I thought that more explanation was needed about the coil patterns and how they repeat.  So I drew this diagram to help you understand the way our pattern repeats and how the MET jacket repeats.  Hope it helps!

Tricia

Going back to view the MET jacket was great as I was able to look at it with a more measured eye this time.  Even though I had spent hours with the piece in January 2007, I was new to the jackets and therefore didn’t ’see’ everything because I couldn’t filter out the details to see the whole picture at times.  This time I had gone through the process of figuring out the embroidery pattern for our jacket and therefore knew the mentality of how to look for the pattern and where on the jacket the pattern would be most recognizable (the back).

There are a few ‘models’ for the coiling stem patterns which I am not recognizing.  Of course symmetry plays a role in the patterns and tiling does also (think of brick patterns).  Most of the existing jackets are quite simple with a large coil that has more than one motif inside and only two or four large coil types which repeat across the jacket.  The Laton jacket has a basic four large coil pattern with some variation of secondary motifs (I am interested in examining this further soon).  Ours is quite complex with 12 individual different small coils to make up the base pattern.   The MET jacket is more similar to ours.  Small coils with one major motif in each coil.  Standing there on the day after the opening, I looked at the piece and within a minute had picked out the pattern.  It is a 3×3 pattern which shifts over one coil on every new course (think tiling).  I need to draw out the pattern and then expand it like we did on our jacket and then verify, going through the same procedures to make sure my analysis was correct.  It is amazing how fast it is to figure these out once you have done it once before.

The motifs in the MET jacket are, in order left to right:

Row 1:  Borage, Carnation/Pink, Daffodil
Row 2:  Pea Pod, Tulip, Strawberries and Flower
Row 3:  Pansy, Rose, Acorn

Then there are the fauna which are sprinkled in between the coils.  Two different birds, butterflies, worms and snails.  One of the birds is often eating a worm/bug.  The thing that made the pattern harder to figure out on this jacket was that often the flowers colors are changed on each new row.  So the shape has to be referenced to deduce the pattern.

Tricia

The MET Jacket on display at the new exhibit in Manhattan (Twixt Art and Nature) was one of the two pieces we visited while planning for the project.  I am so thrilled that many of you may be able to go visit it while it is out. The jacket was breath-taking to us for several reasons.  First, it has a wide variety of motifs and a very heavy and complex gold stitch for the coils.  Secondly, it is tiny.  And I mean TINY.  This really surprised us.  We knew that the fashion for waistcoats at this time (around 1620-1630) was for very high waists, but the shoulders on this piece are very small.  Standing there looking at them, they are a bit smaller than my 8 year old child’s shoulder width.  I hope that Susan North (who is an expert on costume of this period) will be able to examine this piece soon and make comments.  We looked at all the seams and embroidery along the shoulders and sides and have some thoughts about the areas that have and haven’t been modified.

The gold coils are stitched with a complex stitch that starts with a ladder stitch and then follows with a second pass which wraps the bars together.  It takes up a great deal of thread and is time consuming to work.  Jill loved the stitch and wanted to do it on our jacket but I said I would stage a mutiny!  Check it out here on a sampler of mine.  It really makes you wonder about how much the cost of this particular jacket was to make.

Tricia

Colleen asked how we like the daylight lamps with the attached magnifying arms; her mother-in-law is interested in getting one. I’d like to hear from the embroiderers – I can’t remember where we got the lamps, but I can look. I’m pretty sure we bought what Tricia recommended. Personally, I like the daylight part, but can’t get used to the magnifying lenses. They’re on a separate arm from the light and I haven’t been able to coordinate working with it. What does everyone else think? Any recommendations? I’ve seen a whole variety of lamps and magnifiers brought to the sessions. Some clip to the frame, some are travel daylight lamps (I think I’d like one of those, so it could move from one chair to the other in the living room plus easily go to classes.) one sat right on the taught linen and was a light in a 3-sided box so the light shone very directly where needed.

Thanks to Debbie for this picture. I’m asking Wendy if my first plaited braid is up to snuff – fortunately the answer was yes. Working that stitch is actually fun – you do get a rhythm after a while, the needle finds the path, and you come to the end of the length of thread much too quickly. From how reluctantly the goldworkers put their needles down in the evening, it seems you come to the end of the day too quickly too. Which is probably why the gold is getting accomplished so speedily.

Over the past few weeks several new blogs have linked to us – welcome! And thanks for helping to spread the word about this project.

Over this weekend I got the chance to work on the gold embroidery – wheee! I was the beneficiary of a personal tutorial from Wendy, which was awesome, because I’d really been struggling to understand the stitch diagrams. It is sooo confusing in the pictures, especially the starting maneuvers. Basically she sat next to me and my doodle cloth saying, come up here; down there; up here; down there. Yes, there. Really.

Across the table Debbie and Carli were smiling, because the beginning really doesn’t look like anything, and because it took even them several coils before they could start without checking the directions. Which made me feel better.

This is the little bit I managed to get accomplished, after what felt like a long time. Everyone else is going much more quickly.

The gold is interesting to work with, in a way it is much sturdier than the GST. It is also quieter; the GST is almost corrugated and it makes a thrrrrp noise as you pull it through the linen, because of the difference between the silk and the place where the gold wraps it. The gold passing thread is evenly covered so it passes smoothly and quietly. We’re using the hand made Japanese needles with it, which helps make a large enough hole in the linen for the gold to pass through, and also is gentler on the gold at the eye. Eventually the gold breaks there, though, and you have to cut and re-thread, but we’re finding it happens less than with the GST. And if you bite the very edge of the end you’re threading, just to crimp the gold, it will thread more easily and help it last longer before raveling.

Also, the gold passing (GP) is sturdy enough to pick out and reuse, more than once even, if necessary (ask me how I know). And, because it is stiff, you can feel right away if you’ve got a bump or a kink on the back. With the GST it happens often enough that you don’t find that snarl on the back till you turn the piece over to fasten the end. Grrr.

The suggested thread with which to practice the plaited braid is Kreinik #8; Debbie reports that using the high luster version is easier because it is stiffer. She feels that the blue is the most workable, but the universal opinion is that anything other than the gold passing is a poor substitute. This stitch demands to be worked with the real stuff, and this gold demands to stitch the plaited braid. It is harder to stitch even the reverse chain coils with the gold passing, because it is almost too stiff to make those small bends.

I know, you would work with the GP if you could get your hands on some, and it isn’t really fair of me to mention how nicely it makes a plaited braid. Several people have asked about buying a gold work kit, or just a spool of the GP. We’re holding off for right now, until we’re absolutely sure we have enough to accomplish the jacket, before we release any. I know we could sell this and buy more, but if there’s any kind of hold-up in the manufacturing or shipping (and I can imagine several scenarios with scarcely any effort) it would delay the jacket’s completion, and we can’t have that. As soon as we can let some go, we absolutely will.