Published August 30, 2009
in General.
If you explore Laura’s website (Extreme Costuming), you will realize that she can easily draft such a complex pattern as that on her new jacket. While she enjoys embroidery (addicted is the latest description), she is quite talented as a sketch artist and drafts-person. Having had to do it from a photo set of the 1359-1900 jacket, I understand what a true talent she has. I think it was the second session she attended when she showed me her ‘notebook’ of drafted patterns from 17th century embroideries. I was stunned. It was so perfect that it was publishable right then and there. I encouraged her to do so, knowing that many stitchers are afraid of drafting their own patterns.
She gifted me a copy of her book (a treasure!!) and then she took the idea to heart and started drafting coif and nightcap patterns. They are now available at Reconstructing History. I have a set and they are lovely. Use the search box and enter “embroidery pattern” and you will find a long list of them. Just what you would have expected to have gotten from your local draftsman if you were an amateur embroiderer of the 17th century. If you are wondering what to do with your beautiful GST threads – check them out!
Tricia
Published August 28, 2009
in General.
I am so thrilled that this project has inspired so many to ‘up their game’ and start major projects or explore new techniques and materials. This is how historic embroidery techniques are going to survive and also morph into modern works and innovations (I shall blog about this at some date).
Laura says that she was inspired by working on the jacket project to start a second jacket because she became enamored of the spangles and glitz. I knew something was ‘up’ a month ago as she started ordering vast quantities of black gilt sylke twist, Japanese needles and real gold threads. I was wondering, was it a coif perhaps? Nope – a blackwork jacket! FANTASTIC!
Laura was the one who suggested to us that we keep good records and so I expect nothing less of her too. At the point when she had 100+ hours in, she had outlined the gussets, shoulder wings, and half a sleeve.
Here are some of her first photos of the work. She says that this photo represents 36 hours of work.
Published August 25, 2009
in General.
If you aren’t readers of the Needleprint Blog, you should know about a rare opportunity to see an embroidered jacket in person. On Thursday 27th August (this Thursday) there will be the chance to see the beautiful Maidstone Jacket with its wonderful all over design of red peascods at an evening workshop at Maidstone Museum, Kent between 16.30 and 20.30. The speaker will be Mary Brooks author of English Embroidery and she will be talking on early embroidery. This will be followed by a hands-on workshop. Apparently there are just 3 places remaining.
I have thought that getting on a plane might be an option that I would love to take – unfortunately, I am on summer holiday and can’t get to England to join this special day. If you are there already – go!
If you can’t get to England or get a place in this lecture, check out Laura Mellin’s website on Extreme Costuming. You will recognize Laura from the session photographs. Laura worked a reproduction of the Maidstone jacket a few years ago, posting it while we were doing research for the Plimoth Jacket. I contacted Laura and invited her to join us for our first stitching session. She was kind enough to come up and wear her jacket for our inspiration. Laura herself was inspired to become one of the very regular Plimoth stitchers. Her skills grew tremendously during the project and she has accomplished much since our first meeting. I will be blogging about some of these tangents in the next week – Including her progress on a NEW Jacket which is very, very exciting.
Enjoy some pictures of Laura working on the Plimoth Jacket at our first session. To see the original jacket and a detail of it – visit the Needleprint Blog.
Published August 24, 2009
in General.
One of the things I am realizing that I am missing about not having sessions anymore is seeing what others are stitching. Carli’s creations are some of the ones I miss the most as her creative mind was going gangbusters near the end of our sessions. While we would have lunch, we would give a mini-talk about historic embroidery. One of the things we talked about were caskets which had 3-D gardens. One in particular had little lambs which stood up on the top of the casket. We could tell that Carli’s wheels were turning when she saw it.
The next session she came back with a half done lamb and at the last session, the lamb was finished and had its own bed of grass. The cores of these pieces are felt. The lamb is covered in detached buttonhole in gilt sylke twist. The grass bed is of many different silk fibers. Totally cool. I added a picture of her with her lamb for scale.
Tricia
Published August 22, 2009
in General.
The current issue of Stitch magazine has a long article about the Jacket Project written by Jill Hall and myself. It discusses the challenges to pulling off a project of this magnitude. It also has a bunch of great photos of the project. If you don’t know, Stitch is one of two beautiful magazines published by the Embroiderers’ Guild in England. They also own the panel which we used as part of the embroidery pattern for the project.
If you are interested in a copy, it is the August/September 2009 issue (Vol 60). Visit the Embroiderers’ Guild site for the magazine.
Published August 20, 2009
in General.
Jeni finished her description:
“The vines are actually braid which I couched down onto the fabric, I might have tried the method you have done, but again time was the issue. I did add gold chain stitches to give the little tendrils etc that come off the vines, and the veins on the leaves. The spangles were bought, but being so garish gold I sprayed them with gold paint, which dulled them down to a realistic metal finish. The lace was something you specifically mentioned, it was all done on the machine too. I don’t know if you’re familiar with these embroidery machines, but for those who aren’t, you just sew your pattern onto soluble stabiliser. The gold lace was sewn together on a standard machine first, while still attached to the stabiliser as it is easier to handle. The white lace on the collar was made in the same way, and attached to a thin silk gauze for the collar and cuffs.”
I think that this was a wonderful outreach from this project. I am loving how the project has inspired so many people to be creative and to stretch themselves.
Tricia
Published August 18, 2009
in General.
My appeal in the blog was finally heard by Jeni and she sent me more pictures and explanation of her project. I have been trying a new email address for her and hopefully we will get connected again in a two way conversation! I fear that my emails are going to her spam folder with this new address too. Ah the joys of email! I am still hoping to get some close-ups of the embroidery so we can see how the machine work looks.
Jeni writes: “The jacket is something I admired for a number of years, and as I was only making costumes as a hobby I knew the project would be too time consuming to do by hand. I was speaking to a friend of mine, Ian Chipperfield who is a well respected historical costume maker in England, who pointed me toward this website last summer, and I have been hooked to it ever since!”
“A couple of years ago I left full time work to go back into education to do a degree in costume, so it gave me an opportunity to spend the many hours it was going to take to do this. This project was my final piece for this year, and the poor girl who was going to wear it on the catwalk had to have at least a skirt to go with it! The outfit has all been carefully researched, there are a shift, bodies – made after the style of the effigy stays, an underskirt, top skirt and supportasse as well as the jacket itself.”
“I suppose the jacket was mainly an example of just how good those embroidery machines are. Once you know how to use the software you can make such wonderful things. Each design was traced from a photo of one of your finished panels which had all the designs in full. I scanned the traced pics into the computer and used the software to turn them into programmes, then with a little tweaking they were ready to go. The hardest part was lining them up on the fabric, as some of the flowers sit dangerously close to the other leaves etc. I’m glad you gave us the information on pattern repeats and the great pictures that showed which panels had the patterns mirrored too, it formed an invaluable part of the research.”
Thank you Jeni – I will post the rest of her description of the project in the next post.
Tricia
Published August 16, 2009
in General.
I know this is slightly off topic of the jacket, but sometimes things are so wonderful that you HAVE to talk about them. I get alot of email because of this blog/project. One I received last week from Patricia Richards mentioned in passing that she makes miniatures and that she had recently finished a miniature casket. Well – I had to ask for a picture as caskets are a particular love of mine. Patricia was very gracious to send me some and then allow me to share her amazing accomplishment with you.
She says about it: “it is 1-1/8″ tall. I belong to a miniatures guild and we hold a school each June in Maine. Two years ago one of our master needle artists decided this would be her class project. She brought in lots of photos of caskets and showed us the process and we all designed our own panels. It took me about two years to get them all the way I wanted them and finish it off. One of our expert carpenters made the boxes-the top opens to reveal a mirror and removable tray insert, the two front doors open to reveal 7 functioning drawers. I painted the fronts of my drawers, some have stitched panels for them. The panels on mine are on 72 ct silk gauze. He also made us carrying boxes for them so it makes quite a special piece all finished.”
She continued with more detail “The Guild I belong to works to promote miniatures as an art form and I think projects like this help that mission a lot. The guild is the International Guild of Miniature Artisans and the woman who conceived of and taught the class is Annelle Ferguson-she’s done about 5 of these-all different. Mark Murphy is the man who made the caskets. The project really struck a chord with a lot of us-she held the class a second time this year and members of a petitpointers chat group who couldn’t attend were so taken by it they got another woodworker to make them some caskets so they could try their hand at it as well.”
I went searching and found Annelle’s website. The link here goes direct to the class description for the casket class (the last one was only a few weeks ago!!! IN MAINE… I be kicking myself!). Maybe she will run it again next year if enough of us beg! Thank you Patricia for sharing this with all of us!
Tricia
Patricia's Miniature Casket
Inside the casket
Published August 14, 2009
in General.
Ok, it wasn’t just a lark suggestion that is forcing me to trace the entire jacket again. One of the heart-ache things for us on this project is the construction and the plaited braid. IF you look closely at photos of the Laton jacket, you will find that one of the seams on the arms and the two back side seams as well as gusset seams are over-stitched with plaited braid AFTER the construction.
Yes, now breathe. It is tough enough to do plaited braid and now we have to do it on a seam! Well, we are concerned about alot of things – like will we be able to get through the stacks of linen. When in the construction should we do that embroidery so we don’t have the whole jacket bunched in our hands. (This may be the only time I actually stitch with gloves on as taught by a mentor of mine). Then there is the problem of the embroidery that comes right up to the pattern edge. We have to go over it.
Wendy started a trial with a seam to see how it goes. I have added a bunch of pictures so you can see into the seam too. Not fun, but not the worst ever – she said. But it did convince her that IF we could add a 1/8″ to each side of our pattern pieces when constructing the jacket, it would help tremendously. When sitting there at Panera, we determined that the addition of such an extra amount might work out. But we were concerned a bit about the inked pattern lines showing, etc. Hense the need to trace the jacket again for our muslin to check the ramifications of making the plaited braid on the seams a bit easier. And of course, the inked linen jacket would make a fantastic object to display in the exhibit as we could show what the under drawing looked like. As I do it – I will post the progress so you can learn a bit about tracing huge things. Ugh.
Tricia
Published August 12, 2009
in General.
For the question about non-USA residents – we are pricing the tour as a LAND-ONLY tour so that people resident in England, Europe or anywhere in the world can join the tour. The tour will be led in English as my abilities in other languages is pretty limited and I don’t want to embarrass myself. Everyone is responsible for their own travel arrangements to London for the start of the tour. We welcome all citizens of any countries to join the tour. The more the merrier!
For spouses/partners, we hadn’t considered this yet so I don’t have much to say other than we will consider it now and pass it by the tour agency. Fortunately, the mailing list we are creating through this process will help us gauge this interest later.
In response to the question about those in England already taking small parts of the tour, we have of course thought of that already. First we will have to make our minimum to run the tour. If we make our minimum and near the time frame there are a few open spots on the bus, we will consider this possibility. But first we have to have enough to run the tour in the first place. I certainly hope we do as we will have a great time looking at the pieces together! I really hope that the venture is successful such that we can add our friends who might want to join us for a special day near their home
If you are in either of these categories, please sign up for the info as discussed yesterday so you can be ‘counted’. Either join the mailing list and click “Study Tour” as one of your preferences or re-join and an email will be sent to you from the system that will allow you to add the Study Tour as a preference.
Tricia
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