Tricia sent me this post:

As you can see in this picture, the gold threads have arrived. Remember earlier this summer the second trial of gold-silver-copper on silk arrived and was a slight bit thinner than the first trial. It worked well for stitching plaited braid. I excitedly called Lamora at
Access Commodities and let her know that using two silk plies for the core worked and we could go ahead and ask Bill Barnes to make a full run. If you check back in your blog a long while back, you will remember our rough estimates of how much we would need. Over 1000 meters. Well, I was surprised that Bill was able to turn it around as fast as he did - and nothing got caught in customs this time!! Customs has been the enemy #1 of this project. I can’t tell you how any times our supplies have gotten delayed there!

So I have more than 1500 meters in my hot little hand right now. Well of course I had to have extra! Some for me and some for you stitchers out there! Give me a few weeks to get my act together and we will have a little kit for sale to benefit the jacket with a needle and
gold thread and maybe a few instructions thrown in too.

Just in time. Next week the workroom will be a hub of activity. My son is going to summer camp at the Plantation and so I have a great excuse to be there all week. I will be starting the gold work and working on attaching detached pieces. Then we have a session starting
at the end of the week (still have spots if you are in the area for a day). Some lucky ladies may even start couching gold and doing reverse chain with this new limited edition material. Cool.

Tricia

Ahem. I owe an apology; Tricia sent me this information to post way back in February and I don’t think I ever did post it. I was looking for something else in my emails and found it. As a poor defense, the cover note mentioned that her sons had just come down with what my son was just getting over - a virus with high fever - and I must have still been boggled. I included a photo of Tammy working on the forehead cloth; it clearly shows the slate frame. Tammy was here about the same time Tricia sent this note; it was one of the snow-shortened sessions. Seems a long time ago now. I haven’t heard anyone say with certainty that they know the reason they’re called slate frames, by the way. Anyway, Tricia wrote:

Several people have asked where to get slate frames. As we talked early in the blog, we had a great deal of trouble finding slate frames in the USA for this project. There are one or two small makers in England but they wouldn’t export to the USA and we didn’t have the budget to fly there to get them! The frames that are pictured were a really nice product line that was manufactured in Europe for Access Commodities. A combination of factors resulted in these frames coming off the market a few years ago - the rising Euro, some manufacturing problems, and a brief intro of a lower quality copy by a vendor ended up resulting in the product line being taken off the market.

Access was great to take all the leftover on their shelves, seconds, and a list of what stores had formerly bought from them to allow me to find enough for the project. (What Tricia then did was call all the stores to see if they had anything left of their last orders. She usually leaves out the part about her tedious legwork.) We combined this with some long slats made by Plimoth staff and my entire vast personal collection (note again that STASH comes to the rescue!) and a wonderful stitcher’s stash (this generous stitcher has long-term loaned us a few essential frame parts) we found through the list from Access to complete the sizes we needed.

Recently Access has made a test run in-country to see if this product line can be brought back as a favor to me and because of interest in this project. I am testing out the new frames next week with a class I am teaching. (Since this post is so old, that test-run happened in February. It sounded like it went well. Norma B brought her nightcap project from that class to a show & tell at one of the sessions, all drawn out and laced into the frame.) If things go well, the frames might come back to market. I am sorry I can’t give a simple answer to the question of ‘how do I get a frame’. The good news is if everyone out there who wants a frame, requests it of their local shop , maybe you can help the push to get these back again as momentum is now in our favor.

This is again an example of how fragile the needlework market is. Fundamental products come and go off the market very easily. I made a friend years ago who was the retired R&D head of a major needle company in Germany and founder of a museum of needle technology. Germany and England had been the centers of the needle trade since the time our jacket was made. Today there is one English vendor and a French vendor. Between them they make 80% of all needles and brand them with different names. My friend
showed me hundreds of different types of needles that were made prior to WWI by dozens of companies. Needles that I knew must have existed to do embroidery I couldn’t do today because I couldn’t find the right needle. He showed me how the governments of England and Germany had restricted the product lines during the war to divert steel to munitions. When the war was over, women’s lives had changed so much that the demand wasn’t large enough to reintroduce the large variety again. Hence those forms of embroidery are now gone from our lexicon,effectively extinct. Today most needlework manufacturers are very small entities, entire product lines can disappear just because someone retires or there is a medical emergency in the family and the business owner needs to find a ‘real job’. I wish every stitcher knew the background on the products they use and understood the economics of the situation. It would stop all chart copying, sharing, and buying cut rate floss from big craft stores in a second. Unfortunately it is the big secret that no-one wants to talk about. While not everyone can afford to fill their closets - there are small everyday decisions when shopping for our craft passion that make or break the industry.

Tricia

Tricia writes today:

If you remember, months ago we were trying out gold threads for the plaited braid stitch. Bill Barnes of Golden Threads had made a silk core wrapped with gilt strip for us. When it stitched, it was just too stiff to use, which was a surprise to me. When I gave him my comments, he responded that he had used three ends of Soie Ovale for the core and would I wait a few weeks for another sample using just two ends. He was sure it would work. Well - always trust the master!

We finally got the sample two weeks ago (another one of those international shipping dramas delayed it). Shown here is the sample alone and also stitched next to the previous samples that I had done. The thread is thinner but it still gives a nice and dense plaited braid. More importantly, it stitches easily. Well, as easily as a gold thread can! So I gave the green light to have miles of it made.

A big thanks goes out to Access Commodities who have been coordinating this for us. They are the distributor of Au Ver a Soie thread and supply the silks that Bill is using for the thread. Lamora’s expertise with international shipping is one of the prime reasons we can make this happen!

Tricia

Hi Mary, I’m glad it made you laugh. jmh

Tricia has some exciting news:

Other than a few spools that Access Commodities has given out to shops and designers to promote the up-coming release of Gilt Sylke Twist, Thistle Threads bought the entire manufacturing runs made for the jacket, knowing that not all of the thread would be needed for the jacket. Part of horse trading. We have calculated the needs of the jacket based on our stitching use so far and used what was needed for the Nightcap class. We have extra!

The extra was first offered for sale two weeks ago to those stitchers who had already attended a session as a thank you for generously giving of their time and effort to the project. We still have some extra of five colors - but not copious quantities.

Several of these colors are limited edition, to be replaced in the next set of manufacturing runs by a permanent color series. The blues and pink will not be the same going forward. So if you have a large project in mind, you might want to wait. From last contact with Bill, there may be some thread coming over in the next six weeks. He is currently on travel again and was trying to get one or two colors to Access before he left but wasn’t sure that was going to be possible.

If you are interested in any of the Gilt Sylke Twist and can’t wait until later to get your hands on some, please email Tricia at tricia@alum.mit.edu with your request. The available colors are: Redde, Carnacion, Bisse, Graie Blewe, and Grene. The price is $25 for a 35 meter tube with $5 of each tube going to Plimoth as a donation to the jacket project.

Tricia

Please note: These photos show all the colors, some of which are not available for sale right now.

First, the light housekeeping:

Reminders for the June stitchers:

• If you have and are able to bring a magnifier and/or a lamp, please do. We’d appreciate it very much.
• If you’d like a seat cushion and can bring one, please do.
• Please avoid strong perfumes. One of our number is allergic.

Thank you.

A question was left in the comments (thank you, I love comments!), about whether a pdf of the ladder stitch with zigzag interlacing is or can be available. The answer is that Tricia is working on a book of goldwork stitches and this one and many of its relations will be included.

Alison’s sample arrived safely. No mail today, not sure why. Perhaps there’ll be a double batch tomorrow.

Now the gratitude:

An effort of this sort really relies on an extended network of people taking time from their regular duties to look up data, pull out samples, get permissions, find materials, and all sorts of things. We wanted to periodically acknowledge the growing army of behind-the-scenes individuals and institutions who have been working the help this project and its ‘extras’ become reality. Here is just the first installment of thank yous. Any omission is inadvertent, will be corrected, and is purely the result of our being overwhelmed at this point!It is fabulous to see how many people in this community are excited about the project and its potential to energize and expand on the historic needlework field.

Manufacturers and Distributors

Access Commodities - Lamora Haidar has been tireless in giving advice and helping us locate enough silk in particular dye lots for the jacket. In addition, she has supplied frames and is trying to revive a manufacturer of slate frames. And most importantly - she has invested in having a new line of threads fabricated by Golden Threads for the jacket and will make them available through distribution. We can’t thank Access Commodities enough for that type of support.

Zweigart USA - Jim and his staff have donated 7 yards of Kingston Linen to the project for the jacket and sample kits. They also worked tirelessly trying to get us the linen after it got delayed in customs.

Lakeside Linens - Pat was wonderful to take time from her day to help me locate who in the USA might have a secret stash of high quality linen that could be used if our linen didn’t make it out of customs. She suggested Dave at Norden was my best bet.

Norden Crafts - Dave and his staff located a few small pieces of Kingston Linen that allowed us to get started while we waited for our larger supply to get released from customs.

Golden Threads - Bill Barns has allowed us to bend his ear of dreams of metal threads of old. Then he made them! Bill is currently making a new line of just wonderful threads that will be distributed by Access Commodities. More in the blog later about these amazing recreations!

Benton and Johnson - Neil has also allowed me to pick his brain about gold threads and passed on much valuable information and samples. They are keeping us in gilt paillettes for the jacket.

Coats and Clark USA - Ann Blalock has supplied us with threads for educational programs at the Plantation to enhance the stitchers’ experience. They have also offered to help us with extending our programming to children around the USA.

Jill & Tricia