Tonight I have more pictures from the February 29th embroidery session.

Here is Ellen working a ceylon stitch worm in Gilt Sylke Twist. I love the worms.

And here are Ellen and Wendy looking at two antique samplers Ellen brought for show & tell. The samplers belong to Ellen’s family, and within a few minutes Wendy had found genealogical info about one of the embroiderers on the internet.

We have room for a few more embroiderers and one lacer in the April 11 – 14 session. We’ll also be embroidering and making lace May 16 – 19. If you’d like to join us, please let me know.

Thanks, Cate, for the information on using wood basket staves as a baleen substitute. I think I will look into that a bit more.

We received two pair of gloves from Linda F recently, and a pair of blue stockings from Martha D.

Kathleen Wall, Plimoth Plantation’s Colonial Foodways Manager (which doesn’t begin to capture all she does), attended the 2007 ALHFAM (Association of Living History Farms and Museums) annual conference, which was in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Seems in Santa Fe, they have patron saints for everything, and have plaques, or tiles, or pictures, or MAGNETS honoring these many saints. Kathleen thoughtfully brought us a magnet of St. Rose of Lima, the patron saint of Needleworkers, Embroiders (or Embroiderers) and Quilters, just in case we might need some patronage. I was just delighted – not only by the thought but by the attractive, colorful image. Right now St. Rose is stuck to a metal desk in the office, but next week she’ll move with us over to Accomack. Just in case. Thanks so much, Kathleen.

One sample today – Judy L’s. Laura’s out of town with her family and Kathy suggested I might want to process the sample (Laura’s got a system of filing and recording, and all sorts of efficiency). I decided to take some pictures instead. Here’s Judy’s worm. Don’t you just love the worms?

Here’s a question for you. We have embroidery bees scheduled for August, September and October. We have to skip November; we get kind of busy around here in November, (massive understatement) what with Thanksgiving and all. I’ve been wondering about December. Would anybody be interested in a bee in December, or is it too close to the holidays with all the travel and visiting and other activities? We could skip December too and schedule the next ones for January & February. Let me know.

That’s about it from here today.