There was a mistake on the panel that was very interesting to me. One of the questions I have been working on for the MET exhibit has been the method of manufacturing gold threads. This also begets the question, who was making them. From the research so far, we see gold and silver wyre drawers making the wire and possibly flattening it. Then it seems to be turned over to ‘Gold Spinners’ who put the wire or strip around the silk core thread. We have not found any description of this process yet and the current processes used are a product of the industrial revolution and therefore don’t provide us clues as to the past.

The mistake was a small leaf under the bird’s tail. The buttonhole had been started with a strand of silk with a silver strip wrap. Then it changed to just silk at about the natural point that a 12-14″ strand of thread would have run out and have to be changed. What was interesting is that both the jacket and panel have only silk leaves. No metal wraps. But here we have a mistake…oops…started with the wrong thread. But they never seemed to take anything out if they could help it. Hardly noticeable in the final effect unless you are overly familiar with the pieces.

The ah-ha moment came when I saw that the thread wrapped with the metal strip was the same two color silk (green and yellow) as the rest of the leaf. We have talked in depth before how they achieved this heathered effect with a two color twisted thread. Our hypothesis has been that, at the frame, they twisted the two colors they needed to blend. But now we see that the blended thread is also wrapped. Chris, Lynn and I had a long discussion on this – repeated the next day with Susan with additional thoughts being added.

The wrapped blended thread implies that possibly someone in the workshop was skilled at spinning the silver strip or wyre onto the silk thread. Susan repeated what we all would have originally thought – that you bought the colors and threads that you needed from a third party as we do today. The vertical integration of gold thread or composite thread making with the embroidery studio has been a working hypothesis of mine for years. I especially see a great deal of evidence on professional pieces where there are multiple composite threads such as flat silk, wyre wrapped silk, and wyre wrapped silk purl that are all the same dye lot. Based on inventory records, the threads were a valuable commodity and thus having the flexibility to make what you need as you need it would be economical. But we do see that gold threads were certainly bought pre-made by the crown and then supplied to the embroiderer. Many new questions came from this discussion. Susan posed an interesting question: if the gold thread was pre-purchased by the person who commissioned the piece and given to the embroiderer, how would they know how much to buy and could they insure that the workshop wouldn’t skim off the top?

We talked at length about how we have gone about estimating thread for this project, a very important issue to make sure that we have silk of the same dye lot and that the threads we are having manufactured will be enough. Susan was very interested in the process. We have a lot to think about and these questions will color how we look at inventory and account book records in the future.

And if we were to think that this was usual, while I was at the EG collection, they thought I might be interested in seeing other pieces and brought out two coifs. On one of the coifs, this heathered thread with metal wrap was all over the piece. Nice.

I’ve added pictures of the two-color thread we used to prove how the heathered effect was done for you to reference.

Tricia

I like that term, when Jill said it the other day to describe what we were doing it gave me all the validation I needed to go buy myself an Indiana Jones hat and bring a whip to the next session!

What she really meant was that we were listing all the means we could imagine to get the results we were seeing from the photographs of a particular detail on the jacket and then trying all of them on the side to see what results we got and comparing them to the original. It often takes more than one person to do this as you feed off each other to come up with various options that the embroiderer of the past may have tried.

The details in question were the veins on the leaves. Since a portion of the embroidery pattern was traced from the Embroiderers’ Guild (UK) piece, we had their veins on our linen. But as comes up constantly on this project, you can see the forest but don’t notice the grass until you need to walk through it! The veins on the EG piece all have a main vein and all the nice off-shoots. We noted that the veins on the jacket in the V&A collection only have the main vein. Disappointing at first, until you realize that we have to do about a hundred or more of them. As we looked at them, we were confused. I have to admit that my ‘forest view’ had told me that they would be couched down and so I had carefully selected a couching thread the night before and brought it with me.

They didn’t seemed couched, in fact they looked like two twisted gold threads. But how was it secured? Options were a) can’t see couched thread, b) it is one long stitch that is wrapped on itself after coming back up through the fabric, c) the gold is used to couch itself, or d) a loop of gold is twisted and held down at the tip. In the next two photos, you can see all these options worked except that with a couching thread made of silk. We discounted that option until all others failed. These embroiderers were going for speed, remember.

If you want to see the original, there is a nice close-up on the V&A website that shows these veins. You can compare to our work and see if you agree. In the end, the easiest method worked the best and looks just like the original. We come up at the base of the leaf and down near the tip. Go back up again near the needle hole and wrap the laid gold thread three-four times and back in at the base of the leaf. Very fast.

Tricia

If you want to see the close-up on the V&A website, remember you have to go from the V&A main page to the “collections” page, and use THAT search function – the “search the collections” one; NOT the search box that appears on the upper right corner of the main page. Once you have the search-the-collections box, put in 1359-1900 to see the embroidery pattern jacket. jmh

of yesterday’s stitchers and their work.

First, here’s Anne and her leaf, embroidered on the coif. Thanks to Robbin for this great picture.

Here are a couple of pictures of Tricia, Sarah and Susan. I love how Tricia curls up in a chair to work on these big frames. No matter how huge they are, she looks cozy and comfortable, not like she’s wrestling with a bulletin board (which is how I feel, and probably look.)

We had another Sarah in stitching yesterday. Sarah R is 11 years old and was in the office trying on period clothing – she’s going to portray a young colonist in the Village occasionally this summer. She was fascinated with the embroidery and Tricia explained just what was going on and why. Then Tricia got her a doodle cloth and some floss, and this is what she did! The bear face and the “S” are Sarah’s, and they were her first embroidery. The Project once again inspires a newbie to pick up a needle.

We’ve got a birthday and an anniversary coming up. May 15 is the blog’s birthday – one year since we started this online community. We’ve got an embroidery and lacing session May 16-19; I think we’ll be having some birthday celebrations!

The June 20 – 23 session is our anniversary – that weekend last year was the first time we gathered to work on the jacket. It seems so long ago, especially judging by the pieces. Back then, those first embroiderers really had to take their courage in hand to make the first stitches on the huge blank linen pieces. And then, after a whole day’s work, or a whole FOUR days’ work, there would be . . . two buds and a trefoil. Or a bud and two leaves. What a leap of faith on all our parts, believing that others would come after and keep filling in, that the Gilt Sylke Twist thread would get made, that the lacers would join us, that the spangles’ mysteries would be revealed. . . . I think there will be some festivities that weekend as well.

There’s still room in both sessions. Email me. jhall@plimoth.org

Today Wendy counted up the motifs that were done this weekend. I had high hopes for this session and I was not disappointed. There were many hands working and a great deal was accomplished:

16.5 worms. The plain worms, not the fancy worms. We don’t have directions for those yet. But the plain worms gave us plenty of head-scratching moments, as we tried to figure out what color each should be, comparing the photos of the original and the different pieces of the jacket. The half worm disappears into a seam, and it was the back half that was stitched, which led to some merriment. Oh, and Debbie thinks they’re actually slugs, since they have little feelers on they little heads. Are slugs ickier than worms?

3.5 pansies. Pansies take a LONG time to work, and they’re not as spectacularly colored as the pansies I’m familiar with. Still very pretty, and after these 3.5 were done, there are not that many left.

2 whole pinks. Pinks, or carnations, and in the 1627 village gillyflowers (hence very popular with me). Also take a long time to do, and we’re almost done with them, too.

6 leaves, 1/2 a pea pod, 1/2 a rose hip, 1/2 a thistle calyx, 1/2 a honeysuckle, 1 set honeysuckle buds, and one little edge of a pea pod that vanished into a seam. It was just a tiny line, but it was fiddly to work since the way it was oriented meant a long column of one buttonhole stitch per row rather than one long row of stitches. Abigail did that one. Some of those half motifs were partially done at other sessions by other stitcher, some were the kind that disappear into seams or off the edges of the pieces.

AND TWO of the dreaded trefoils. That’s a thistle in the bottom of that photo, with the calyx of course the green part below the blossom. Debbie did one of the trefoils and Linda did the other. Linda was with us only on Saturday.

Not to mention 9 lace motifs in only two days (that was Bryce, speed lacer.)

Here’s a picture of Wendy working that very first rose motif. She stayed late tonight to finish it, “so her boss won’t yell at her.” We’ll see what Tricia thinks of the result, maybe next time we can add another motif to our repertoire.

Thanks, everyone. I so enjoyed this weekend.

Here’s a good idea, thanks Carol and Kimberly. This is the left upper sleeve as of today, April 9th. Each sleeve is composed of two parts, the upper and the under. The top of the upper sleeve has a convex curve to go over the top of the shoulder; the under has a concave curve to go under the underarm. Otherwise they’re the same shape. To me it looks about half done; about as many spaces as colored-in bits. But then when you consider all the gold work that has to be done, plus the sequins to be sewn on in every blank space, plus the detached bits to stitch and then sew on (the top layer of the pea pods and the butterfly wings), well, there’s plenty left to do.

Here is a cluster of motifs from the back of the jacket. At about seven o’clock is one of the dreaded trefoils; about ten there’s a sweet pea flower and pea pod; at twelve a honeysuckle with the pink & red buds; one o’clock a spiky-winged butterfly; at two most of a thistle; at about four o’clock is part of a foxglove. You can see an unstitched rose on the left, various buds, rose hips and leaves here & there; and the blank (for now) vine twining around all. Notice the little curlicues that spring from the vine; I was mentioning those yesterday. In the extreme lower right corner you can see part of another trefoil, with the vein of the leaf marked. All the trefoils and most of the other leaves have those veins. They’ll later be stitched in gold.

I’ll intersperse these posts with others, but I’ll get pictures up of all the pieces so you can see where we are. And after this coming weekend, when we have a work session, I’ll post another picture of this sleeve so you can see what was done on it. Overall, I think this piece is more done than some (the jacket fronts, for instance, are less densely covered than this) and less done than others (the jacket back, perhaps, the wings, the gussets for sure). So, pretty representative. The reason I picked it, though, is less well-thought-out than it might seem – this frame was at the front of the cupboard.