Published January 29, 2010
in General.
While Susan was stitching on the coif; Denise, Wendy and I were busy talking about the outfit that Elizabeth would wear. It was mind boggling to get past the huge job of the jacket and realize that in order to see it on someone in a way that did it justice, we would have to outfit the woman with a ton of well researched and hand made pieces.
Good gosh – will this project ever end?
(Ok, you know some of us have thought that in moments of weakness). ‘Nuf of that – onto decisions again. So the silk for the skirt is chosen and seen here and then the shift is discussed and the lace/collar. We went around and around that decision for multiple meetings. And if you remember – we went searching for an authentic ruff too. Here was one of the plantations falling bands against the jacket. While the handmade lace is lovely, it isn’t quite right and so we decided against it. We also decided that a falling band covered too much.
Tricia
Published January 28, 2010
in General.
Ok – so you can imagine that as Faith was being assembled that it was tempting, very tempting to put her on. Most of us couldn’t even come close to any amount of that and so if we allowed ourselves the pleasure of laying the sleeve over our arm, it was just enough. While we did it the first time for pure fun and voyeurism, the eyebrows immediately went up as it taught us something.
Faith is heavy. In fact, her weight tripled with the silk and gold thread applied. So when you placed an unfinished sleeve on your arm it was weighted down. And the stiffness of the fabric was so apparent. Your mind immediately goes to all the portraits and those funny looking arm positions. Well dearie – that is all that they could do. I know that first hand. We saw it in spades when Elizabeth wore it. It wasn’t that she was trying to be careful with the embroidery – she couldn’t bend her arms!
And another thing we realized was that the natural skew of the fabric on the bias was gone with all the ‘pinning’ of the stitching. So when an arm bends, the fabric accommodates the bend by stretching along the bias. The body of the sleeve can’t do that any more at all. So all the stress gets transferred to the seams.
Hence the plaited braid. It wasn’t for pretty decoration at all. You had to have something on the seams to prevent the sleeve from ripping apart when you moved your arm. It all made sense, because I tell ya – stitching that over the seam is HARD.
Susan from Down Under was there at the right time and got to ‘wear’ the sleeve too. LUCKY her – I am sure she will carry the memory of that one for awhile.
Tricia
Published January 27, 2010
in General.
You may have noticed from yesterday’s post that there was writing, in fact signatures, in the seams of one of the pictures. You would be right! Most of the lead team had a chance to sign the seams where there was blank space. Two did not as they weren’t ever close to it at the time that the jacket was available. I wish we would have thought of this earlier and had many of the stitchers sign too – but we can’t think of everything ahead! We most likely wouldn’t have had space as there was other writing to be done. Jill earlier said in a post that there was a hex put on it to keep those who might consider dismantling it from that unfortunate act. But in seriousness, there is a story written in the seams. Most of the reason for the writings is to make sure that history doesn’t misinterpret the time that this piece was made. When we get around to the huge task of taking the 500 construction pictures and writing that part of the story – I’ll share that ’story’ with you.
But for now you can enjoy seeing Mark put his John Hancock in the piece.
Tricia
Published January 26, 2010
in General.
Back in October while we were constructing the jacket, we got an email from an Australian stitcher. She said that she would be in the States for an unexpected trip and was going to be as close as New York City and couldn’t stand the thought of being so close…
So we invited Susan Davis and her lovely husband to come up to Boston somehow and we would show her the jacket and have her work on the coif. Emails with directions and travel options flew back and forth and we arrived at a plan. So on the appointed day, they took a really early high-speed train called Acella to downtown Boston. I was waiting there and picked them up – we drove the hour south to Plimoth Wardrobe and met Wendy who drove the 45 minutes up from the location of the jacket construction with the partially done piece. Susan was wowed by the jacket and got to work on the coif. I think we were there a little over an hour working – we did a ‘Chevy Chase’ of the village for good measure and then back north to make their train back to NYC. Phew.
I couldn’t show you all the pictures then as it would have been too much of a preview before the reveal. ha ha. Susan also brought her own sample kit piece and some other beautiful work of hers to share.
That was amazing. Our first and only stitcher from Down Under. That is a LONG way to come to contribute to this project! Thank you Susan!
Tricia
Published January 25, 2010
in General.
We have been doing alot of publicity about the project since the jacket was revealed. I did two interviews this week alone and a few last week. We have a press release that if you worked on the project and want to give out to your local paper – we would be happy to send you. We gave them out to those who came to the reveal and there have been many examples of local pick up. I just got one a few days ago that I will share. Devon Thein was one of our expert lace makers and has a wonderful dry humor. You can see the evidence of that in the article in her local paper. Devon sent them the photo of her ‘wearing the jacket’ that was taken that night to use for the article. Hilarious!
Tricia
Published January 23, 2010
in General.
Kristina reminds me so much of myself when I was a young stitcher. I hope she continues to foster her love of the needle and maybe we are looking at the next teacher of embroidery growing in front of our eyes. When I was 12, I won a statewide talent competition with a large piece of hardanger. It was what happened just after that event which cemented my love of embroidery and my interest in teaching. My local guild invited me to teach hardanger to a sit-and-stitch group. Teaching adults at 12 was a very unique experience and it got the ball rolling.
So back to Buffalo. Kristina got really excited about the coif and stitching oes onto it. We had to wrestle the needle from her and she kept coming back to it. Near the end of the first day, she came up to me and asked what that gold stitch was. Plaited Braid. She REALLY wanted to know how to do it. So I dug out the instructions and gave her a Japanese needle and some thread and sent her home that night with them to try. Wouldn’t you know – she came back the next day with plaited braid on a cloth and we put her to work on the coils on the coif! So she would work the gold and the others would sit on the other corner as she worked and spangle. Kristina got two coils done that day before her mother called her home for her homework.
Another thing she brought that day was a project she had been working on. She had been adapting a historic pattern out of Piecework Magazine to make a set of needlework accessories. I have taught design many times and can tell you that this girl has ‘got it’. She was thinking of using it for her Senior Project. We encouraged her to do so and the guild asked her to teach the project for them. She is going to in May. You can see the finished set and her in-process design work. Congratulations!
Seems a little bird also told a certain magazine editor about her too – you just might see her in an upcoming publication…
Tricia
Published January 22, 2010
in General.
The great thing about the Buffalo group is that they are a community. When a class is going on there are others there – usually cooking for those in class. (The food is always abundant and good). So we had plenty of people who weren’t painting who could section themselves off in a corner and work on the coif. We had dozens of stitchers who got wrapped up in the glitter! I was able to give a lecture that night after dinner about the jacket project to bring things full circle.
There was one particular stitcher that I was thrilled to have work on it – Kristina. Kristina is now a senior in high school. Her grandmother and mother are active members of the guild so she comes from great lineage. When I was out there a few years ago and led a brainstorming session about the jacket project, Kristina was in the audience as a 13 year old. When I was talking about schemes to get people involved, it was from the perspective of having them come stitch. Kristina piped up and said, “how about keeping those of us who can’t come involved?” When I mused that maybe we should do some sort of newsletter to guilds on progress, she was the one who broke me out of the ‘old school thinking’ and said: “BLOG IT”. That was the moment that this blog was born. I can’t even begin to thank her. She doesn’t really know how much influence on the future of embroidery she has already had. To date, our web statistics show that over 40,000 different people have visited the blog over the three years worldwide. 40,000 people learning about the stitches and threads and how interesting embroidery can be. FORTY THOUSAND.
Kristina – we all thank you. This project would not have been the tremendously special thing it is without your idea and the courage to voice it.
Tricia
Published January 21, 2010
in General.
So off to Buffalo we went with the coif and paint brushes. It was a blast – Betsy enjoyed the event so much as it paralleled the original history so closely – teaching to those who also did embroidery. On our part, we loved it. We found that our hand skills translated pretty well and a significant number in class finished the piece and bought more wood to paint on. I had so much fun. I was teaching the Eliza Cousins sampler and its motifs lent itself to the technique so well – so I grabbed the tracing for the sampler embroidery and transferred it to my boxes. So I have matching pieces now – I had to do two as my mom needed one. Since I never get the chance to take classes (my last class was over four years ago) – when I do I really make hay, staying focused and getting as much done as I can. We called Ed and had him prepare a few things out of his inventory for the next day to paint on (you need a special surface and Ed had made the boxes for the class).
I hope that other embroidery groups will have Betsy in to teach this fantastic related art form. Her lectures are facinating and it really is easier to do than I thought (I have never painted before). Her aim is to make sure that this technique that she just resurected doesn’t die out again. Sounds familiar to alot of us!
Tricia
Published January 20, 2010
in General.
I was in Buffalo to teach with Betsy Krieg Salm. I met Betsy through decorative arts shows over 10 years ago. I was taken with her technique of ink and watercolor on figured woods and soon learned that what she was doing was close to my own work – understanding the materials and techniques of a period of school girl art. As Betsy taught me, girls academies up and down the East Coast taught a selection of decorative arts as part of their education. Both embroidery through sampler making and this technique of painting on wood was taught. Museums are full of fantastic examples of this work – beautifully executed but with the slightly naive nature that draws us to samplers. If you look at dated examples it is easy to see the parallel to the embroidery of the same academies. I was smitten immediately.
I must have visited Betsy for at least six shows before I got up the courage to ask her if she would do a project with me. She was immediately enthusiastic – apparently she had wanted to get involved with the needlework community as we have a shared history. So we chose a sampler from one of the schools and decided to interpret it in our mediums. This is how the May Your Hands and Shady Bower courses came about. In the course, the stitchers each got a handmade version of the box that Betsy made as her interpretation. I can tell you that those who were able to take this special event were tremendously lucky and thrilled with her work. The last time we did this course was at Buffalo and Betsy joined me to lecture on the subject. The guild was so interested that they asked us to come back again – this time to flip the order a bit – Betsy would teach us to paint and I would lecture and do a smaller related project.
I show the original project below. This will be an online course starting in July. Betsy has stopped making this box for the class. You can imagine as a creative artist that stitching 200 copies of the same sampler would get to you. But hopefully we will have other items of her work available to the students who are interested.
Below you also see some of the pieces she brought to the class to show and sell. Her work is breathtaking. Betsy has started to focus more on teaching the technique and took two years off to write the history of this school girl art. I am thrilled to be receiving an advance copy of the book in a few weeks to review – I’ll let you know when it goes on sale.
Tricia
P.S. Betsy told me last night that she is half done with a bunch of scissors stands and threadwinders for me to offer! I am thrilled. She has had two arm injuries in the last two years and requires surgery on her wrist soon. Let’s wish her well!
Published January 19, 2010
in General.
I have so much material that I need to catch up on in the blog. I still haven’t blogged much of September, October, November and most of December! Can you believe it! And there were big things going down these early weeks of January. So let’s get back to some of the earlier story – something from November.
I was invited to teach again in Buffalo. What is significant about this is that the last time I was teaching for The Examplary Needle Guild it was only a few days after I had originally met Jill and the Plimoth staff. I had asked if I could discuss the project idea and hold a brainstorming with the Guild that weekend. The goals were to understand how the embroidery community would like to be involved. So many of the concepts of how the project worked can trace its way back to the stitchers in this group.
Therefore, I was thrilled to be able to fly in with the coif in my hands and invite them to become official participants in the project. My hosts were Barb and Ed Miller – a wonderful couple and both accomplished in the needlework field. If you have ever received a wooden threadwinder, box, ruler, threadstick, etc. in a project – it may have been made by Ed as part of his company Miller Carpentry Creations. He and Barb took early retirement and run a business serving several very noted needlework teachers. I have been thrilled to have many of his creations for some of my classes too. We had a lovely dinner at their home and got the coif out to work on. Barb and her daughter, Heidi, worked on it as well as my friend and collaborator Betsy Krieg Salm.
While I was there, Ed showed me a few of his new designs for retail sale. I was totally smitten with his new pumpkin thread keeper. It is made from bubinga and is orange naturally. I had to come home with several. Maybe you need one too!
Tricia
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