All of the scheduled sessions are full or nearly so. I have sent an email with the schedule to all the embroiderers I’m expecting in August. If you didn’t receive a personal email with the August schedule, it means I don’t know you want to come. Please get in touch right away. jhall@plimoth.org By the end of the week I’ll be sending out confirmations for the September & October sessions. If you’re signed up for any session and you can’t make it after all, please let me know as soon as possible; perhaps another embroiderer can take your place. And yes, we’ll shortly be scheduling sessions for 2008 (2008!).

Carol left this question in the comments:

So do you have any idea what they meant by mingled?
Was it one color in the warp and another in the weft?
Woven from threads that were space dyed?

I have one idea what may have been meant by mingled, but there certainly could be other explanations. Gervase Markham’s 1615 book The English Housewife outlined all the skills a woman needed to run a large manor house, including “cookery, banqueting-stuff, distillation, perfumes, wool, hemp, flax, dairies, brewing, baking, and all other things belonging to a household.” This volume is a wealth of information for modern historians.

In the textiles chapter, Markham explains how, after the wool is dyed but before it is spun, the housewife should mix her colors together. He says that “the best medley” is composed of two parts dark color wool and one part light color wool. He explains that all the wool should be thoroughly carded “till you see it perfectly and undistinctly mixed together, and that indeed it is become one entire colour of divers without spots.”

The blended wool is then spun and woven into cloth. Perhaps the resulting fabric was called mingled color, like in the inventory. Markham doesn’t say.

In the 17^th century a kind of silk cloth with one color warp and a different color weft was called “changeable taffeta”; it is still made in the 21^st century. It seems to change color as the cloth moves. It’s possible that mingled color meant this kind of cloth, though, or something entirely different.

Thanks for asking Carol, and please if you have any wonderings, leave questions in the comments or email me at jhall@plimoth.org. Sometimes I don’t know what would be interesting to write about and I welcome your suggestions.

Wow. The days are really flying by right now. I didn’t realize I missed four days posting. Thank you to the two readers who commented on the red petticoat post; red certainly was an extremely desirable and expensive color to dye, and it is very likely those facts contributed to the higher value assigned to the red petticoat. I have read A Perfect Red by Amy Butler Greenfield, and can second the recommendation; it’s a fascinating read.

The second embroidery session begins in just over a week. Here is our schedule, developed based on the experiences of the first session and with the feedback of those embroiderers (also known as ‘guinea pigs’).

Wednesday, August 8

9:00 meet at Plimoth Plantation in the Accomack meeting room

short point to perfection stitching instruction, then stitching until 1:00

1:00 - 2:00 lunch, with a presentation by Kathleen Curtin, author of Giving Thanks, a history and cookbook of Thanksgiving foods

2:00 - 6:00 stitching

6:00 supper, followed by a class with a special embroidery project from Tokens & Trifles

Thursday, August 9

9:00 - 1:00 stitching

1:00 - 2:00 lunch

2:00 - 5:00 stitching

5:00 - 6:00 show & tell - please bring some special projects or antique embroideries you’d like to share. Last session seeing each other’s treasures was a special treat I hadn’t foreseen

after dinner behind-the-scenes tour of the Colonial Wardrobe & Textiles department

Friday, August 10

9:00 - 1:00 stitching

1:00 - 2:00 lunch

2:00 - 5:00 stitching OR see the museum and shopping OR early departure to aid travel plans

Based on what we learned last time, this time we’re not going to have set breaks but instead we’ll have coffee & snacks available both morning and afternoon and individual stitchers will please take a break when it suits their rhythm and work. I’ve lengthened the stitching sessions based on feedback from the first bee, but I’m aware that everyone has their own threshold for stitching. If you hit the wall at 3:30, don’t keep going. Please take that opportunity to shop or see the museum exhibits, or other attractions in Plymouth. We’re going to try to keep the workroom for working during the stitching hours, though, so we’ll move the socializing out onto the deck during those times. Also based on feedback from last time we’ll be having music playing during the working sessions.

The next session is September 13-16. We still have a couple of spots left, so if you’re available, please let me know at jhall@plimoth.org.

I was asked for some information on kinds of cloth available in the early 17^th century. This information is going to the interpreters who portray the Plymouth colonists in the 1627 English Village and on Mayflower II. As I was putting it together, I thought it might be interesting to you, too.

Kinds of linen cloth available in the early 17^th century.

Unless noted, the following information comes from The Great ReClothing of Rural England: Petty Chapmen and their Wares in the Seventeenth Century, Margaret Spufford. PLDL = Plain Dealing Linnen-Draper, published in 1696 and quoted in Spufford’s book. The Plain Dealing Linnen-Draper listed different types of linen and cotton cloth and described the common uses for each. *Please note that the PDLD, while a wealth of information, was not published until 70 years after the date represented in the 1627 English Village. [12 p (pence) = 1 s (shilling); 20s = 1Ł]

This is not an exhaustive list.

Holland: sheets for better people; shirts/shifts. This was fine, bleached linen. I believe the white linen the Colonial Wardrobe Department uses for shirts and smocks is similar to Holland.

1628 – the probate inventory of John Uttinge, chapman, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, lists Holland at 18p, 20p, 21p and 22p. PDLD recommends Holland yard-wide for shirts & shifts for most; ell*-wide for the same for large women; ½ ell-wide for children.

Cambric/lawn. This is fine bleached linen, usually used for collars and cuffs.

1605 In one of the dialogues in The French Garden cambric is offered for sale at 20s/ell and is bargained down to 16s/ell.

Canvas – thick and heavy. Could be made of linen (product of flax plant) or hemp (whose Latin name, cannabis, is the origin for the name of this cloth). In 1636 a kind of yellow canvas made in England was used by the overseers of the poor to make sheets for a deserving man. In 1696 the PDLD said canvas would last 11-12 years in constant wear.

Linsey-woolsey – sometimes called a “union cloth” because it is a union of 2 different fibers. The warp is linen, the weft, wool.

Osenbridge/osnabrucks – from Germany, PDLD recommends it for shirts and sheets for the humble, and says that 3 breadths make a sheet which would last more than 6 years. Coarse grey osenbridge sold for 6-8p/yard.

Fustian – linen warp with cotton weft, another union cloth. This fabric was brushed or rowed to raise the nap, and then either singed to burn off the fuzz, leaving a smooth cloth, or shorn (cut) to trim the nap. Uttinge’s 1628 inventory listed fustian at 14p/yard; white cut fustian at 13 or 14p/yard; black & white cut at 12p/yard.

Callico – cotton, most likely plain, originally imported from Calcutta (hence the name). Uttinge’s inventory lists it at 11p or 15p/yard.

Diaper – linen woven in an all-over diamond pattern; can be fine or coarse, used for table linens (tablecloths, napkins, towels). There is precious little information about 17^th-century hygiene, including what was used for diapering babies. It seems that in the early 17^th century, old, worn-out linen was used for baby diapers (nappies) as described in the following rare quote:

“Dear father, . . . that you will speak to my lady to send me some clouts (cloths) and I shall think myself much bound to her for she promised me some when I was with child of my first but I was so well provided that I thought to reserve them till I had need of them, which is now, for I have had so many children that they have worn through all my things and therefore I must try my friends again for I trust that you have some old shirts in a corner for me or some old things . . .”

Lettice Gawdy to her father, Sir Robert Knowles, in Weston.

Quoted in Women’s Worlds in Seventeenth-Century England: A Sourcebook edited by Patricia Crawford & Laura Gowing, London: Routledge, 1999, pp101-2.

The above letter is undated, but the writer was dead by 1630. She sounds overwhelmed.

According to the PDLD a cloth called Hamburg sleasy diaper which was selling for 7p/yard was highly regarded for softness and therefore used for baby diapers. Spufford has a footnote to this information: “Dr. Margeret Pelling, of the Wellcome Unit of the History of Medicine, tells me that very little indeed is known about this subject, and that there also seems to be a gap in the 17^th-century secondary literature.”

Mary Ring’s 1633 inventory lists a diaper tablecloth at 5s. (Mary Ring arrived in Plymouth County in 1629.)

*In the early 17^th century in England an ell = 45”. A Flemish ell was only ¾ of an English yard (therefore 27”). This was confusing to contemporaries, too.

“An undated note written by an anxious clerk in the office of the Great Wardrobe during the early years of Elizabeth I’s reign makes this very plain:

‘Memorandum that every Flemish ell is iij quarters of a yarde sterling, so that iiij elles Flemyshe is iij yards sterling, then viij [elles] makith vj yards …’” and it goes on and on, the poor confused thing. This is quoted at length in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion: The cut and construction of clothes for men and women c.1560-1620, p.124.

Tonight I have another reading suggestion.

Epstein, Kathleen. An Anonymous Woman Her Work Wrought in the 17^th Century. Curious Works Press, Austin: 1992.

This is one of my very favorite embroidery books. It’s a gem, packed with historical background and excellent how-to instructions. Sadly, it is also out of print.

The whole little book (52 pages) is an analysis of a 17^th-century band sampler in the author’s collection. The patterns are stitched in Spanish stitch (also known as double-running or Holbein stitch) and variations on cross stitch, with some detached buttonhole fillings. There are a few color plates, but mostly the illustrations are line drawings and black-and-white photos. The notes on materials, both the originals and modern substitutions, are valuable.

The stitch diagrams and instructions are probably the best part; if you’re interested in Spanish stitch patterns, you’ll want to dig up a copy. Even if you’re not, it is well worth seeking out. Maybe if there’s enough demand it will even be brought back into print.

By the way, Kathleen Epstein is the same person as Kathleen Staples, frequent contributor to several embroidery journals, and one of my favorite writers on the subject of historical embroidery; I reviewed another volume of hers here.

Tonight, the instructions for attaching the paillettes. There’ll only be about 2000 of them, so that shouldn’t take too long. (HA)

Another good book:

Arthur, Liz. Embroidery 1600-1700 at the Burrell Collection. London: John Murray in association with Glasgow Museums. 1995.

This book examines the Burrell collection of embroideries which is located in Glasgow, Scotland. The introduction contains information about the collector, Sir William Burrell, and a bit about how the collection was assembled. The text is an important element in the book, not just an introduction to the pictures, and contains sections on professional and amateur embroiderers and a small chapter on materials. The main attraction, though, is the many beautiful color plates and excellent detail photos. Note in particular the embroidered jacket on pp 44-45, the coives on pp 48-49, and the nightcap on p 52. On the jacket, the curling vines are outlined with straight stitches in red (arranged like little crow’s feet), a detail also seen on an almost identical jacket at the Museum of Costume in Bath, England. The first coif is very red, and includes bright red squirrels, monkeys, and one wild boar, among some fantastic beasts. The second coif has a matching forehead cloth (triangular shaped piece worn over a coif). I would very much like to see this piece in person; the way it’s put together doesn’t look quite right to me. This coif’s borage flowers’ petals have red tips. The nightcap photo is enlarged to show the detail of the work. If you look closely you can see the oval spangles attached to the metal bobbin lace. I especially like plates 50 (p 76) and 52 (p 78), which show the front and back of one canvas work picture, revealing the original brilliance of the silks.

And a little about me:

I began working at Plimoth Plantation as a role-player in the English Village a week after graduating college with a BA in history. I thought I’d work for a year before going on to graduate school. That was 19 years ago next week. I quickly discovered graduate school wasn’t for me, but I was fascinated by the work of recreating a 17^th-century community. The process of recreating the material culture of this community, and especially their clothing and textiles, captured my imagination and provided focus for my long-standing interest in historic clothing and fiber arts. I began working in the Colonial Wardrobe & Textiles Department as a tailor in 1992. In 1994 my mentor and supervisor left the museum and I was hired as the Department Manager. I’ve been doing this work, studying and recreating the clothing, textiles, and accessories of the 1620s Plymouth Colonists, ever since.

I’ll be taking tomorrow off from writing. I wish for you just the day you’d like to have, and I’ll be back Tuesday.