Also blooming in my garden are two kinds of columbine. I see them as purple and purple & white, but the color of the plain ones could be called dark blue. They look dusty, but it’s pollen. The pollen this year seems to have been extremely heavy and when I took these photos it hadn’t rained for several days.

Gerard, whose 1633 Herball we consulted the other day about pinks, also has an entry for Columbine. He says that each sprig of the stalk brings forth “one floure with five little hollow hornes, as it were hanging forth, with small leaves standing upright, of the shape of little birds. These floures are of colour sometimes blew, at other times of a red or purple, often white, or of mixt colors, which to distinguish severally would be to smal purpose, being things so familiarly knowne to all.” The name columbine comes from the Latin word for dove, columba, and the OED says that the flower “has some resemblance to five pigeons clustered together.”

While I was taking the pictures last week I wondered if my columbines are modern hybrids, and they may be; they were here in the garden when we bought the house. But Gerard’s description and his engravings match my flowers pretty well, especially if you think the purple might be called blue.

In an email, Melinda asked if I was familiar with another 17th century herbal, one that has separate and detailed entries for gillyflowers, carnations and pinks. I’m not, in fact I didn’t recognize the name (and now can’t remember it), but I will definitely try to find a copy and I’ll let you know whatever of interest I turn up.

I think the stitched columbines are definitely of the “mixt colors” sort.

I’m glad you enjoyed the pink words and pictures. I had fun putting it together.

Melanie Anne, the “living jacket garden” idea is still being tossed around, it may happen in conjunction with the exhibit that the jacket will be part of, which would mean next year.

Colleen, I’m afraid the children’s schedule is still very fluid - we’ll be having some orientation and “pretend” interpreting (as if all interpreting weren’t pretend. . . ) after school lets out here, which is this week. I’ll let you know more when I hear.

Sandy, I was sure about the gillyflower pronunciation till you asked about it, then I really wondered! I checked the OED which has gill and jill pronounced the same as early as the first reference, which is 1400s. Thanks for asking.

Laura, I can’t wait to see you either!

I wanted to show you some live pinks in my garden, before they “went by.” I almost missed them; we had an obnoxious heat wave here last week which shortened their bloom time as well as my ambition to take pictures of them. Yesterday was cool and lovely, though, so here we are.

First a clump of pale pinks in situ. In the 1627 English Village these are also called gilloflowers or gillyflowers, soft “g”, so of course they’re my favorite. They have a wonderful spicy scent. They don’t last long as cut flowers, though.

I checked the Oxford English Dictionary Online and a facsimile of the 1633 edition of John Gerard’s Herbal looking for some information on pink the color, pink the flower, and carnations. According to the OED “pink” meant a small boat and a small fish before it meant the color between red and white. Interestingly, though, the earliest reference to pink as a color had to do with a yellow color, not what we call pink now: 1634 H. Peacham “your principall yellow be these - Orpiment, Masticot, Saffron, Pinke Yellow, Oker de Luce, Umber.

The OED’s first reference to pink as the color between red and white is in 1669. Of course the OED isn’t infallible, and they’re recording the first use in writing not in conversation.

As early as the 1500s pink meant a decorative hole, cut or slash in a garment. Sometimes a different color of cloth showed through the pinks. Remember pinking shears? Which were so much more used before sergers became common.

That kind of pink, like pinking shears, is how the edge of the petals of these flowers look, which is probably why they were called pinks rather than that they were the color we now call pink. Every time I try to connect the dots in words between the jagged edges of the flowers, their color, and the color between pink and red it is a hopeless muddle. But I’m betting you know what I mean.

Anyway, Gerard in 1633 has an entry called “of Clove Gillofloures” and a separate one called “Of Pinks, or wilde Gillofloures”. He’s got an illustration of the “great double carnation” under the first heading, along with the double clove gilloflower, the white carnation, the blue or deep purple gilloflower and the single gilloflower or Pinke. Under the second entry he’s got illustrations called single purple pinks, single red pinks, white jagged pinks and several more: purple, white, wild, dwarf, mountain, and leafless.

My garden has a second variety with a dark red stripe at the base of the petal. These ones really put me in mind of the stitched pink on our jacket. I got both plants from the Plimoth Plantation horticulture department’s spring plant sale a few years ago. The horticulture department (as you might expect) specializes in rare and heirloom varieties. Nowadays pinks belong to the dianthus family. And that’s probably more than you wanted to hear about pink!

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.