Hi everyone, I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. Husband Away turned into Husband Home but with Appendicitis. He no longer has appendicitis, no longer has an appendix even, but I’ve been a little preoccupied. Distracted. Frazzled, as a co-worker so eloquently put it this morning. And then last night we had the Thunderstorms. Thou shalt not fire up the computer during a violent thunderstorm.

Anyway, Jill H (the lace making Jill H, as opposed to me, the non-lace making Jill H) asked about finding 1359-1900. The key is to search the V&A collections. You can’t use the search function in the upper right hand corner of their website. That searches for things like exhibits and lectures and new books. You have to click the ‘collections’ option (other options on that page are exhibits, things to do, your visit, support us, contact us, etc.). Once in the collections section, you have choices of which collection to look at. There is also a ’search the collections’ box. It’s the top left section. Click on that and you get a screen with a search box on the left. Continue to ignore the search box in the upper right. It does not love you.

The search box you want says ‘all fields’ above it, and below there are two buttons: clear field and search. Put ‘1359-1900′ in this search box and click search. This will get you the embroidery-pattern jacket. If you instead put in ‘Laton jacket’ you will get the garment-and-lace-pattern jacket. Have fun!

Emily and Lacey have been exceedingly busy while I’ve been frazzling. Lacey has made three pairs of canvas breeches and is working on her fourth. She’s also knitting mittens. Emily is making a gown for a small child who soon will be volunteering in the English Village. She’s also making a green canvas suit for one of the interpretive artisans. Emily left me a note saying that yesterday’s late-afternoon fitting with him went “swimmingly. He says the fabric is the same color as his truck. I’m assuming this is a good thing.” Hope so. Penny is taking a well-deserved looong weekend. When she comes back Monday she and Emily and Lacey will be preparing for a two-day dye fest. On Tuesday and Wednesday of next week they’ll be dyeing wool yarn with natural dyes outside the Crafts Center. I’m so excited about this, I can’t wait. If you’re in the neighborhood, come see.

Several of the stitches we’re using on the jacket have been diagrammed and illustrated by Tricia. Her directions and photos are fantastic, I think. They really helped me understand these stitches, none of which I’d ever tried before last summer.

Tricia hasn’t done up her own version of the plaited braid stitch instructions, though, and likely won’t for some time. Fortunately, Linda Connors of Calico Crossroads has, and has made them available through her website for a very small fee. Here’s a link to the searchable catalog for Calico Crossroads. Put in plaited braid stitch and it should come up; if not email Linda for help.

If you want to see images of the two original jackets we’re using for this project, go to the V&A website, to the collections page. Go to the ’search collections’ feature. In the search box type “Laton jacket” for many pictures of this jacket and the portrait of Margaret Laton wearing it. This jacket is the source of the garment pattern and the lace that we’re reproducing. To see the jacket bearing the embroidery pattern, put “1359-1900″ in the search field. There are fewer pictures of this one available, but they’re gorgeous.

I’ve recently started thinking about the sewing-together part of this project. Thinking about logistics, I mean. By a happy coincidence, Laura brought her embroidered jacket as part of her show & tell this session. I mentioned that I’d been comparing the original paper pattern pieces to the tensioned embroidered ones and that some stretching has occurred. I wondered aloud how much “spring back” we’d have when all the pieces are cut out of the frames.

Laura, who has actually done quite a bit of this work herself, said she thinks most of the stretching/distortion will remain, because the stitching will help to hold the piece in that position, even when the lacing that ties the piece to the frame is gone.

This started an in-depth discussion of construction techniques and choices. I wish we’d started earlier in the day – this was just as we were cleaning up to go for supper, and all very hungry and Laura with a severe headache that couldn’t have been helped any by delaying her meal. Laura showed me her jacket and described how she put the pieces together, and Robbin and Jen, who were still there too, looked up photos in various books and helped compare details between the Laton jacket and jacket 1359-1900 (the embroidery pattern jacket).

Here is a detail of the inside of Laura’s jacket, showing the center back seam. Laura folded in and hemmed down the raw edge of the pieces before stitching the hemmed edges together with extremely tiny overcast stitches. (Does that make sense written that way? She turned in the edge of the embroidered back and hemmed it down; turned in the edge of the side that should be seamed to that piece and hemmed that down, then overcast the two together. Then she did the same with the linings for each piece. This detail shows the linen lining. Each half was hemmed and then the hemmed edges were stitched together.) You can see from the right side that she also chose to apply a braid of silk over the seams and around the edges of her jacket. The Laton jacket has embroidery over some of the seams (but not all), and of course has the lace trimming the edges; 1359-1900 doesn’t have embroidery over the seams.

Before we talked, I had already decided to sew a trial jacket, cut out of the same linen we’re embroidering, and sew it up with a silk lining. This will of course only be a distant approximation of the real thing, but it will allow me to practice setting in the gussets (more on that another time) and work out how the cuffs and collar should be sewn (among other questions I have) before I’m dealing with all the embroidery etc. In fact that was why I was comparing the paper pattern pieces to the embroidered pieces in the first place.

Yesterday I cut out the linen for this trial piece. I’m thinking about which, if any, other construction methods to try (aside from the one Laura used) and I’m also thinking about whether we should embroider over some of the seams. Mmm. More embroidery.