious few of those left too.)

Carol S was surprised, when she heard, that this was the first time I’d worked on the real jacket. It wasn’t on purpose, just sort of a combination of things. In the early sessions there was a lot of organizing and other things to take care of, plus there were no free frames. Several times I worked a practice bud on a doodle cloth to warm up and get my work approved, but something else would always come up that I needed to do. Then, after a little while, the idea of starting on the real piece began to loom like a mountain in my imagination. The last thought stalling me was that it would be so fun that I would be tempted to work on it as much as possible, and there really is an awful lot of other stuff that has to get done too.

The other day I decided it was time. I picked carefully – this leaf will be under the collar when the jacket is finished – just in case my work wasn’t up to snuff. But it actually went very well. And I think I was right – it will be hard to ignore the siren call of the frames in the cupboard and make shirts, sort shoes, and organize the clothing for the March 23 opening of the museum!

I wasn’t going to mention it, but Wendy and Robbin and some of the others threatened insisted. My next project is a trefoil. There are plenty of those left.

Thanks to Wendy for these pictures.

Lace sample arrived today from Robbin.

Today Emily embroidered on the jacket. The first thing she did was a pink bud, shown here next to someone else’s leaf. The top corner shows a little of Wendy’s pansy. This bud is on the lower left corner of the back of the jacket.

Next she did a whole leaf on the coif. Here’s a picture of Emily pointing to the leaf. The photo on the left is Emily’s leaf. Hers is the dark green single leaf on the left, above the pink bud.

Here’s Emily working on the leaf.

This is her last week working with us, then she has to go back to school. We’ll miss her.

*Now we’re all teasing Emily.

Today we had special guests join us for lunch. Jonny and Shelley spend much of their time caring for the rare breed animals in the 1627 English Village. That brief sentence doesn’t begin to capture all they do (I realize I say that often about the staff here, but it’s always true). They build and mend fences, feed and water, clean pens, train the cattle to walk and stand and greet visitors, and lots of other things. This session’s embroiderers enjoyed talking with them about their work but even better was petting Winter, a baby boy goat. That’s Shelley and Winter.

There were frames enough for Wendy to stitch today. She’s working on the first pansy. Several motifs, pansies included, are not worked identically over the whole jacket. Some of the honeysuckle, for instance, are cream on the inner part of the petals and yellow on the outer parts; on some of them the colors are reversed. Tricia has identified at least four different ways pansies were worked on the jacket, and where on each piece the variations occur. Wendy was working a #3 pansy on the lower jacket back today.

Karin has been embroidering with us, too. Karin is the Curator of Originals for Plimoth Plantation, and has generously made time in her busy schedule to show each session’s embroiderers the samplers in the collection. Here she’s working trellis stitch butterfly bodies (striped!) on the coif. Thanks to Wendy again for all the photos. I left my camera on the computer desk at home.

Believe it or not, we left tonight in the snow. I made sure everyone had the information to find out if Plimoth is closed tomorrow due to weather, but the meteorologists are promising these are just isolated snow showers with no appreciable accumulation. Is it any wonder I’m getting a little paranoid, though?

Karen asked, in a comment on The Spangle Quest post, whether a blog or list on this blog can be set up for the lacemakers to get together. I have absolutely no idea whether that can be done; I’ve asked Rich. He’ll know.

This morning the embroiderers gathered in Accomack to begin another session of work on the jacket. I have a picture of, from left, Susan, Tanya, Cheryl and Melanie warming up with doodle cloths while (in the second picture) Wendy carefully considers which motifs should be the next ones worked. Here she’s surrounded by sleeve parts. You can really see how much progress is being made. Sure, there are still big white gaps, but there are more colored bits, and by Monday there’ll be more yet.

Yesterday, Penny let me know that since October we’ve sent out 84 knitting kits. That’s a phenomenal response to our call for volunteer knitters, and I greatly appreciate each and every knitter’s contribution. Rosemary came to stitch today and brought a completed pair of green gloves. She also brought one completed purple glove; the second will be done soon. In addition to Rosemary’s, we’ve already received 4 other pairs of gloves and at least 6 pairs of stockings. That’s some quick knitting.

It’s not all work, of course. We eat, too. Here are Tanya, Susan, Chris and Cheryl admiring Marcia’s work. Today we had sauerbraten meatballs with sour cream rolls and “embroidery ladies apple pudding.” I wonder if Marcia is now inventing new recipes just for us. This was special yummy, like a deluxe apple crisp.

The next embroidery session is scheduled for Friday February 29 – Monday March 3. I have a few people signed up. If you’d like to join the party, email me at jhall@plimoth.org

Lace sample arrived from Jill H.

We’ve got a lot to accomplish this winter, but fortunately we’ve also got help. Joining Shaina and Penny in the Colonial Wardrobe workroom are Kelley, Alex and Emily.

Kelley is a Colonial Interpreter who during our open season works in both the 1627 English Village and aboard Mayflower II. This winter she’s been doing yeoman work mending the piles of period clothing and textiles that came to us in December. Kelley’s also working on handsewing a pair of stays (corset in modern parlance) for herself. Stays aren’t a large piece of clothing, but stitching all the channels for the “bones” takes a long time.

Alex is a student at Massachusetts College of Art and has been interning with us one or two days a week for the whole school year. Here’s a picture of Alex with one of the two smocks she’s made. Alex has also made a woman’s jacket (out of plain pink wool, but the same shape as the embroidered one) and is now working on a man’s doublet (upper body garment) made of sturdy canvas. Alex is also working on the embroidery stitches under Wendy’s direction. Hopefully we’ll be able to have her work on the jacket some before the end of her time with us. Here’s a photo of Alex with her latest smock.

Emily is a sophomore at Bennington College and is doing her Field Work Term with us (FWT is Jan 2 – Feb 15, and the students have to work in their field basically full time for those 6 weeks). So far Emily’s made a smock, a shirt, and done a pile of mending. She’s also been practicing the detached buttonhole stitch in hopes of being able to work on the jacket. Emily is currently working on a pair of hand sewn stays for Norah. Here are photos of the stays with the bone channels partially stitched, and one of Emily doing a second (or third?) fitting with Norah. They looked very good on, and now it’s just a race to see if she can finish all the work before she has to go back to school.

*”lackey” is for Emily’s mom. I don’t really think she’s a lackey.

Wendy continues the story:

Time to rethink – so I went backwards and began again from the “process” point of view beginning with goldsmiths and how the metal is made.

Having done wire drawing (the process of stretching or “drawing” metal out to a longer length) and being familiar with the tools I started there. The actual process which is still used today was a mid fourteenth century invention of Rudolf Nuremburg and was kept secret for several generations until it was introduced to England about 1565 and produced gold, silver and silver gilt wire that was much finer than had been available previously.

As a side bar here- an interesting tidbit;

Wire drawing was used for the manufacture of pins as well. In Great Industries of the United States: being an historic survey 1873 – page 1286

“ In this country wire drawing, upon which the manufacture of pins depends, was first introduced in Plymouth Colony. In October 1666 Nathaniel Robbinson, ‘Wyre-drawer”; petitioned the General Court for aid in establishing the businesses. The court however did not grant his request. In the same month of the next year Joseph Jenks, Sr. desired “ the favor of the court to advance a some for encouragement of wyre-drawing. The court, in reply, thought it “not meet to advance any money on that design; but being desirous to encourage all persons among us in manual arts and trade of publicque vtilitye, and being informed that there are in this towne a sett of tooles for wyer-drawing, and that there be some in this place that are able and skillful in that imploy, the improvement whereof would be of great use in sundry respects, this court doth therefore order the Treasurer of the county to disburse out of the public treasury such a sume of money as will be necessary for the purchase of the said instruments and tooles, not exceeding fifteen pounds ; and the Treasurer and Mayor- Generall Leveret are appointed and empowered to dispose of the said instruments so as may best further the ends proposed, as also to disburse forty shillings for the encouragement of those that shall make cards and pins of the said wiar.”

Here we are at Plimoth in the wardrobe department (surrounded by pins!) and a set of tools had been here! The connections are amazing.

Wendy