Thanks, Rosemary, for catching my error in the dates for the August session. The formal session is 8 August to 11 August, a Friday to Monday weekend. However, Tricia is planning to be at Plimoth all week, from Monday 4 August to Friday 8 August (that’s what I was thinking of, I think) working on the gold. Anyone is welcome to come work for a day or more that week, running into the weekend session or not. Please let me know what you’d like to do so we can plan accordingly jhall@plimoth.org

Sunday Astrida was planning to leave about 3:00 pm to get home to New Hampshire in time for her husband to participate in one of his favorite hobbies. She stayed late to finish a rose; here she is pleased and proud, and a little tired too, with still a 2-3 hour drive ahead of her. She left around 5, I think, but not before Mr Astrida called wondering was she almost home? Not so much. We thank him for his patience and understanding – that rose couldn’t wait.

And here’s JoAnn, working furiously away to finish her last motif before leaving. Here are Wendy and Linda encouraging her work, and here’s JoAnn, also looking pleased and a little tired. JoAnn stitched a pink, a motif that’s taking most stitchers between 7 – 10 hours to do. It was the last big motif on this piece that we have directions for (we’re waiting for marching orders on the borage, the bird & the fancy worms) and the big blank space there was really bugging Wendy for the last couple of weekends. Must get that pink done. And JoAnn did! There is one pink left on the jacket, a “split” one that’s divided by the line where one of the gussets will go.

This is Tricia’s third and final installment on a day in the life of a jacket embroiderer.

Once people are settled in and feel more comfortable, we get their frames into a stitching station. Here you see me helping my mom set a frame in a floor stand. There weren’t any stands available that are perfect for this work, so we are using these. We have to put shims in and tighten the lug nuts well. Some people, like Wendy here, prefer to work in the hand in a more comfortable chair. I prefer the wonderful leather couch that is in the room too. The wardrobe department has wonderful light. Lamps aren’t even needed.

Here I am working with Ellen who wanted to stitch a worm. We have out the piece she will work on and the book of pictures. We are looking at the picture to determine what color that particular worm was and if we can see it exactly on the jacket. We found it – light blue was the decision – and Ellen went off to work on it.

Not all our time is spent stitching. We have to eat too. A lovely lunch was provided yet again by Marcia for us. We ate that day pretty fast so I could give a lecture on the project and historical background to the stitchers. We always try to find some fun things like this to interject into the weekend. Every weekend is different as whatever we have just learned is being discussed in the room and added to by the participants. Sometimes I lecture, there is always some show and tell, or maybe our current status on research of the materials or prototypes we have to show each other. I find that really fun. We always try to have Karin, the collections curator, take the new stitchers down into the collection storage to show them the samplers that Plimoth owns. They are wonderful. As you have read in the blog, they also need serious conservation. We show the participants the samplers to help get the word out about the conservation fund. Stitchers can be a generous lot. *see my note below – jmh

Here you see Karin talking about the objects in the storage area and my mom looking at a 19th century sampler by a Standish descendant. Very pretty. The collection is a hike from the Wardrobe department, a chance to stretch the legs and get a little fresh air. When the plantation is open, and you are walking around like this, you NEVER know what you will see. One day I was talking to a stitcher outside and two of the Native staff from the Wampanoag homesite were coming off break, dressed in traditional skins. It was fun to stand there and talk to them about the embroidery project and look at their own embellished clothing (what there was of it). Another day, we were embroidering and a colonial interpreter on lunch came into the department asking loudly “does anyone know how to use a fax machine???” We busted up into laughter. Stitchers often take five and go off to see the artisans in the Craft Center and to partake of the goodies in the gift shop there. Of course, a full show and tell is required once they return with their goodies so the rest of us make sure we don’t miss an opportunity for new stash.

Tricia

*Tricia scooped me a tiny bit, but I will soon be posting about two very generous donations which will make the conservation of one of these samplers – the “EC” – a reality.

A few days ago, Robbin did a great job of describing a typical session in the comments but I would like to add to her commentary with a photo journal of the last session. This journal is courtesy of my father, Bill Wilson, an amateur photographer. He was accompanying my mother for the day while she stitched on the jacket. They had come from Michigan to see the grandkids, but since my mother was my stitching mentor and an avid embroiderer, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work on the jacket.

During the session, we all laughed a lot at the sheer number of photos my dad took (350 to be exact!), but through his zealous need to document, we have some insights into the workings of our day that we can share with those of you thinking of coming out and joining us. Bear with me over a few blogs and keep your eyes out in the background for little visual nuggets. I have carefully chosen photos since I had great material to work with!

Typically we start around 9 am with breakfast nibbles and everyone rolling in and finding the wardrobe department which is housed in this building along a road from the main parking lot. The nibbles are hand baked by Marcia from the food department and I typically skip breakfast and drive all the way from Boston to see what the delicious offering of the day is. I do blame Marcia whole heartedly for my need to go on a diet this year! Jill and the staff welcome the stitchers and help them find stations to sit at. Depending on the traffic (Boston is notorious), I roll in before 10 am and everyone is ready to get started as introductions have been made. For those who are new to the project, we give them a doodle cloth in a hoop and ask them to work about an inch of reverse chain followed by a small bud shape in detached buttonhole. This helps to break the ice and allows myself and Wendy to look at their technique and give tips to improve the look. Typical hints are the need to twist their needle a bit to retain twist while working or to put more or less stitches in a row of detached buttonhole to help match others on the jacket. Sometimes we find that a stitcher is more comfortable with a different stitch such as trellis or ceylon and we move them to work on motifs that use those stitches.

Once the doodle cloths are underway, we start working with stitchers that are returning to find them a jacket frame to work on and decide on a motif to start with. Here, Rosemary and I are talking about a sleeve and what needs to be done on it and discussing color variations to the motif from the instruction book. Once our returning stitchers have some starting direction and are off to the races, we go back to some basic information.

Here I am reading from the instruction book. We have a set of instructions that are used by each stitcher for reference. It contains basic info such as how to fill out the record sheet, don’t eat in the room, etc. It also has different views of the jacket at the V&A we are working from to help identify what color to use as there are many variations, we have discovered. Then there are directions for the stitch types followed by detailed directions and pictures of every motif on the jacket being worked.

More tomorrow

Tricia

I was planning to address some of the questions in the recent comments, but Robbin has done an admirable and really thorough job. Thanks, Robbin. I was a little swamped, with opening and then a come-to-my-house holiday in the same weekend.

The bottom line on the session schedules is – we’re flexible. I am scheduling the lacers carefully to make sure that on each lacer’s first day one of our two mentors/moderators/detail people is able to come. Robbin and Carolyn have generously offered to help us all stay on the same page and keep the lace looking as much like one lacer made it as is possible. Other than knowing what your first day will be, we’re open to people coming in early, leaving early, skipping a day, coming later, what have you. If you have specific concerns, just let me know. If you’d like to come for only part of a weekend, let me know so I can try to get another lacer to work the pillow the other days. But really, not to worry. These weekends are supposed to be a special treat for you to devote uninterrupted time to work you love to do and enjoy a community of people working together to accomplish a major goal. Be easy.

Hey, we have another toy! I mean tool. But aren’t they the same, really? Rich has set up a forum for us. Look at the top right column for the link, and register and start a conversation. Thanks to Kar who asked for this opportunity, and thanks to Rich who jumped on the idea and made it happen. I wrote to him this afternoon, that if anyone had told me last year that by now I’d be blogging and have a forum and doing all these other techno-things I’m doing I simply wouldn’t have believed it. It’s good to learn new things.

I’m looking forward to Friday and Saturday, when Carolyn and Robbin will be setting things up for beginning the lace. I should have some handsome pictures, too. The hurdles are falling one by one.

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!!