Mary asked a couple of days ago if she saw the beginning of a bird in the middle of the back piece.

Tricia started that bird ages ago, but before she got any further she realized we needed better pictures before she could really decipher what was happening there. We moved on to other things, and then when she had better pictures she was already planning her UK trip and thought to wait until she could see the motifs herself, in person.

Well, that has happened too, and last I heard she was almost ready to start work on the instructions for the birds. The original stitching in black may have to come out, I don’t know. As soon as we have something to show I’ll take pictures and share them.

One of the other items on Tricia’s plate right now is preparing to teach on December 12th in NYC. This class is one of the programs associated with the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibit of embroidery at the Bard Graduate Center for the Arts. The full description isn’t posted on the Bard College website yet, but you know it’ll be fabulous. Tricia’s going to do a gallery tour and then a hands-on class. You can get more information from wilson@bgc.bard.edu This exhibit is only scheduled to be up from December 11, 2008 to April 12, 2009, so plan your trip to New York now.

And while you’re planning, I’ve got three intrepid embroiderers signed up for another gold-blitz weekend 11/21 – 24; if you can get to Plymouth for even part of that weekend send me a note: jhall@plimoth.org

The panel at the Embroiderers’ Guild has often been referred to in some texts as a coif. The confusion may have occurred because the dimensions (width and height) are similar to many coifs. But it is a panel. We took a look at the edges and it was obvious that the piece was in its entirety and not cut from something larger. The small amount of linen around it had either nail marks or holes from being stretched on a frame. There was an embroidered stem stitch outline around the four sides and the embroidery appropriately started or ended at the boundaries if the motif was cut by the boundary.

Other details that are different from the jacket: there are less flowers, only nine types instead of the 11 borage being repeated twice) of the jacket. (I had to read this twice, my brain doesn’t move as fast as Tricia’s. The jacket master repeat is 3 x 4, therefore 12 motifs, but there are two borage so only 11 different motifs.) The borage and strawberries are missing. The blue and red flowers (carnation, gillyflower, or cornflower?) on the pieces are different between the two pieces, but not much different in terms of tracing. Just embroidered differently.

The calyx of the foxglove is stitched in silk and not gold. There is a different technique used for the detached pea pod parts, detached buttonhole in silver strip wrapped silk on the jacket and silk buttonhole over a gold thread (return) for the panel. The roses have an extra set of detached petals. Some of the thistles have an extra layer of detached buttonhole. The coiling stem is also a different stitch. On the jacket it is plaited braid whereas on the panel the stitch is ladder with wheat sheath. This stitch is much slower to work than plaited braid and done in two passes. Overall, the panel has a higher level of detail work which is absent from the jacket.

Tricia

As you saw in the picture from yesterday, the panel in the EG collection is quite small. It appeared to me to be the same scale as the jacket, but some further measurements will be made from photographs I took with a ruler at the edge of the mounting. If you remember, our hypothesis is that the same master vine pattern was used for both.

The first thing that struck me was that the petals of the flowers were stuffed, giving them a trapunto-like effect. This isn’t visible in the published photos of the piece. Of course panic set over me – was the jacket also stuffed? My gut said no, as the extra work would have greatly increased the time to finish the piece and we had already seen that some details on the panel had been dropped for the jacket by comparing photographs. When I saw the jacket the next day, it wasn’t stuffed. Phew. I don’t know the material it was stuffed with, but it appeared ecru to white when I saw it peeking out under one damaged petal. Possibly wool? I did really like the effect. I may have to try it.

The stuffing, I think, would have been put under the growing petal as work was being completed. I say this because the fiber wasn’t sticking through the top (as it might if it had been laid down first). Also the reverse chain outline was there and so the petals were embroidered in place. What we don’t know is if a traditional trapunto technique was used – slitting or making a pushed hole in the back and then fiber stuffed in and the hole sewn shut. The panel is mounted, making the back unavailable to view. Considering how difficult it might be to stuff from the back without damaging the buttonhole, I think I will try stuffing as the petal is worked.

Tricia

Before I get into details, I must thank the people who helped me immensely by taking time to host me for the appointments. First, Lynn Szygenda, Senior Curator at the Embroiderers’ Guild and Chris Berry, Past President of the EG.  Chris happened to be down in London on business this week and took time out to join me in the examination of the panel.  Chris is an expert on Tudor embroidery stitches and I was very pleased to finally meet her.  Having more experts at the table examining a piece is fantastic because you can both look at the same detail and debate them.  Sometimes your first conclusion will be wrong or there might be other data that one of you is aware of that can help make a new hypothesis.  Chris volunteers in the collection at the Burrell Collection and has a wealth of knowledge to share.

We had a lot of fun; I had my laptop full of my research photos next to the piece.  Lynn and Chris spent hours poring through the photos, including ones that we had from the V&A of the 1359-1900 jacket which Susan North had provided us with.  We could compare and contrast the
two pieces some.

My second thank you goes to Susan North, Curator of Costume at the V&A.  Susan took a great deal of time to help me move the jackets for photography.  As we discussed and debated what we saw, she would bring out other items to prove her point or to help answer the questions we had jointly proposed.  Susan is working with colleagues to produce a pattern book based on clothing of this period.  While it won’t be completed in time for this project, she and another colleague have been examining the Laton jackets and others (yes they were also on the table) for evidence of construction techniques.  This is the reason Laton was out of the case.  They were very generous to share their thoughts and to show me the evidence on each of the jackets to support it.  Because multiple professionals (embroiderers vs. tailors and/or other professional craftsmen, as well as multiple embroiderers – jmh) were involved in the process of making a jacket, we had a lively debate on which parts were performed by each and how the money/work may have transitioned.  I will comment more on this in a future blog.

I am sorry that I have very little eye candy that I can share with you on the internet from this trip, but here you can see Lynn (back), Chris (foreground) and me with the panel.

Tricia

I’ve only ever seen photos of the panel with no context – I was surprised how small it is. jmh

I got this from Tricia this morning:

I am writing this blog on the plane on my way back to the states from London. What can I say but “WOW”. I’ve been to London before and seen many embroideries in wonderful museums. This time was different, I was able to view the pieces up close that we have been working from since November 2006. It is a significantly different experience to examine period embroidery from a research view, as I normally do, and then from the new perspective of having tried to accurately reproduce the pieces. You come to them with the challenges you faced in organizing the work and having gotten inside the head of the embroiderers who worked on the original. You don’t see the forest anymore, but the leaves on all the trees and immediately the variations between them. You have an enhanced knowledge of it so you aren’t numbed by its sheer beauty, but can take a real critical eye and SEE things.

Before the readers of the blog wonder why we haven’t seen them before, because it certainly should have been the first step in mounting the project, I will explain. Through a series of circumstances, the project has been unfunded and therefore there was never any money to travel. This was my own personal odyssey and tacked onto a trip that I had planned for other reasons.

I spent Wednesday at the Embroiderers’ Guild viewing the panel which we believe was worked by the same workshop as the jacket. Then Thursday at the V&A viewing our jacket, 1359-1900. But I had the biggest surprise of my life, the Margaret Laton jacket had been taken off display and had been unmounted for research for an upcoming book. We placed the two jackets side by side and I took 750 photos. Maybe Jill* will blog about her surprise when I emailed from the storage room frantically hoping that they would get it before I was done. I emailed Wendy too – and she called Jill direct to let her know. A once in a lifetime opportunity to get pictures of the construction and lace before it is remounted. “What do you want to know??” I asked. A flurry of email came back with tons of fantastic questions. Thank god for the mobile devices of today!!

I think I will have easily a week of blogs for you. I so wish I could share the pictures, but I will describe what I learned and saw.

Tricia

*Jill here. My son and I have been playing a sort of (unintentional) roulette game, seeing how late we can get out of bed and still get him on the bus. Earlier this week the phone rang in the middle of the quick-quick-get-your-backpack-and-run routine. It was Wendy. She sounded sleepy. I know I sounded sleepy. She said she’d just opened a message from Tricia “the Laton is unmounted on the table in front of me! What do we want to know? Make sure Jill sees this!” Wendy had found the note about an hour and a half after Tricia sent it, so she wasn’t sure if Tricia was still in the room with the jacket. She sent off a note with what she could think of, then called me, which was very smart, since I never get around to opening emails until about 9:30 or 10, which would’ve been another hour at least. I mentioned as many things as I could think of, fretted that we must be forgetting something, and needlessly, I’m sure, said, tell her to take pictures of everything! “I hope she has extra memory cards,” Wendy replied, then hung up to send off another email. Luckily they both reached Tricia while she was still in with the jacket. 15 minutes later the Boy was on the bus and I was on my way to work, thinking the whole way about what she might be discovering. I can’t wait to see and hear all about it.