Today we had special guests join us for lunch. Jonny and Shelley spend much of their time caring for the rare breed animals in the 1627 English Village. That brief sentence doesn’t begin to capture all they do (I realize I say that often about the staff here, but it’s always true). They build and mend fences, feed and water, clean pens, train the cattle to walk and stand and greet visitors, and lots of other things. This session’s embroiderers enjoyed talking with them about their work but even better was petting Winter, a baby boy goat. That’s Shelley and Winter.

There were frames enough for Wendy to stitch today. She’s working on the first pansy. Several motifs, pansies included, are not worked identically over the whole jacket. Some of the honeysuckle, for instance, are cream on the inner part of the petals and yellow on the outer parts; on some of them the colors are reversed. Tricia has identified at least four different ways pansies were worked on the jacket, and where on each piece the variations occur. Wendy was working a #3 pansy on the lower jacket back today.

Karin has been embroidering with us, too. Karin is the Curator of Originals for Plimoth Plantation, and has generously made time in her busy schedule to show each session’s embroiderers the samplers in the collection. Here she’s working trellis stitch butterfly bodies (striped!) on the coif. Thanks to Wendy again for all the photos. I left my camera on the computer desk at home.

Believe it or not, we left tonight in the snow. I made sure everyone had the information to find out if Plimoth is closed tomorrow due to weather, but the meteorologists are promising these are just isolated snow showers with no appreciable accumulation. Is it any wonder I’m getting a little paranoid, though?

around here.

Thanks, Jen, for offering to check your photos to see if you saw blue “strawberry” flowers on coives at the MFA when you were here. I’d appreciate the info.

I think Lauren, mj, and others may well be right on with the thoughts about symbolism in the embroidery. It will be fun to look up those references, but I bet we’ll never really know.

I’m also glad to see embroiderers of all ages participating, and hopefully some not-yet-embroiderers will be moved to try it out - whether this style or another.

The exhibit that the jacket will be an honored part of is scheduled to open in May, 2009. When we began we were working with an opening date of summer, 2008 (gasp!) but other elements, like funding, didn’t move along on that schedule. Honestly, I’m just as glad; trying to build an ambitious clothing & accessories-heavy exhibit while making the jacket was not an appetizing prospect. That’s partly why we’ve maintained the original production schedule for the jacket despite the change in the exhibit opening - this way the jacket will be safely finished before we start work on the exhibit….

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, yesterday Wendy joined Kris, Heather, Shaina, and Emily (our winter intern) in the embroidery “studio.” Apparently they had a giggle-filled day, which makes me wonder just what they were up to!

They all joined Karin in the collections storage room to see the samplers. Joining the two 17th century samplers is an early 18th century one which was embroidered by a descendant of one of the Mayflower passengers.

Two of the photos (all courtesy of Wendy again today) show Karin opening the frame of the 18th century sampler (but those fingers look like Shaina’s).

Wendy writes:

This is becoming more interesting by the moment, the colors, the genealogy and the fact that she was stitched to very BAD cardboard ( fortunately not glued as Karin had feared)– she seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she was opened. A very interesting tale indeed and one we will spin out for you over the course of the next few months! Stay tuned for our surprises!

The first picture shows Kris embroidering. Today, Kris and Heather were going to work until late afternoon, then find Heather some real New England seafood for supper. Instead, they packed up by 10 AM and headed out to beat the snow. The SNOW. This makes THREE sessions shortened by weather. Yes, I am taking it personally. Enough already. I have a deadline here!

Speaking of, I’m working on planning sessions in April, May and June. Stay tuned for exact dates. They’ll all be Friday to Monday weekends, as that has proved by far the most popular configuration. By then there’ll be no snow to deal with. I hope.