Tricia made these amazing instruction manuals for each stitching station. They contain the stitch instructions that were posted on the blog; step-by-step photos of the stitches being worked; a ‘master repeat’ of the embroidery pattern with each motif element numbered; full-color pictures of the original jacket (1359-1900) for color placement reference; and blank log pages. The photos of the original jacket are beautiful; they were taken by Curator Susan North especially for our use in this project. These manuals are really amazing, and if there’s enough interest, we’ll look into obtaining permission from the V&A to publish a limited number for sale.

The log pages are brilliant in themselves. Each embroiderer fills out a page as he/she works. There are spaces for motif number, stitch, thread color & length, and time. At the end of the project we’ll have a permanent record of who stitched what, how much of what color thread was used and how long it took to do each bit. We’ll be able to compare thread use from one stitch to another, from one color to another, and compare time of working for the various stitches. I’m sure completing the log pages was one more thing to remember for the embroiderers, but their diligence in completing them is crucial to the information gathering.

One sample arrived today, from Martha D.

I’m going to skip tomorrow in order to (hopefully) write the knitting thing. Be back Thursday.