March, 2009

After a wonderful day in NYC visiting the Twixt Art and Nature exhibit, Judy was back at work on Friday.  She made great progress on the plaited braid, working about 8 partial coils.  You can see her progress here.  She is also getting quite good at tapering the plaited braid.  She promises that later today she will let me photograph the process of tapering – her secret is a pair of tweezers!  I am sure that there are many of you out there who would like some tips on filling in those awkward spaces.  I have been working on the directions for birds, going back and forth between the photos of the jacket and working it out.  I will be posting those blogs over the next week.

BTW – the Twist Art and Nature exhibit – a joint exhibition between the MET and the Bard Graduate School of the Decorative Arts – runs until April 12th.  If you love 17th century embroidery and have any abilities to get to NYC, you can’t miss it.  Of course there is the lovely embroidered jacket on display and the video which covers this project, but the quality of the pieces on show are amazing.  What is really great to see is how many people are in the exhibit.  It is very busy, I hope this will spur more museums to exhibit their wonderful collections.

Tricia

The gold tendrils are going forward again and growing on the linen.  Judy Laning is here in Boston this week to work on the Jacket.  I will be posting on her progress over the next few days.   She has decided to work on the Left Under Arm, which is one of two pieces that haven’t had almost any gold put on it.  The other is the Right Under Arm – we are saving that one for another dedicated stitcher who is coming to Boston in early April – she will be staying for 10 days to work on the piece.

This is Judy’s progress tonight since she landed at Logan.  Very dedicated!  But tomorrow we both run down to NYC to see the Bard Exhibit and the Jacket they have on display.  So no progress tomorrow night.  Tune in on Friday again!

-Tricia

We have scheduled the first session of 2009.  It will be Friday, March 27th to Monday, March 30th in the Wardrobe Department at Plimoth.  The Plantation will be open for the spring and the department will be finished outfitting the interpreters so there will be space.

We have a set of stitchers who are already signed up but have room for more.  We need a variety of stitching done – silk (trellis stitch and detached buttonhole), gilt sylke twist (detached buttonhole), gold thread (plaited braid, spider web, and reverse chain), as well as sewing on hundreds of oes.  So depending on your favorite technique – drop me (tricia@alum.mit.edu) an email if you would like to come and stitch with us and I can send you more information.

We are over 80% finished with the jacket and about 50% done with the coif/forehead cloth.  So we won’t have very many sessions left to go.  I will be posting the last session dates in the next week so anyone who wants to help can plan to participate.

Tricia