A few months ago I let you know that the Mayflower Sampler Guild donated $1000 to kick off our Textile Conservation Fund, with their donation earmarked for the conservation of the “EC 1664″ sampler in Plimoth’s collection.

Today I have some exciting news to share: The Swan Sampler Guild has donated $2500 to the same cause. (The above link is to their current newsletter, which has the announcement of the donation on page 2.)

We’re all delighted and most grateful for this generous gift. These two gifts should let us begin the conservation on this fantastic 17th century sampler right away. Karin Goldstein, Plimoth’s Curator of Original Objects (because we have a separate curator for reproduction artifacts) has been in touch with a conservator and is hoping to schedule the work very soon. I’ll keep you updated, of course.

Here are some photos of herself, in her as-yet-unconserved but still very much loved condition.

Plimoth has owned this sampler since 1994 or 1995 (I can’t quite remember) and Karin and I have always wished we could do something with it. We’re both pretty attached to it; buying it at auction was one of the first things we did in our new (then) jobs. We bought it together, and were so giddy that we’d actually won that we forgot to go up to do whatever you do at the table in front after you’ve got the winning bid. It was the first and last thing I’ve ever bought at auction. We were pretty young and silly.

Anyway, we, and the EC, owe the current state of affairs directly to the jacket project. A rising tide lifts all boats as they say here by the ocean, and without the jacket project, and embroiderers traveling to Plymouth, and our wanting to show our guests a good time, and Karin being willing to trot the samplers and other needlework related treasures out for each new group, no one would yet know EC was there, or have gotten excited about preserving her, and we wouldn’t have received these wonderful donations. So there you are. Another success to chalk up to this superlative garment.

Thank you to all the members of the Swan Sampler Guild and the Mayflower Sampler Guild.

I can hardly believe that only a week ago I was searching around for blog topics. I’ve now got quite the list, and I’ll get back to current-status photos of the jacket pieces right quick.

Tags: auction, EC sampler, Karin Goldstein, Mayflower Sampler Guild, samplers, Swan Sampler Guild, textile conservation fund

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 7:52 pm and is filed under Historical Background. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.