We started our anniversary embroidery session today. This weekend last year was the first time embroiderers gathered together to work on the jacket. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then, not to mention a lot of orts.

Here’s a picture of Wendy showing JoAnn where the 3-D pea pod pieces will be sewn, eventually. I started working on one today, and am not thrilled with how it looks. Everyone else thinks I’m being extraordinarily fussy.

Here are Astrida (background) and Debbie (foreground) talking over some aspect of the embroidery with Wendy. Debbie is a new friend - I met her a few months ago when she came to work on the jacket the first time. Astrida is an old friend. Years and years ago when I was a new tailor with the Wardrobe department, Astrida used to drive down from the Portsmouth, NH area to volunteer on Saturdays. Way back then wardrobe was in our old office, extremely tiny and like a rabbit warren - several itty rooms connected like a maze. It was part of an old dairy barn. Anyway, no one else was in on Saturdays and the phone almost never rang, so we had lots of time to talk. Time passes and life moves on; I hadn’t seen Astrida in years before this morning. Another gift of the jacket - bringing old friends back around.

Today was Emily’s birthday. She is 19 whole years old. Penny made her a special a plate of special vegan Earl Grey cupcakes with yummy chocolate frosting. The candles say “Happy” instead of “Happy Birthday” because I and my tiny brain bought the wrong box of candles. I accidentally bought the “happy retirement” candle assortment. Ooops.

And let Linda V from Arizona write tonight’s post. Linda came to Plymouth last summer to work on the jacket. She also offered to work at home on a project for us. She’s reproducing a red silk double-running stitch-embroidered handkerchief from the V & A (where else?) that we can use either in the upcoming exhibit or in some of our living history programs.

The first picture is the front, with a dime for scale. The second is the back. Linda wrote:

It’s an interesting project and I’m enjoying working on it. At 55 count it’s a new experience for me to have to use magnification to do the job! It is a slow go however. What you see in the photos is roughly 30 hours of work. About 10 hours of work per flower/repeat. I’m going forward, but it will not be a quick project.

Lyn from Canada taught Linda a nifty technique for anchoring the thread without a knot. Linda writes: Nan Euler’s Surface Anchoring method is working well. It is a little challenging to do it at this scale, but I love that you hardly see the beginning or ending of the threads.

Elmsley Rose did a whole blog entry about the S and Z twist that we’ve been talking about. Check it out HERE.

Look what we got from Susan D in Australia! This is our very first sample received from Australia. I was so excited to see the return address on the package. Thanks, Susan, for sending it back. We’ll use your beautiful work in the exhibit (along with the other samples), so visitors can see the stitches up close, can see the backs, and can appreciate the extent of support and enthusiasm for the jacket project from stitchers all over the world. The returned samples really do contribute to the success of the project. Don’t feel that coming here to embroider is the only way to participate.

Susan sent a lovely note along with her sample. (And the notecard’s cover is a photo of a piece in the Royal School of Needlework’s collection, so that was a treat too!) She said she checks the blog regularly and enjoys the progress photos and the “show & tell” pieces from the embroiderers. She sent two photos of her work to share. With Penny’s help I managed to scan and resize them so I could post; they don’t zoom, though, unfortunately. The worm is Susan’s first attempt at Elizabethan Raised Embroidery. The drawnwork sampler is a work-in-progress “the closest I am ever likely to come to making lace” Susan wrote. I don’t know what you think, but to me this IS lace, not so much close to making lace but actual lace.

This is another work in progress, “Sharon Cohen’s 17th century sampler (with modifications).” Your work is just beautiful.

Thank you so much for sharing these, Susan, and for supporting the jacket work in general. I feel so encouraged. Does anybody remember the children’s book Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel? Mike and his steam shovel, Marianne, work harder and faster when people are watching and encouraging them. I feel like that; this is a long project (!) and sometimes a little encouragement goes a long way. That, and knowing someone will notice if you slack off. . .

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.

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