A few days ago, Robbin did a great job of describing a typical session in the comments but I would like to add to her commentary with a photo journal of the last session. This journal is courtesy of my father, Bill Wilson, an amateur photographer. He was accompanying my mother for the day while she stitched on the jacket. They had come from Michigan to see the grandkids, but since my mother was my stitching mentor and an avid embroiderer, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work on the jacket.

During the session, we all laughed a lot at the sheer number of photos my dad took (350 to be exact!), but through his zealous need to document, we have some insights into the workings of our day that we can share with those of you thinking of coming out and joining us. Bear with me over a few blogs and keep your eyes out in the background for little visual nuggets. I have carefully chosen photos since I had great material to work with!

Typically we start around 9 am with breakfast nibbles and everyone rolling in and finding the wardrobe department which is housed in this building along a road from the main parking lot. The nibbles are hand baked by Marcia from the food department and I typically skip breakfast and drive all the way from Boston to see what the delicious offering of the day is. I do blame Marcia whole heartedly for my need to go on a diet this year! Jill and the staff welcome the stitchers and help them find stations to sit at. Depending on the traffic (Boston is notorious), I roll in before 10 am and everyone is ready to get started as introductions have been made. For those who are new to the project, we give them a doodle cloth in a hoop and ask them to work about an inch of reverse chain followed by a small bud shape in detached buttonhole. This helps to break the ice and allows myself and Wendy to look at their technique and give tips to improve the look. Typical hints are the need to twist their needle a bit to retain twist while working or to put more or less stitches in a row of detached buttonhole to help match others on the jacket. Sometimes we find that a stitcher is more comfortable with a different stitch such as trellis or ceylon and we move them to work on motifs that use those stitches.

Once the doodle cloths are underway, we start working with stitchers that are returning to find them a jacket frame to work on and decide on a motif to start with. Here, Rosemary and I are talking about a sleeve and what needs to be done on it and discussing color variations to the motif from the instruction book. Once our returning stitchers have some starting direction and are off to the races, we go back to some basic information.

Here I am reading from the instruction book. We have a set of instructions that are used by each stitcher for reference. It contains basic info such as how to fill out the record sheet, don’t eat in the room, etc. It also has different views of the jacket at the V&A we are working from to help identify what color to use as there are many variations, we have discovered. Then there are directions for the stitch types followed by detailed directions and pictures of every motif on the jacket being worked.

More tomorrow

Tricia

After that meeting Mark went away with research and ideas. A few weeks later, which was last November, he arrived in the Wardrobe Department with, in Wendy’s words “a battered coffee can under his arm and a big grin on his face!” Wendy goes on:

The most amazing things tumbled out of that coffee can! Mark had made the tool, a small hole punch, a poker, a pusher and a die! And SPANGLES!!!!!!! They looked like the pictures! What joy!

Here’s Jill again. Since then, Mark and I have talked about how he went about making the spangles. Some of the process is clear from the originals, that they were punched, for example, and from a strip of gilt silver, like a ribbon, not from a big flat piece like a sheet of paper. Some, though, of what he’s done is conjecture. It’s one way to solve the puzzle of how to get this result, not the only way and not necessarily exactly the way 17th-century artisans did it.

Since that day, the trouble has been how & where to get some silver electroplated with gold and rolled to the correct thickness. Mark has solved all those problems, with the help of some new friends. A few weeks ago he and Wendy and Tricia questioned whether the gold layer was thick enough; they solved that too. Friday I got this message from Mark:

Hi Jill,

I have spangle stock in hand and i can have a quantity made for the 29th. I must show you the gilded ribbon it’s cool.

Mark

We are in business.

The next session on March 28 will see Robbin and Carolyn working with the reproduction spangles and the real lace pattern (the repro of the Laton lace, not the equally lovely but not-the-property-of-the-V&A pattern that went out in the kits) to work out any bugs.

I can begin taking real honest & true reservations for the subsequent scheduled sessions. Three lacers who were ready to come in February and got bumped have first dibs, and I will send out an email to them first thing in the morning (unless they see this and get in touch with me first) to find out if they would like to/are able to come for any part of the April 11 -14 session.

The next sessions are:

Friday May 16 - Monday May 19

Friday May 30- Monday June 2

Friday June 20- Monday June 23

If these sessions are not convenient, please call and let me know. I avoided Mothers’ & Fathers’ Day and Memorial Day thinking everyone would have other plans. If your idea of a great holiday is to come make lace, we can work that out. Let me know.

I’ll be scheduling more sessions; we’ll be working through the summer. Don’t worry - the office is air-conditioned and Plymouth has one of the coldest beaches on the Atlantic coast (that’s a good thing). Please feel free to suggest weekends or weekdays in July, August and September that would be good for embroidery or lace making.

We can have two lacers working at a time. Some have asked if they can make lace for one or two days and embroider for the rest of the session. That is absolutely OK, if you do an embroidery sample kit and learn the embroidery procedure. Also, we’ll have the same deal for lacers as for embroiderers, which is that once you’ve come during a session and learned the drill, you can then come anytime, whenever it suits you whether or not we have a scheduled session. Contact Kathy for embroidery and lace kits, kroncarati@plimoth.org or 508-746-1622 X 8114

As always, please contact me with any questions or concerns jhall@plimoth.org or 508-746-1622 X 8119 - and yippee!!

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.

I have spring and summer session dates for you. All are Friday to Monday weekends.

March 28 - March 31

April 11 - April 14

May 16 - May 19

May 30 - June 2

June 20 - June 23
We will be making lace at some of these sessions, but I’m not sure yet if we’ll be ready to do that March 28. We will have two pillows available at a time. If any lacers would like to reserve a pillow for a day or a weekend, please email me at jhall@plimoth.org I’m scheduling the lacers carefully so we won’t overbook the pillows. Coming for part of a session is an option; let me know what you’re thinking.

For all of these sessions we will be in the Colonial Wardrobe office. The physical space will limit the number of embroiderers we can comfortably host. Sign up for all or part of a session by emailing me at jhall@plimoth.org I don’t know how many more sessions I’ll be scheduling after these, so if you’ve been thinking about joining us “sometime” - now is the time. I look forward to hearing from you. Also, a reminder, if you’ve participated in a session before, you don’t need to wait for a scheduled session to come back. You can come any day or days that work for you; it is always nice to have the embroidery going on along with the other work of the department.

Here’s a picture of a cornflower for today. Here are some pictures of real cornflowers.

Karen asked, in a comment on The Spangle Quest post, whether a blog or list on this blog can be set up for the lacemakers to get together. I have absolutely no idea whether that can be done; I’ve asked Rich. He’ll know.

This morning the embroiderers gathered in Accomack to begin another session of work on the jacket. I have a picture of, from left, Susan, Tanya, Cheryl and Melanie warming up with doodle cloths while (in the second picture) Wendy carefully considers which motifs should be the next ones worked. Here she’s surrounded by sleeve parts. You can really see how much progress is being made. Sure, there are still big white gaps, but there are more colored bits, and by Monday there’ll be more yet.

Yesterday, Penny let me know that since October we’ve sent out 84 knitting kits. That’s a phenomenal response to our call for volunteer knitters, and I greatly appreciate each and every knitter’s contribution. Rosemary came to stitch today and brought a completed pair of green gloves. She also brought one completed purple glove; the second will be done soon. In addition to Rosemary’s, we’ve already received 4 other pairs of gloves and at least 6 pairs of stockings. That’s some quick knitting.

It’s not all work, of course. We eat, too. Here are Tanya, Susan, Chris and Cheryl admiring Marcia’s work. Today we had sauerbraten meatballs with sour cream rolls and “embroidery ladies apple pudding.” I wonder if Marcia is now inventing new recipes just for us. This was special yummy, like a deluxe apple crisp.

The next embroidery session is scheduled for Friday February 29 - Monday March 3. I have a few people signed up. If you’d like to join the party, email me at jhall@plimoth.org