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!!

1. Are you going to Celebration of Needlework in Nashua, NH May 2 – 5? Would you like to stop in Plymouth coming or going to stitch on the jacket? We’re having “shoulder sessions” the couple of days before and after. Call me [508-746-1622 X 8119] or email jhall@plimoth.org to sign up.

2. Thank you to everyone who weighed in on the Mystery of Melanie Anne’s grandmother’s embroideries. I love starting conversations here that continue in the comments. I’m looking forward to unveiling the forum so we can have even more conversations.

3. Speaking of conversations in the comments, I should have clarified what I meant by our experimenting with using reeds as stiffeners in stays (corsets). We have used marsh reeds, the sort native to this area, that maybe perhaps the early colonists might have used if they made or repaired stays. (That, and getting reeds native to England that might have come over in already-sewn stays was Too Much.) I have heard of using basketry reeds to stiffen stays as a substitute for the unavailable whalebone. I tried that a few years ago, but the reed we got came in a coil. I cut it to size and filled the channels, but it kept shifting and curling. I was told to soak it to take the curl out, and I tried, BUT it still curled. How to describe…it didn’t curl against or away from the body of the wearer, but sideways. It did not look good. I gave up on the basketry reed.

4. Picture! Catherine from Kansas came to a session in January with her friend Deb. The weather they left at home was so cold we joked that they’d had a beach vacation in Plymouth. This is one of the exquisite pieces Catherine brought for show & tell.

I have spring and summer session dates for you. All are Friday to Monday weekends.

March 28 – March 31

April 11 – April 14

May 16 – May 19

May 30 – June 2

June 20 – June 23
We will be making lace at some of these sessions, but I’m not sure yet if we’ll be ready to do that March 28. We will have two pillows available at a time. If any lacers would like to reserve a pillow for a day or a weekend, please email me at jhall@plimoth.org I’m scheduling the lacers carefully so we won’t overbook the pillows. Coming for part of a session is an option; let me know what you’re thinking.

For all of these sessions we will be in the Colonial Wardrobe office. The physical space will limit the number of embroiderers we can comfortably host. Sign up for all or part of a session by emailing me at jhall@plimoth.org I don’t know how many more sessions I’ll be scheduling after these, so if you’ve been thinking about joining us “sometime” – now is the time. I look forward to hearing from you. Also, a reminder, if you’ve participated in a session before, you don’t need to wait for a scheduled session to come back. You can come any day or days that work for you; it is always nice to have the embroidery going on along with the other work of the department.

Here’s a picture of a cornflower for today. Here are some pictures of real cornflowers.

All of the scheduled sessions are full or nearly so. I have sent an email with the schedule to all the embroiderers I’m expecting in August. If you didn’t receive a personal email with the August schedule, it means I don’t know you want to come. Please get in touch right away. jhall@plimoth.org By the end of the week I’ll be sending out confirmations for the September & October sessions. If you’re signed up for any session and you can’t make it after all, please let me know as soon as possible; perhaps another embroiderer can take your place. And yes, we’ll shortly be scheduling sessions for 2008 (2008!).

Carol left this question in the comments:

So do you have any idea what they meant by mingled?
Was it one color in the warp and another in the weft?
Woven from threads that were space dyed?

I have one idea what may have been meant by mingled, but there certainly could be other explanations. Gervase Markham’s 1615 book The English Housewife outlined all the skills a woman needed to run a large manor house, including “cookery, banqueting-stuff, distillation, perfumes, wool, hemp, flax, dairies, brewing, baking, and all other things belonging to a household.” This volume is a wealth of information for modern historians.

In the textiles chapter, Markham explains how, after the wool is dyed but before it is spun, the housewife should mix her colors together. He says that “the best medley” is composed of two parts dark color wool and one part light color wool. He explains that all the wool should be thoroughly carded “till you see it perfectly and undistinctly mixed together, and that indeed it is become one entire colour of divers without spots.”

The blended wool is then spun and woven into cloth. Perhaps the resulting fabric was called mingled color, like in the inventory. Markham doesn’t say.

In the 17^th century a kind of silk cloth with one color warp and a different color weft was called “changeable taffeta”; it is still made in the 21^st century. It seems to change color as the cloth moves. It’s possible that mingled color meant this kind of cloth, though, or something entirely different.

Thanks for asking Carol, and please if you have any wonderings, leave questions in the comments or email me at jhall@plimoth.org. Sometimes I don’t know what would be interesting to write about and I welcome your suggestions.

Wow. The days are really flying by right now. I didn’t realize I missed four days posting. Thank you to the two readers who commented on the red petticoat post; red certainly was an extremely desirable and expensive color to dye, and it is very likely those facts contributed to the higher value assigned to the red petticoat. I have read A Perfect Red by Amy Butler Greenfield, and can second the recommendation; it’s a fascinating read.

The second embroidery session begins in just over a week. Here is our schedule, developed based on the experiences of the first session and with the feedback of those embroiderers (also known as ‘guinea pigs’).

Wednesday, August 8

9:00 meet at Plimoth Plantation in the Accomack meeting room

short point to perfection stitching instruction, then stitching until 1:00

1:00 – 2:00 lunch, with a presentation by Kathleen Curtin, author of Giving Thanks, a history and cookbook of Thanksgiving foods

2:00 – 6:00 stitching

6:00 supper, followed by a class with a special embroidery project from Tokens & Trifles

Thursday, August 9

9:00 – 1:00 stitching

1:00 – 2:00 lunch

2:00 – 5:00 stitching

5:00 – 6:00 show & tell – please bring some special projects or antique embroideries you’d like to share. Last session seeing each other’s treasures was a special treat I hadn’t foreseen

after dinner behind-the-scenes tour of the Colonial Wardrobe & Textiles department

Friday, August 10

9:00 – 1:00 stitching

1:00 – 2:00 lunch

2:00 – 5:00 stitching OR see the museum and shopping OR early departure to aid travel plans

Based on what we learned last time, this time we’re not going to have set breaks but instead we’ll have coffee & snacks available both morning and afternoon and individual stitchers will please take a break when it suits their rhythm and work. I’ve lengthened the stitching sessions based on feedback from the first bee, but I’m aware that everyone has their own threshold for stitching. If you hit the wall at 3:30, don’t keep going. Please take that opportunity to shop or see the museum exhibits, or other attractions in Plymouth. We’re going to try to keep the workroom for working during the stitching hours, though, so we’ll move the socializing out onto the deck during those times. Also based on feedback from last time we’ll be having music playing during the working sessions.

The next session is September 13-16. We still have a couple of spots left, so if you’re available, please let me know at jhall@plimoth.org.