Hello Embroidery Community,

I wanted to write to let you know of a couple of updates I’ve made to the blog framework. The first is the addition of the “ShareThis” button and the second (and the one that’s going to annoy those of you who are linking the blog) is the addition of “pretty permalinks.”

The “ShareThis” tool is a social-network aggregator that will allow you to add or send links to your favorite bookmarking site, social network, AIM, SMS, email, etc., etc.. I find it really useful and an elegant alternative to a giant list of buttons that would do the same thing.

The “pretty permalinks” change is a more intuitive and human-readable way of dealing with the permanent links for individual posts. The drawback is that it has changed the permanent URL for all of the 300 some odd archived posts. This means (sorry) that for those of you who have bookmarked individual posts, or have links to individual posts on your sites and blogs, that you will have to change those URLs.

There are many more changes and refinements to come over time. For instance, thanks to the gracious help of Alison Smith, we think we have finally fixed the issues with Internet Exploder er, Explorer. We are also going to upgrade the blog to the most recent version of WordPress in the near future.

Hopefully future upgrades will have minimal, if any, impact on you, except for making your experience more useful and enjoyable. I apologize for the hassle, but please do update your links.

Best
–R.

Here’s a good idea, thanks Carol and Kimberly. This is the left upper sleeve as of today, April 9th. Each sleeve is composed of two parts, the upper and the under. The top of the upper sleeve has a convex curve to go over the top of the shoulder; the under has a concave curve to go under the underarm. Otherwise they’re the same shape. To me it looks about half done; about as many spaces as colored-in bits. But then when you consider all the gold work that has to be done, plus the sequins to be sewn on in every blank space, plus the detached bits to stitch and then sew on (the top layer of the pea pods and the butterfly wings), well, there’s plenty left to do.

Here is a cluster of motifs from the back of the jacket. At about seven o’clock is one of the dreaded trefoils; about ten there’s a sweet pea flower and pea pod; at twelve a honeysuckle with the pink & red buds; one o’clock a spiky-winged butterfly; at two most of a thistle; at about four o’clock is part of a foxglove. You can see an unstitched rose on the left, various buds, rose hips and leaves here & there; and the blank (for now) vine twining around all. Notice the little curlicues that spring from the vine; I was mentioning those yesterday. In the extreme lower right corner you can see part of another trefoil, with the vein of the leaf marked. All the trefoils and most of the other leaves have those veins. They’ll later be stitched in gold.

I’ll intersperse these posts with others, but I’ll get pictures up of all the pieces so you can see where we are. And after this coming weekend, when we have a work session, I’ll post another picture of this sleeve so you can see what was done on it. Overall, I think this piece is more done than some (the jacket fronts, for instance, are less densely covered than this) and less done than others (the jacket back, perhaps, the wings, the gussets for sure). So, pretty representative. The reason I picked it, though, is less well-thought-out than it might seem – this frame was at the front of the cupboard.

Thanks for all your encouraging comments. I will photograph more motifs tomorrow at the office and post them.

About the plaited braid stitch, I know Tricia is working on a set of instructions with great photos that can be posted here and downloaded, like she did for all the other stitches we’ve been doing.

She and I are still thinking about how to marshal the troops to actually do the gold work. The plaited braid is one long motif, so to speak. Each pansy, or rose, or columbine is distinct and separate from every other pansy or rose or whatever. They don’t bump up next to each other, so variations in stitch tension or density don’t show so much. And in the originals we’ve looked at we saw differences like that in different motifs, so we’re not so worried about that. But the vines are like one continuous line. If we have very different hands working on the same sections it will show pretty dramatically.

I’m still hoping for some of our serious fund-raising efforts to result in a chunk of money so we can pay someone to do large sections of the vine, and fill in with volunteers, in such a way that the variety of hands is not so glaring. We do have some proposals out, and we’re working on another packet of materials to send to a bunch of different places, so keep your fingers crossed there.

Even if that happens, though, we’ll still need embroiderers, so don’t worry, you aren’t being put out of a job here. There’ll be miles of chain stitch gold work, little curlicues that spring seemingly randomly from the vine, plus top stitching on leaves that has to be done in gold, too.

We’re close to having another recreated thread to add to the jacket. Tricia did a gold thread series of blog posts a few weeks ago, and the end was that Bill Barns was going to do another sample of gold wrapped around silk, but this time use two ends of silk as the core rather than three, which would hopefully give Tricia the flexibility she was looking for. I haven’t heard that she’s got that sample yet, but we will of course post pictures as soon as she’s tested it.

I don’t know the answer to the question of how the acorn caps in yesterday’s picture were done; but I’ll send a note to Tricia to see if she knows.

Embroidery sample received today from Carolyn W. Also we’ve gotten more stockings! From Susan J, Sarah N, Susan Y, and Carol H. All absolutely lovely.

Tomorrow Penny will be attending the Weavers’ Guild of Boston’s meeting. The members of the WGB have, over decades, been willing hands, knitting and weaving for the living history program. Tomorrow Penny will see if anyone would like to take some stockings that need re-footing (old ones) or gloves to be re-fingered (also old).

Two spinners have volunteered to spin some combed top I had in the closet; I will be packaging that up and sending it out tomorrow, and we’ll see what we’ll see. I’m hoping for some hand spun worsted yarn that we can dye and knit into stockings at a gauge closer to the original 17th century stockings than our current pattern. The stockings on the Gunnister man, who was found preserved in a peat bog in Scotland, were about 7.5 sts/in. Gunnister man is no earlier than the last quarter of the 17th century, dated by coins in his (knitted!) pocket, but they are very close to our time period, close enough to be used as a model for the Plimoth colonists’ stockings.

I guess I still can run on, despite feeling like I’ve nothing new to say.

Pictures of motifs tomorrow, and thanks again for the help.

I haven’t blogged three out of the last four nights because I simply can’t think of anything to say. Nothing new has happened since about 10 days ago when Carolyn and Robbin worked on the real lace. I’ve been taking this project one bite at a time for over a year (remember the old joke about how to eat an elephant? One bite at a time…) and right now there just isn’t another bite on the fork.

Don’t mistake me – there’s plenty left to do. More silk embroidery (more trefoils!) more GST embroidery, more lace (WAY more lace!). And there are more things to figure out – how to manage the gold work, how to marshall the legions who’d like to sew on sequins, and don’t even mention the whole putting-it-together part (no, really, DON’T mention it!). And then when it’s finally done, there’ll be the creating an exhibit to go with it.

But right now, this week, no decisions or choices are in the offing. We’ve got an embroidery session starting on Friday, the first one with embroiderers AND lace makers working at the same time. That’ll be exciting. And hopefully some of them will bring some show & tell that I can then share with you. But right now…..

So, if you have any wonderments, anything you wish I’d explain, anything I explained so long ago you don’t remember where we’re coming from, anything at all, let me know.

To make up for assigning you the blog for the next couple of days, I’ll leave you with a picture. This is a detail of a gorgeous 17th century raised-work embroidery which belongs to Joanna Hill, a textile conservator and friend of Tricia’s. Joanna so kindly brought this embroidery to a couple of sessions last summer and let us all get really close to it and take lots of pictures. It’s the only real 17th century artifact I can actually post pictures of here. I love that the bird has a bug in its beak. Ewww.

Embroidery sample received from Debbie A; stockings received from Susan J and Monique N; 2 pair gloves received from Linda F. Riches.

Penny and Shaina spent the day cleaning the office, not the big workroom, but the office. The office is a medium-sized room.  There are two bookshelves, about 12 big plastic tubs that hold fabric scraps sorted by content and color, plus a mess of stuff that has no other home. There’s also a big desk that holds the phone and the old computer, a temperamental behemoth which is currently on vacation in the IT manager’s workshop. The past couple of days I have thanked heaven and Robbin for the laptop many times a day. The office also houses everything I had no other good place for. Plus my filing system is haphazard at best. I usually think I will only remember things if I can see them. Out of sight, out of mind. But the desk had gotten to be an archaeological site – I had to find things based on how long ago I’d last seen them. Not good.

So Penny and Shaina volunteered to “help” which meant they did all the hard work. They moved stuff, filed the obvious, vacuumed, dusted, washed, threw out what needed to go and repeatedly encouraged me when my attention wandered. The office looks absolutely great, and I only have three smallish piles of stuff I don’t know what to do with. One of the piles is left over from the great office cleaning of 2003. The other I inherited from my predecessor, from whom I learned my filing system. Ahem.

Mark made some more spangles today. He worked in the Crafts Center, thus visitors to Plimoth were able to watch and ask questions. I saw him on his lunch break and he said he was having fun. So we’ll have more spangles for next weekend’s session (not tomorrow, a week from tomorrow), plus a great exhibit into the bargain.

The other thing I did today was consult with Kathleen and Marcia about food for the 4/11 – 4/14 session and let them know how many we’re expecting. I’m delighted to say that we’ll have more than a handful of workers next weekend – the first time we’ll have embroiderers and lacers working together. I can’t wait. We’ll be in the wardrobe office, and tomorrow’s first job is to send a note to the participants. There’s still room if you would like to join us.

**If you’re having trouble getting in touch with me, please call if that’s convenient (508-746-1622 X8119) or leave a note in the comments. The office computer’s rest cure means I can access new emails to the jhall@plimoth.org address (ones since Wednesday) but not old ones. So I can’t return emails I got before Wednesday. Plus we have a new spam filter, which works excellently but has kept out some legitimate mail. So if you think I should have written back by now, please call or leave a comment.

This is Tricia’s third and final installment on a day in the life of a jacket embroiderer.

Once people are settled in and feel more comfortable, we get their frames into a stitching station. Here you see me helping my mom set a frame in a floor stand. There weren’t any stands available that are perfect for this work, so we are using these. We have to put shims in and tighten the lug nuts well. Some people, like Wendy here, prefer to work in the hand in a more comfortable chair. I prefer the wonderful leather couch that is in the room too. The wardrobe department has wonderful light. Lamps aren’t even needed.

Here I am working with Ellen who wanted to stitch a worm. We have out the piece she will work on and the book of pictures. We are looking at the picture to determine what color that particular worm was and if we can see it exactly on the jacket. We found it – light blue was the decision – and Ellen went off to work on it.

Not all our time is spent stitching. We have to eat too. A lovely lunch was provided yet again by Marcia for us. We ate that day pretty fast so I could give a lecture on the project and historical background to the stitchers. We always try to find some fun things like this to interject into the weekend. Every weekend is different as whatever we have just learned is being discussed in the room and added to by the participants. Sometimes I lecture, there is always some show and tell, or maybe our current status on research of the materials or prototypes we have to show each other. I find that really fun. We always try to have Karin, the collections curator, take the new stitchers down into the collection storage to show them the samplers that Plimoth owns. They are wonderful. As you have read in the blog, they also need serious conservation. We show the participants the samplers to help get the word out about the conservation fund. Stitchers can be a generous lot. *see my note below – jmh

Here you see Karin talking about the objects in the storage area and my mom looking at a 19th century sampler by a Standish descendant. Very pretty. The collection is a hike from the Wardrobe department, a chance to stretch the legs and get a little fresh air. When the plantation is open, and you are walking around like this, you NEVER know what you will see. One day I was talking to a stitcher outside and two of the Native staff from the Wampanoag homesite were coming off break, dressed in traditional skins. It was fun to stand there and talk to them about the embroidery project and look at their own embellished clothing (what there was of it). Another day, we were embroidering and a colonial interpreter on lunch came into the department asking loudly “does anyone know how to use a fax machine???” We busted up into laughter. Stitchers often take five and go off to see the artisans in the Craft Center and to partake of the goodies in the gift shop there. Of course, a full show and tell is required once they return with their goodies so the rest of us make sure we don’t miss an opportunity for new stash.

Tricia

*Tricia scooped me a tiny bit, but I will soon be posting about two very generous donations which will make the conservation of one of these samplers – the “EC” – a reality.

On Saturday Robbin made lace. Carolyn lent moral support. Melanie Anne continued to clean up “little bits” of embroidery. Small motifs, or half-finished ones, and some of the little black stitches on the ends of the rose hips.

She took a break to worship the pile o’ spangles and hear all about how they were made.

Here are some pictures.