Wendy stitched this borage as the model. She sent me a photo, labeling it “borage - done”. Which of course it is not. I’m trying to be careful about that now. Borage needs some black and white in the middle, and then the little spiky leaves done too.

But this is the big part, and for the next session (officially 8-11 August, but any time the week of the 4th can work as Tricia will be here working on GOLD) we’ll have borage directions. This is good, because in the master pattern borage is the only motif that repeats.

It’s a three-across, four-down repeat, and borage appears in the middle of the top row and at the left end of the bottom row (as Tricia drew it - it’s a repeat so theoretically you could start anywhere and repeat outward). So twice as many borages, sort of. Lots of opportunity to use the spectacular dark blue gilt sylke twist. See you soon?

To address the questions in the comments about comparing the lace gold thread to the embroidery gold thread, and how the embroidery gold thread is made, and the needles, and that, we’ll have to wait till Tricia comes back from vacation and can let us know. I’d say maybe towards the end of next week? I know she’ll get us the information as soon as she can.

I think there will be plenty of goldwork to do aside from the coiling vines, too. I was thinking, the tops of the foxgloves and pea pods are gold. The vine has many curliques (which it may be should be worked as you come to them, but maybe they’re separate, I don’t know) which will be gold. Most of the leaves have gold veins. The rose, strawberry flower, pansy and honeysuckle all have gold centers. The straight lines that stick out of the columbine and honeysuckle blossoms might be gold. (No, I don’t mentally catalog the work left to do, over and over. Why do you ask?) So we may well have goldwork available to those who either don’t want to or can’t match the established stitch density of the plaited braid. All of which to say, don’t worry, there’s plenty work to go around.

The other day I heard from some embroiderers who hadn’t sent in a sample or signed up to stitch because they were nervous about having their work “judged”. We’re really not using the samples to judge, or to keep anyone away. No one’s been refused. The samples let us take advantage of everyone’s strongest skill, and give Wendy and Tricia a starting point for helping to improve everyone’s stitching. Even those very experienced with this kind of embroidery have reported that after a few pointers and two days of practice, their work has improved and they go faster. Several have called the embroidery weekends a kind of ‘master class’, with individual attention (Wendy & Tricia usually have 20-25 students in a class and here we never have more than and lots of time to practice.

So don’t let that keep you away. Come stitch. This chance won’t be here much longer. I swear.

• We entered the dog days not long ago, and I can really feel it. The heat isn’t oppressive, but it is humid, the air quality is sub-par, and I’m suffering from embroidery craving. All I want to do is work on that right front piece, the one that’s less done than all the other pieces because it languished for months in an impossibly wide frame. It’s been re-framed and is marginally easier to work, and I want to stitch a columbine. And a pansy. And a few butterflies. Maybe some honeysuckle buds or a pink split by a gusset. But not the worms. I bear them a grudge for not being what I thought they were. Bah.
• Gilt Sylke Twist is noisy. It’s thinner than the soie perlee, but because of the gold wire wrapping it’s almost ribbed. The first time I pulled it through the linen I gasped at the noise. The more experienced stitchers in the room chuckled, oh, yes, it IS noisy. After you work with it a while you forget, mesmerized by its beauty.
• Thanks for the note about the symposium, Cate. We’ll be holding all the events at Plimoth, and the capacity is about 200. Which seems like not a lot unless you’re actually planning it and still aren’t sure if anyone will come. Then it seems like quite a lot indeed. Those dates are 24-27 September, 2009.
• Lacey’s experience with the hot dog buns rang a bell for lots of transplanted New Englanders who miss the familiar buns of their youth. Isn’t it funny what you miss? Years and years ago I spent a year in England and missed Oreos. Like crazy. When I can have them any time I almost never do. And yes, I’m sure while there I saw The Jacket at the V&A, but alas I had no idea how important it would become in my life and so wasted the chance to really SEE it.
• Who doesn’t want to come to Plymouth in August? Carolyn W has a free weekend and will be coming to make lace 22 - 24 August (Fri - Sun) so we decided to make a party of it and invite everyone. Have a few days? Want to come to the sea? Actually, by that time it usually isn’t so hot and humid anymore. And, at least we won’t have to worry about having to cancel for snow, like last winter. email me jhall@plimoth.org
• The credit for the plaited braid stitch illustrations in Plimoth’s embroidered coif kit belongs to Oliver Kline and Joanna Kline Cadorette. I heard from Joanna that she drew the initial sketches and her father cleaned them up on the computer and made them all nice and easy to understand. Thank you, Mr. Kline.

Yesterday was Shaina’s wedding day. I hope it was sunny in western MA; it was grey and chilly here. Either way, though, she and her sweetheart are now Mr & Mrs and a long happy life we wish them.

Here’s Shaina’s dress as of late May. It wasn’t quite finished, but you had to look hard to see the unfinished bits. There are 11 pieces all together, not counting the accessories. I showed you details of the ribbon roses several weeks ago, but promised her I wouldn’t post the whole thing until after the ceremony, on the off chance that Carl might check the blog.

Here’s the back view, with the gorgeous train and lace veil. Of course she made the whole thing herself. She and Wendy spent some time figuring out how to handle the pleated and piped petticoat hem, which was half an inch too long.

Tricia’s Blog #4 on the Plaited Braid Stitch. When Tricia sent me these blogs she copied Linda so she’d be prepared for your calls and emails.

We have had a lot of requests for the plaited braid directions. As of yet, I haven’t made my set of directions for this stitch. So we won’t be putting them on the internet yet and I am not sure if I will get to it before the project is done.

Fine Lines is out of print and the parent company is bankrupt, so you can’t purchase back issues as far as I know. That said, Leon’s website (I looked for this website to post a link but couldn’t find it. Mary sent it www.leonconraddesigns.freeserve.co.uk/pbs.htm Thanks, Mary) has some information on it and Linda Connors will sell you a set of her color directions (6 pages). I recommend that if you are interested in trying them out, you can email her at: calxrds@aol.com.

She is aware that a flood of email would come someday when I was ready to blog on this. (You can also order online, like I did. www.calicocrossroads.com I clicked Hand Embroidery, online searchable catalogue, and put in plaited braid stitch. Email or call if you have trouble.)

The next secret is using the right thread and needle to do the stitch in gold. If you are interested in this, we could put together a little spool of thread (the one we will use on the jacket) and the needle (japanese #9 or #10) and sell it to benefit the project. Drop us a line or place a comment in the blog. I expect the thread in about a month and could have it reeled into smaller amounts.

Tricia

I am smiling in a bemused fashion here. Did she say “IF you are interested”? That’s pretty funny, Tricia.

Tricia’s Blog #3:

There are several sets of “Plaited Braid” directions out there. Excuse me if I don’t mention one you are aware of, but please let us know as it will help us solve this mystery!

The first is a set diagrammed by Mrs. Archibald Christie (Samplers & Stitches, 1920) that is often duplicated in other publications. I and others have found it difficult to understand and very difficult to work. To date, I haven’t been able to make it work without pins and an extra elbow.

The second is a set decoded by Elizabeth Creeden and diagrammed by *** (JILL PLEASE PUT HER NAME HERE mmm. not as easy as it sounds. I found the directions - but no one is credited for the illustrations. I think it was either Die Hoxie, Joanna Kline Cadorette, or Joanna’s father, Mr. Kline) and published by Plimoth as part of a coif pattern. I have used this set in many of my pieces. It has a lot of strength in that it works fast and easily. I mention this because a stitch used across a large piece would have to be relatively easy to work and not require any extra steps to make the stitch look uniform. But the stitch doesn’t look like the one on our jacket.

The third set was published by Leon Conrad in Fine Lines (Summer 2003). Another stitcher, Linda Connors, took Leon’s directions and expanded them using more pictures and additional graphics to make it even easier to read. This version results in a stitch which is indistinguishable from the gold embroidery on the jacket we are attempting to reproduce. These directions also “truck”, as I am apt to say in the workroom. They work fast once you get going. And as we have found during the project, that is an important distinction when trying to determine the stitch order. If it moves and flows naturally, it is most likely good. Time was money in that workroom.

This last set of directions will be the ones that we will use for the project. They are also the ones that were used to produce the stitch in the picture.

Tricia

Yes, as mentioned in the comments, Fine Lines is now defunct. jmh