Before I get into details, I must thank the people who helped me immensely by taking time to host me for the appointments. First, Lynn Szygenda, Senior Curator at the Embroiderers’ Guild and Chris Berry, Past President of the EG.  Chris happened to be down in London on business this week and took time out to join me in the examination of the panel.  Chris is an expert on Tudor embroidery stitches and I was very pleased to finally meet her.  Having more experts at the table examining a piece is fantastic because you can both look at the same detail and debate them.  Sometimes your first conclusion will be wrong or there might be other data that one of you is aware of that can help make a new hypothesis.  Chris volunteers in the collection at the Burrell Collection and has a wealth of knowledge to share.

We had a lot of fun; I had my laptop full of my research photos next to the piece.  Lynn and Chris spent hours poring through the photos, including ones that we had from the V&A of the 1359-1900 jacket which Susan North had provided us with.  We could compare and contrast the
two pieces some.

My second thank you goes to Susan North, Curator of Costume at the V&A.  Susan took a great deal of time to help me move the jackets for photography.  As we discussed and debated what we saw, she would bring out other items to prove her point or to help answer the questions we had jointly proposed.  Susan is working with colleagues to produce a pattern book based on clothing of this period.  While it won’t be completed in time for this project, she and another colleague have been examining the Laton jackets and others (yes they were also on the table) for evidence of construction techniques.  This is the reason Laton was out of the case.  They were very generous to share their thoughts and to show me the evidence on each of the jackets to support it.  Because multiple professionals (embroiderers vs. tailors and/or other professional craftsmen, as well as multiple embroiderers - jmh) were involved in the process of making a jacket, we had a lively debate on which parts were performed by each and how the money/work may have transitioned.  I will comment more on this in a future blog.

I am sorry that I have very little eye candy that I can share with you on the internet from this trip, but here you can see Lynn (back), Chris (foreground) and me with the panel.

Tricia

I’ve only ever seen photos of the panel with no context - I was surprised how small it is. jmh

“So, want to make a coif and forehead cloth to go with the jacket?” Tricia asked me that a few weeks ago, during the time that she was wrestling with how to get all the jacket pieces out of one piece of linen and still be able to fit the pieces into the frames we had (or thought we could get). My first thought was that the stress of the impossible puzzle had finally sent her around the bend. In my mind the jacket alone was still looming as a gargantuan goal and a logistical nightmare. This coif & forehead cloth wasn’t exactly a new idea, though. Months before, when we were laying out this project in broad strokes, one of the goals I outlined was to increase the embroidery skills and knowledge base of the Colonial Wardrobe Dept staff. Expanding skills is a worthy object on its own, but ultimately I was intending to create a coif and forehead cloth to match the jacket, like the suite of entirely metal thread embroidered jacket, coif, and forehead cloth in the collection of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. So my second thought was “why not?” Why not indeed. So we’ll be working on a coif and forehead cloth too, over these next months. Why not.

Thanks to Libbet, who left a comment confirming my suspicion that an embroidered coif & forehead cloth in the Burrell Collection is displayed upside down and backwards. I was hesitant to say so definitely, only having seen it in a photograph, but it is put together upside down and the forehead cloth is sewn on with the point going the wrong way. This is an easy mistake to make, especially if one has never tried to wear a coif; yet another example of how doing can teach you things even long and careful looking won’t reveal.

A forehead cloth, or in some period records, a cross cloth, is a triangle with tape or ties on two points. It is like the kerchiefs that were popular a few years ago and in the 1970s. It was worn in the 17^th century over a coif, with the point facing forward, towards the forehead. They seem to have been part of informal wear, sometimes worn to bed.

Thanks also to the several ambitious embroiderers, some working solo, some in teams, who have left comments or sent notes to say that they are also working on embroidered jackets. If you send me some pictures (less than 3MB each) I’ll post some, so we can see what you’re doing and cheer you on.

Most of the daily work on this project right now is focused on getting ready for the first bee, which will start in less than a week (really? Next week already?). Much of what we’re doing, while necessary, is unglamorous and doesn’t seem particularly blog-worthy. For instance, today Kathy, Laura and I decided how many of each kind of table (small round and long rectangular) we’ll need, and in what arrangement. Not very exciting, but needed to be done. We’ve made lists of supplies we need – power strips, extension cords, nametags, coffee mugs. We’ve ordered a bunch of stuff and are crossing our fingers that it will all arrive in time, including daylight lamps, boxes to store supplies on the stitching tables, scissors for those boxes, and frame parts. I know Tricia is working on the master instruction book, which will have all the motifs and what colors & stitches they should be worked in.

I haven’t received any samples since Friday; I’ll keep noting here when I do so you’ll know yours arrived safely.