While in NYC for the symposium held in conjunction with the exhibit, “Twixt Art and Nature” I had the privilege to accompany Tricia on a visit to the Textile Conservation Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We met with Conservator, Cristina Carr and were wowed with the opportunity to view several bags, pairs of gloves and an unmounted set of sleeves. Cristina uses a large microscope with tremendous magnification, the picture or image shown on a large computer screen, that enables you to see the individual fibers, that make up the strands of a fiber and anything else that the lens is focused in on. In short- mind blowing.

So when she unveiled the set of unmounted sleeves it was an opportunity to look at the reverse side (wrong side) of the stitching to see how the ending of threads was handled and to see if our “production” method of working the Borage was reflected there.  The Borage repeats twice in our pattern so there are a lot of them on the jacket and each Borage has 5 pointy petals, a horseshoe shaped inner ring and a two-color trellis fill. In order to get the point nice and crisp, the reverse chain begins at the top of each petal and is stitched towards the main body of the flower, to complete the other side of the petal; the stitcher must go back to the top of the petal and stitch down the other side. All of this makes for a LOT of stopping and starting.

In the workroom progress was slowing down as the stops and starts took their toll. Examining the stitching paths and overall coverage of the petals led to the decision to discontinue the stopping and starting and to instead take running stitches from the petal base back up thru the petal itself to the tip to continue stitching. This decision resulted in increased speed and reduce the amount of GST that was being used as a result of all the stopping and starting, additionally the bulk in the stitch edges was reduced and made the actual stitching of the buttonhole much easier because the reverse side of the chain stitch was no longer heavily encrusted with the tails having been wrapped thru it.

When Cristina turned over the first sleeve for examination my heart jumped, there on the sleeve in the Borage was evidence of the same approach and issue!

Wendy

(Note from Tricia:  The borage on these sleeves had the same funny horseshoe shaped detached buttonhole that ours does.  We saw the same excessive amount of dragged thread on the back on the sleeves as ours.  This is in contrast to the thread-less backs of the rest of the motifs on the sleeves – same as ours too.  Seems that the problems we ran into were the same 400 years ago.  See our examples here).

I was hit in the head by a virtual skein of yarn the other day after a post.  (See comments on Stitching Gauge, January 29th)  I welcome discourse as it allows us to debate points.  The commentator was pointing out the close personal relationship that could have developed between two professionals working together at a frame due to conversations (more commonly known to us in the trade as “stitch n’ bitch) and that this had resulted in distress when the relationship ended.  I had chalked up the distress at loosing a partner to more technical issues of getting the work done ala work style.

I thought it would be interesting to all to talk about ‘talk’ at the frame in the workshop as I had just had a very interesting conversation about this very subject just a week ago with a colleague.  There are a few professional workshops that I am aware of their rules and practices.  One is the Japanese workshop (Kurenai-Kai) and the spin-out teaching workrooms in the USA.  In the workroom, quiet behavior is of the essence.  In fact, if the master needs to show you something, he does not tell you but instead sits down at your station and starts embroidering. You are supposed to watch intently and deduce what he wants to show you.  For those of us western embroiderers, this is the most difficult part of learning this embroidery.  As I progressed through the levels, I began to really enjoy going to Japanese embroidery as it was one of the most calm and contemplative parts of my hectic life.  Total quiet except for the specific break times.  I also got allot done in class.

At the Bard Symposium, I met a colleague from the Royal School of Embroidery.  We were talking about our workrooms for the jacket and for their private commissions.  I was shocked to learn that the workroom procedure (in place for over 100 years and only modified in the last decade) was for total silence among the embroiderers.  Indeed, if a break was taken by an embroiderer, her absence is noted and that stitching time must be made up.  My colleague was noting other strict guidelines and how some of them had been relaxed a bit in the last ten years.

I laugh because our workroom is staffed by volunteers (including myself and Wendy) who have given up time and money to be there.  For those of us volunteers who are there every session – out goal is quality and reducing the number of sessions which take us away from our families by making progress.  Of course, we understand that for the other volunteers, this is also a social gathering where there is lively discourse on the history of embroidery, technique, interesting collaborations and of course more than a few funny stories.  But we have found a SIGNIFICANT correlation to progress versus talk.  In fact, those who talk allot make the least progress and those who are silently listening sometimes make as much as 3-4 times the progress.  I therefore totally understand how the paid workshop has a ban on socializing in the workroom.

I will admit that sometimes if it gets bad and my husband screams again about having to take care of the kids while I am monitoring the workshop, I have a CD turned on in the room the next day to discourage conversation and to pick up pace!  Now you know our secret.

Tricia

Some interesting things about the woven silk that I noted when I was visiting Eaton Hill Textile Works are shown in these pictures.  First, I kept seeing these pins with silk wrapped around it.  This is where the warp threads had broken, both ends are wrapped around the pin.  After the weave is done, these ends will be darned into the fabric and cut off.

You can also see the warp here – it was dyed with indigo last year and warped.  When it is on the beam, it looks indigo but when the warp spreads out during weaving you can see stripes show up where the individual warps have faded.  Kate thinks that the scouring of the silk might now have been done well enough for the dye to take. Because of this, the weft wasn’t dyed and is being woven with white.  When the entire piece is done, they will re-dye the fabric with indigo.

Tricia

If you happen to attend the exhibit ‘Twixt Art and Nature‘ you will be treated to footage of the Plimoth project in the video which is on the second floor.  The story of how our project was added to such an important exhibition is an interesting one, and starts with the sorry state of many blackwork objects.

During the planning stages of the exhibition, Melinda Watt was having conversations with Susan North and Mary Brooks about blackwork and how degraded the pieces which are in collections are usually and how the viewer may not understand the glory of the originals.  Thoughts developed about using digital techniques to restore an object and therefore be able to show what it looked like originally.  Mary knew that the person who would need to do it would need to be both technical and knowledgeable about needlework technique to be able to deduce what each needle hole meant.  That’s how the project got to my door steps – would I apply my engineering and needlework skills to digitally restore a blackwork nightcap where more than 80% of the blackwork was missing? Obviously from this jacket project – I can’t resist a challenge.

So while working on the exhibit, conversations would also turn to the jacket at the MET and why it was so intriguing to me.  That stitch for the gold coils came up again and again.  Melinda then decided that the public might not understand how complex the objects they saw were and so a case study might help them comprehend it.  Would I consider animating the stitch?  The answer was yes – but only because I have been working with Charles Wilson of Smudge Animation for years to try to animate difficult stitches.  You might recognize the last name – it is always useful to have a professional animator in the family!  See the final stitch diagram here to get a feeling for what Charles animated. To complete the case study of the jacket for the video, Melinda traveled to Plimoth with Han Vu from Bard to video the techniques we were using and overlay the video with discussions of the statistics we had gathered from working on the project.  The completed effect with their jacket, the close-ups, animation of the stitch and views into the professional workshop of the 1600’s afforded by our work were very compelling.

As I stood at the opening and listened to the gasps and comments, I knew that the narrative had worked.  Kudos go to Han Vu for the fantastic videography and editing for dramatic effect. The blackwork nightcap was finished also and features in the video.  The cap is displayed next to the video so as it is restored to its former glory on screen it is contrasted with its sad losses of thread on the original.  The interesting part is that the restitching digitally is impressive, but the crowd really gets excited when the badly corroded blackened silver and silver-gilt thread becomes sparkly and metallic before their eyes showing the blaze this piece was in its original state. Tricia

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

I had the honor of attending the opening of the new embroidery exhibit ‘Twixt Art and Nature‘  on December 10th.  The exhibit is a collaboration between the MET and the Bard Graduate School of the Decorative Arts.  If you look back at the comments for December 8th, one of our lacers, Devon, was also at the opening and did a nice review also.  Devon is a volunteer in the textile department at the MET and has provided us with valuable information on metal laces during the project.

I am bringing this exhibit up a few times as it has an intimate connection to the Plimoth Jacket project which I will detail in the next few blogs.  Also, it may be one of the only times you will see an embroidered jacket similar to ours that will be on display in the United States.  The exhibit runs from December 10th to April 12th, 2009 and it is located at the Bard Graduate School on West 86th Street at Central Park West.  The exhibit has three floors of the most amazing embroidery from 1580-1700.  Almost all the objects are from the MET’s collection and are some of the finest examples of their type.  As Susan Brown, Assistant Curator of Textiles at the Cooper-Hewitt, said that night – “I always think we have nice things, and then I see what they have at the MET!!”

If you want to see a few pictures of the jacket on display and a slide show of some objects in the exhibit, click on this review of the exhibition in the New York Times on-line.

Tricia