The serene magic of ‘Faith’ is that she was created out of the work of almost 260 different hands – those new to embroidery and those expert – but she is breathtakingly beautiful.

photo credit: Ed Nute

photo credit: Ed Nute

Congratulations to all who have made this moment possible.  Revel in it!

As the fire flickers and the candlelight twinkles, a project three years in the making will be unveiled at Plimoth Plantation on December 10, from 4-8 PM.  Plimoth Plantation’s Historical Clothing and Textiles Department has just completed an exciting new project of interest to historians, scholars and lovers of period needlework internationally. Since the winter of 2006, the Museum has worked closely with historic needlework scholar, Dr. Tricia Wilson Nguyen, who has coordinated the unmatched creation of a woman’s 17th-century linen waistcoat lavishly embroidered in silk and gold. This unique and significant jacket is based on surviving pieces from the first quarter of the 17th century in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London, England.  Additionally, because of the intricate and specific detail of this jacket project, historic metal threads that have not been in production for centuries, have been brought back, not just for use in this project but also for the general public too.

“It is interesting to note that the Museum’s research into these jackets has yielded several interesting discoveries, helping to recapture lost technologies, which have now been shared with the next-generation-needlework community and beyond,” said Ellie Donovan, Plimoth Plantation Executive Director. “Rediscovering lost technologies and sharing them with the world is at the heart of what we do at Plimoth Plantation, and it is of the utmost importance to future innovation in all areas.”

Over the course of two years, more than 200 volunteers, expert in embroidery and lace-making, carried out the meticulous recreation of the Plimoth Jacket. In order to evaluate the individual ‘hand’ of each volunteer, potential stitchers completed a sample kit that served as an embroidery audition. Interested embroiderers tried-out in droves and those who met the stringent criteria were selected, came to the Museum on their own time, and at their own expense.

“We were amazed by the dedication and talent of the people who supported this wonderful historic reproduction. They were thrilled to work on this once-in-a-lifetime project, which utilized such rare materials, tools and techniques,” said Richard Pickering, Plimoth’s Deputy Executive Director.

In addition to pre-qualifying the embroiderers, the sample kits, or audition submissions, enabled the jacket’s organizers to match stitchers of similar thread tensions and styles into teams, which in the end enabled Plimoth Plantation to create a cohesive and meticulously reproduced jacket.

Though not something that would have been worn in Plimoth Colony, linen jackets embroidered with colored silks and metal threads were fashionable for members of England’s privileged classes in the late 1500s and early 1600s. The expensive garments, lavished with thousands of hours of labor and expensive materials, represented the society’s ideal of conspicuous consumption in matters of personal dress and ornament.

Presented as a Museum fundraiser, this rare, re-created jacket will be unveiled for the first time on December 10, 2009, from 4 to 8 PM, in the Gainesborough Hall of the Henry Hornblower II Visitor Center. One of Plimoth Plantation’s colonial role players will wear the jacket, along with a matching embroidered coif, handkerchief linen shift, and silk dupioni and silk brocade petticoats. The reveal will take place by the fireside, in a candle-lit room, so that the spectators will be able to view the twinkling luminescence of the gilded silver spangles, golden lace and shimmering silk thread on the embroidered jacket – just as it would have been seen four centuries ago.  The jacket will be worn only once before it is loaned for two years to the Winterthur Museum in Delaware.  Refreshments, harp music and poetry will be an accompanying part of the celebration.  Anyone who has ever worked on the project has been invited to attend, and the general public is invited to participate as well.  Tickets to this very special event are $35.00 per person, and $60.00 per couple.  Plimoth Plantation Museum members receive a discounted ticket rate of $25.00 per person and $40.00 per couple. Tickets must be purchased in advance, by calling 508-746-1622, ext: 8666.

After a wonderful day in NYC visiting the Twixt Art and Nature exhibit, Judy was back at work on Friday.  She made great progress on the plaited braid, working about 8 partial coils.  You can see her progress here.  She is also getting quite good at tapering the plaited braid.  She promises that later today she will let me photograph the process of tapering – her secret is a pair of tweezers!  I am sure that there are many of you out there who would like some tips on filling in those awkward spaces.  I have been working on the directions for birds, going back and forth between the photos of the jacket and working it out.  I will be posting those blogs over the next week.

BTW – the Twist Art and Nature exhibit – a joint exhibition between the MET and the Bard Graduate School of the Decorative Arts – runs until April 12th.  If you love 17th century embroidery and have any abilities to get to NYC, you can’t miss it.  Of course there is the lovely embroidered jacket on display and the video which covers this project, but the quality of the pieces on show are amazing.  What is really great to see is how many people are in the exhibit.  It is very busy, I hope this will spur more museums to exhibit their wonderful collections.

Tricia

The gold tendrils are going forward again and growing on the linen.  Judy Laning is here in Boston this week to work on the Jacket.  I will be posting on her progress over the next few days.   She has decided to work on the Left Under Arm, which is one of two pieces that haven’t had almost any gold put on it.  The other is the Right Under Arm – we are saving that one for another dedicated stitcher who is coming to Boston in early April – she will be staying for 10 days to work on the piece.

This is Judy’s progress tonight since she landed at Logan.  Very dedicated!  But tomorrow we both run down to NYC to see the Bard Exhibit and the Jacket they have on display.  So no progress tomorrow night.  Tune in on Friday again!

-Tricia

We have scheduled the first session of 2009.  It will be Friday, March 27th to Monday, March 30th in the Wardrobe Department at Plimoth.  The Plantation will be open for the spring and the department will be finished outfitting the interpreters so there will be space.

We have a set of stitchers who are already signed up but have room for more.  We need a variety of stitching done – silk (trellis stitch and detached buttonhole), gilt sylke twist (detached buttonhole), gold thread (plaited braid, spider web, and reverse chain), as well as sewing on hundreds of oes.  So depending on your favorite technique – drop me (tricia@alum.mit.edu) an email if you would like to come and stitch with us and I can send you more information.

We are over 80% finished with the jacket and about 50% done with the coif/forehead cloth.  So we won’t have very many sessions left to go.  I will be posting the last session dates in the next week so anyone who wants to help can plan to participate.

Tricia

We are gearing up for more stitching right now and birds are top on the agenda.  We have a few individuals who are visiting the area in the next five weeks who will be staying over a week each to work on the jacket.  (Thank you!).  Also, we will be scheduling a session for either the last weekend of March or first of April.  Stay tuned – I should know the dates in a few days. We have been waiting until the wardrobing of the interpreters is done for opening on March 21st so we don’t get in the way in the workroom.  Plus we HOPE old man winter will be almost done here in New England.  We have had a tremendous series of weekend winter storms.

We have quite a few of the birds to work on and they are the last of the silk work on the jacket.  We waited until we got better photographs from my visit to the jackets in October.  Thank goodness we did.  A few tweaks needed to be made from my original stitching of a bird (see the logo above).  What is interesting to me about the birds in general is how the six different birds on three jackets and one panel are all done in spiral trellis and trellis.  The pieces don’t look like they came from the same workshop but there seemed to be a ‘code’ about birds.  The cross hatching of the trellis stitch does give nice texture and maybe you could say it looks like feathers.

Tricia

We had a posting to the comments a few weeks ago that I thought many of you might like to see and not miss:

‘Hello there, I was visiting the Museum of Costume in Bath (UK) last week. I went to see an Edwardian frock, but the lady at the next table, who didn’t show, had come to see a jacket much like yours.

The curator wouldn’t get it out of the box, but she did let me take a few snaps – if you’re interested, they’re here.

Take a look – very cool!  Thank you to the poster for sharing her photos with us all.

Tricia