Today was a good day in Colonial Wardrobe. For one thing, we got to see Wendy.

For another, we got to see Mark, and the way cool gilt ribbon. He kindly brought it up to show us and he and Wendy measured it. Over 18′ of gilt ribbon. We figure it’ll make, oh, plenty of teardrop spangles. Mark’s going to make some next week in preparation for the weekend lace trial.

Months ago, Tricia and I identified as one of the objectives of the embroidered jacket project that we could interest new embroiderers in the craft, and encourage people who already embroider to try new and more advanced techniques. That has certainly happened, and keeps happening. A surprise by-product, though, has been the whole Knitting Stockings phenomenon, and consequent spreading of knitting skills.

Here’s Kelley re-footing an old stocking. When the feet wear out we darn them, and when they’re too thin to darn anymore we take off the feet and reknit them from the ankles. When Kelley started working with us in January she didn’t know how to knit at all. Now she’s re-footing stockings. This is testament to the general enthusiasm and optimism running rampant around here, to Kelley’s perseverance and patience, and to Penny’s excellent teaching.

Look what Wendy brought us! This is a pocket or pouch based on the one found on Gunnister man, a 17th-century body preserved in a Scottish peat bog. This is Wendy’s first attempt at knitting in the round, as well as her first attempt at knitting with two colors. Pretty successful, I’d say, especially since she only started it on the last day of the last embroidery session. So that’s two new knitters added to the fold. Pun intended.

After that meeting Mark went away with research and ideas. A few weeks later, which was last November, he arrived in the Wardrobe Department with, in Wendy’s words “a battered coffee can under his arm and a big grin on his face!” Wendy goes on:

The most amazing things tumbled out of that coffee can! Mark had made the tool, a small hole punch, a poker, a pusher and a die! And SPANGLES!!!!!!! They looked like the pictures! What joy!

Here’s Jill again. Since then, Mark and I have talked about how he went about making the spangles. Some of the process is clear from the originals, that they were punched, for example, and from a strip of gilt silver, like a ribbon, not from a big flat piece like a sheet of paper. Some, though, of what he’s done is conjecture. It’s one way to solve the puzzle of how to get this result, not the only way and not necessarily exactly the way 17th-century artisans did it.

Since that day, the trouble has been how & where to get some silver electroplated with gold and rolled to the correct thickness. Mark has solved all those problems, with the help of some new friends. A few weeks ago he and Wendy and Tricia questioned whether the gold layer was thick enough; they solved that too. Friday I got this message from Mark:

Hi Jill,

I have spangle stock in hand and i can have a quantity made for the 29th. I must show you the gilded ribbon it’s cool.

Mark

We are in business.

The next session on March 28 will see Robbin and Carolyn working with the reproduction spangles and the real lace pattern (the repro of the Laton lace, not the equally lovely but not-the-property-of-the-V&A pattern that went out in the kits) to work out any bugs.

I can begin taking real honest & true reservations for the subsequent scheduled sessions. Three lacers who were ready to come in February and got bumped have first dibs, and I will send out an email to them first thing in the morning (unless they see this and get in touch with me first) to find out if they would like to/are able to come for any part of the April 11 -14 session.

The next sessions are:

Friday May 16 – Monday May 19

Friday May 30- Monday June 2

Friday June 20- Monday June 23

If these sessions are not convenient, please call and let me know. I avoided Mothers’ & Fathers’ Day and Memorial Day thinking everyone would have other plans. If your idea of a great holiday is to come make lace, we can work that out. Let me know.

I’ll be scheduling more sessions; we’ll be working through the summer. Don’t worry – the office is air-conditioned and Plymouth has one of the coldest beaches on the Atlantic coast (that’s a good thing). Please feel free to suggest weekends or weekdays in July, August and September that would be good for embroidery or lace making.

We can have two lacers working at a time. Some have asked if they can make lace for one or two days and embroider for the rest of the session. That is absolutely OK, if you do an embroidery sample kit and learn the embroidery procedure. Also, we’ll have the same deal for lacers as for embroiderers, which is that once you’ve come during a session and learned the drill, you can then come anytime, whenever it suits you whether or not we have a scheduled session. Contact Kathy for embroidery and lace kits, kroncarati@plimoth.org or 508-746-1622 X 8114

As always, please contact me with any questions or concerns jhall@plimoth.org or 508-746-1622 X 8119 – and yippee!!

Wendy sent me this information from her spangle research. She sent it quite a while ago, but I put off posting it in favor of other subjects. I wanted to save some for when we got nearer to the end of the Spangle Quest. I’m posting it now; think about that.

While researching word origins regarding spangles and oes I came across a book entitled: English Dictionaries 800-1700, The Topical Tradition by Werner Hullen 1999 and published by Oxford University Press. In it is found James Howells Dictionary for the Genteel (1660) and the definition at that time for a “wire drawer” is more of a list of tools associated with the art of wire drawing:

A Wyredrawer; Tiratore de metallic; Trayer de metaux; Tirador de metales’- a hammer,nippers, a rowl pin, an oyl stone, bobbins, purling wyres, a spangle tool, a tool to cut oaes,rocket or small rowles, a serpentine, an anvil, files, the racer, a burnisher

From the above I would suspect that a “serpentine” may have been the twisting wheel. Interestingly there is no mention that I can discern of a lead pan, pitch pan or mat upon which to punch or cut out the spangles. It would not have been done on the anvil, as it would have dulled the cutter quickly.

Additionally it should be noted that while researching it became apparent that the more creative I was with the search terms and spelling the better the results. Examples include:

O’s – oes, oaes, paillettes, paillon, drop, drops, hangers, hangrs, hyngers

Spangles – spangs, paillettes, tags, aguil, drop, props, hyngers, bezants

Wire – wyre, wyer, wir

I was hoping this would yield some additional information if not corroboration to our theories so we could begin the process of testing various methods to create the “spangles”.

Mark had already made one small tool and tested it on some of the “Plate” Tricia had brought in from her stash. His results were right on target and had us all really excited. The next step was for Mark to make a tool in the correct size and shape that we could try to find the right material to use in making the spangles.

First, Gail J’s lace sample arrived safely.

The sharp-eyed reader award goes to Catherine K, who noticed Tricia’s completed “nightcap” in the photo on Friday. Tricia’s going to write about it so I didn’t photograph it for the blog, but I saw it in that picture and wondered if anyone else would notice. It is so beautiful and sweet and rich with color and texture. I kept turning it round and round in my hands admiring every bit. It is a preview of what the jacket will be, and I’m glad to say I couldn’t stop looking at it.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to tease you all about the spangle meeting. I know that Tricia took lots of photos and is planning to blog on the process so I don’t want to steal the questers’ thunder. But I will clarify: here’s a picture of Mark, Tricia, Wendy and Geri, Tricia’s mom who was a special guest on Friday, examining images of historical spangles (many times enlarged) on Tricia’s laptop. Tricia’s dad, who was also a special guest for the day, is out of frame photo-documenting the research. They were comparing the silver that Mark has had electroplated with gold and then rolled flat to the historic examples. They weren’t entirely happy, so Mark is getting more silver and fine-tuning the process. We don’t have a little heap of spangles, and I’m sorry if I misled you to thinking we were at that point, but we are a big step closer to figuring this out.

Thanks to Carolyn H for bringing some concerns to my attention. Many lacers are worried that we will give up on the lace because the whole process is sliding later and later into the spring. I’m afraid I don’t have a carved-in-stone road map of how the rest of the project is going to unfold. On the other hand, I didn’t have one so far and we’ve made a remarkable, fantastic amount of progress. Lots of our assumptions coming in were guesses, including how long it would take to create the jacket. I feel confident that our estimate of person-hours will hold up, but what was less definable (and still is) was how many months it would take to put in that many person-hours.

All of which to say, I posted a list of possible sessions for the spring/early summer. I avoided Mothers’ and Fathers’ Day, and Memorial Day, thinking folks would have other plans. I threw a bunch of other weekends up on the wall to see what would stick. If none of those weekends work for you, don’t assume you can’t come. Assume, instead, that I don’t know what would be most convenient. Send me a list of dates. Maybe there are half a dozen embroiderers/lacers who think the perfect Mothers’ Day would be to spend a long weekend indulging their favorite hobby. I’m flexible, and will adapt to further the mission.

Several times already we’ve endured setbacks and/or delays. All (the linen in customs, the development of Gilt Sylke Twist, the long wait for the second set of colors of GST, the search for appropriate metal threads, etc) have caused us to rethink, regroup, refocus. None have derailed the project, or even delayed it very much. If all of a sudden no volunteers wanted to work on it anymore (perish the thought) we would regroup and forge ahead with a different game plan. We can’t stop now, it’s too late, and besides, this jacket wants to be made. It’s out of our hands.

We also, right now, don’t have an immovable drop-dead date by which we’ll have to abandon the spangle quest. I know the delays are really frustrating, but we’re nowhere near the point of going to our spangle back-up plan (yup, there is one). If we ever get there, we’ll go to the back-up plan and begin lace production right away. This jacket wants to have lace.

So please don’t worry. If you have an idea or a question or a concern, please let me know. jhall@plimoth.org This will all work out, not the way we thought at first, I’m sure, but how we can best make it work for everybody.

Here’s a fun picture. The bag and book come from Wendy’s collection. She got the bag first and found directions for how to make it, or something so similar they must be related, in this book. Pretty neat.

Lace sample arrived from Bryce W.

Several lacers have asked this question – when you send back the sample, we only need 3 repeats of the lace motif, that is 3 scallops of the lace, not 3 of the gold + silver repeat, or 6 scallops overall.

I had an update from Mark yesterday. He’s been busy, traveling to different places to seek help from other skilled metalworkers. Next step is to confer with Tricia and Wendy regarding how much or how little the current trial looks like the original spangles (the teardrop shaped kind). He thinks it is possible that we’ll be ready to make lace at the end of March. The living history exhibits will be open again by then. We’ll all know more after the Spangle Questers have met, hopefully on Friday.

Both Robbin and Wendy answered my call for more information on spangles on bobbins. See Robbin’s comment on yesterday’s post. Wendy emailed me with pictures; her note is below.

Jill,
I have attached two photos for the “Spangles” discussion.
They show lace bobbins from my collection ( I have been collecting tools for over 25 years) with 2 spangles that Mark made! I thought it would help to give a sense of scale.

The book Lace and Bobbins by T. L. Huetson first published in the USA in 1973 has several chapters devoted to the lace bobbin – the definition given in the book is as follows:

“ The purpose of these spangles was threefold: they added a little extra weight to the bobbins so that as they hung down on the pillow the thread had a little tension; bobbins not being used at a particular moment were pushed away to either side of the pillow and the spangle prevented them from rolling back and getting in the way of the other bobbins the worker was using; and they helped the bobbins to grip in the spool of the bobbin winder when they were being wound with thread”

In the world of bobbin collecting there are a wide variety of types and styles – some of which are; wooden, bone, carved, inlaid, bead inlaid, church window and inscribed. Inscriptions include names, engagements, sentiments and executions. Bobbins with certain types of spangles are highly sought after. An example would be a bobbin with a “Kitty Fisher”, a grey colored bead with white dots that have blue centers thought to resemble the eyes of the famous actress. The large bead in the center of the circle of beads is sometimes referred to as a “pompadour”. The square cut beads on either side of the center bead are often “square cut”, they help to prevent the bobbin from moving about when not being used.

Hope this helps!

Wendy

Thanks to both for helping a great deal.