Another question we had was how the lace was applied to the jacket and what happened at corners when the lace had to change direction (think front edge corners).

Well, the lace is whipped down with a white thread in a very fast and crude fashion.  Susan and I joked that we would need to replicate the haphazard way it was done – maybe enlisting someone who couldn’t sew.
Was the lace applied by the wearer herself?  Maybe.  When the lace turned around the corner of the front of the jacket, it was eased in place.  No folds at all.  Just a small amount of bunching of the straight edge to help the lace turn the corner.   This was consistent with a nightcap in the MET collection that I had studied earlier this summer.  The lace was whipped into place on the internal edge of the cuff on this nightcap and the join was rough as I saw on the jacket.  On the jacket, the lace edge was whipped to the front of the jacket, on the linen edge.

As we talked further, I asked Susan if more was known about the Laton jacket.  Certainly the portrait and jacket survived and ended up together.  Were there any contemporary family papers, an account book perhaps that survived?  Sadly, no she said.  The pieces had surfaced in the early century with auction houses and no papers have been found.  There are so many questions we have about the commissioning of
jackets and price that one good account book could give us answers.  I also told her that if we had a price for the embroidery or jacket we could make all kinds of calculations based on our work to give order
of magnitude answers to so many questions.  Again, the day put ideas in our heads of info we needed to  be on the watch for in the future.  I put it out there for all of you reading – if you come upon any of
this – let me know!

Tricia

We’ve got a lot going on this weekend (OK, how many times have you heard me say that?). But we really do.

Aside from working with us, and her several day jobs, Tricia has also been working with the Metropolitan Museum in NY on a exhibition of 16th-17th century embroidery which will open in December of this year.

This exhibition will include a video of some of our volunteer embroiderers and lace makers actually doing some of this kind of embroidery. So in addition to the 11 embroiderers and one lace maker working in the office today, we also have Melinda, assistant curator at the MET, and Han, videographer from Bard College filming and asking questions and doing all sorts of things – including, in Melinda’s case, a curlique of the gold embroidery.

Penny caught her at work, and there is Tricia in the background photographing her contribution. I, of course, forgot my camera at home.