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.

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.

Yesterday I started a photo journal of a typical day in the life of our sessions. Here we continue on the day. After going over the instructions and as new stitchers are getting their doodle cloths finished, Wendy or I do a ‘highly scientific’ process of looking at the doodles, checking the pieces the stitcher sent in, and going over the frames to see what needs to be done. We are looking for a comfortable match for that person. Often we will start someone on a full motif like a bud or peapod worked only in silk. What I find particularly funny is that the more advanced the stitcher is, the more nervous she usually is about starting on the jacket - afraid she will ’screw it up’. Conversely, if we start one of the interns on the jacket - they will do anything we ask happily as they have no reference point to know that ‘this is supposed to be hard’.

Usually this is the point that I pull out a deck of photos I have printed for this purpose. We have to remind ourselves of the conditions that the jacket was originally made in before we judge our skills too harshly and rob ourselves of the pleasure of working on this project.

Close your eyes and put yourself in the past. A room full of mostly men over a spectrum of ages. Young teenagers that were apprenticed to older masters and just learning. They would start with simpler tasks, maybe twisting silk for an embroiderer, maybe working a simple motif. These were children who may not have completed a sampler when they were young as their female peers did expecting a life of domestic embroidery. They would have been prepared by maybe learning to read and write before being apprenticed to a trade. Referring to Patricia Wardle’s article on Edmund Harrison, Embroiderer to the King, we find information on the apprentice structure circa 1611 and onwards. These apprentices were bound for eight years to ’serve the aforesaid party in all fidelity and diligence and to learn embroidery, in return for which he, the aforesaid party, should enjoy, apart from instruction, board, lodging, clothing and those things pertaining to these…’

Edmund Harrison was the son of a merchant taylor and was sent to school at nine years old to learn the catechism and read and write. From records, it appeared that he was apprenticed around 14 years old into the embroidery trade. By 27 he was known as the King’s Embroiderer and ran a workshop with more embroiderers and apprentices. So it is likely that our jacket was stitched by a combination of 14 year old boys and those older and more skilled. Think about the teenage boys you know. Mind blowing, isn’t it.

Armed with that knowledge, I show the nervous stitcher my deck of photos. They are close ups of a different and very beautiful jacket. I have seven different carnations all printed at the same scale. When you look at them you see that one very skilled person stitched the flower with miniscule detached buttonhole stitches. Then you see that the calyx on each flower was stitched by different people, each with crude larger stitches and none of them match. Then I point out the worms next to several of the flowers. That’s when the ‘ah ha’ moment is. The worms look like something we all did when we were five. Most likely we are seeing the progression of early apprentice, skilled apprentice and masters all in one photo. Yet the jacket itself in its entirety is breathtaking. That’s when our stitchers relax and settle in.

Don’t be afraid to join us! And while you are at it, bring your favorite teenager with you. We’ll apprentice them too!

Tricia

1. Are you going to Celebration of Needlework in Nashua, NH May 2 - 5? Would you like to stop in Plymouth coming or going to stitch on the jacket? We’re having “shoulder sessions” the couple of days before and after. Call me [508-746-1622 X 8119] or email jhall@plimoth.org to sign up.

2. Thank you to everyone who weighed in on the Mystery of Melanie Anne’s grandmother’s embroideries. I love starting conversations here that continue in the comments. I’m looking forward to unveiling the forum so we can have even more conversations.

3. Speaking of conversations in the comments, I should have clarified what I meant by our experimenting with using reeds as stiffeners in stays (corsets). We have used marsh reeds, the sort native to this area, that maybe perhaps the early colonists might have used if they made or repaired stays. (That, and getting reeds native to England that might have come over in already-sewn stays was Too Much.) I have heard of using basketry reeds to stiffen stays as a substitute for the unavailable whalebone. I tried that a few years ago, but the reed we got came in a coil. I cut it to size and filled the channels, but it kept shifting and curling. I was told to soak it to take the curl out, and I tried, BUT it still curled. How to describe…it didn’t curl against or away from the body of the wearer, but sideways. It did not look good. I gave up on the basketry reed.

4. Picture! Catherine from Kansas came to a session in January with her friend Deb. The weather they left at home was so cold we joked that they’d had a beach vacation in Plymouth. This is one of the exquisite pieces Catherine brought for show & tell.

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