To enter, send me an email at tricia@alum.mit.edu and put JCS YEAR in the subject line. Send the email before midnight on Dec 27th EST to be entered.
I hope the holidays were good for you all!
Tricia
Then add your name and mailing address to the body of the message. Send the email before midnight EST on Dec 26th to be entered.
Tricia
If you are interested in a copy, send me an email at tricia@alum.mit.edu with WAISTCOAT in the subject line. Put your name and mailing address in the body of the message and send it to me before midnight EST on Dec 25th.
Tricia
There is a mix of fashion, textiles and embroideries in this book and they are all backed up by stories of the families and the textile's place in that family.
If you are interested in today's book, send me an email to tricia@alum.mit.edu with FASHIONING in the subject line.
Send your name and mailing address and send it by midnight EST on Dec 24th.
Tricia
If you are interested in a notecard, send me an email at tricia@alum.mit.edu and put WHITEWORK in the subject line. Then you name and mailing address in the bulk of the message.
Send it to me before midnight EST on Dec 23rd!
Tricia
If you are interested, send me an email to tricia@alum.mit.edu and put in the subject line: JCS Christmas
Send me your name and mailing address in the body of the message and send it before midnight EST on December 22nd.
Good Luck!
Tricia
I am giving away a copy of this book this season to someone! To get in on this giveaway, send me an email at tricia@alum.mit.edu
Put in the subject line: WYREDRAWERS
Then in the bulk of the message add your name and mailing address so I can ship it right away if your email is picked randomly. You can enter until midnight EST on December 21st.
Good Luck!
Tricia
If you want to enter the giveaway, send me an email at tricia@alum.mit.edu
Subject line: Witney Sampler
Body of email: Your name and mailing address
Send me that note before midnight EST of Dec 20th.
A big thank you to Rebecca Scott from Witney Antiques for giving me these notecards for the giveaway. Visit the interview I did with her this fall about her 2023 exhibit of the Elizabeth Hall suite of 17th century embroidery.
If you are interested in this giveaway, send me an email at tricia@alum.mit.edu
Put in the subject: Butterfly
In the body of the message: Add your name and mailing address so if I pick your email I can send it right out.
Send your email before Midnight EST on December 19th to be entered!
Subject Line: A Schoolgirl's Work
Body of Message: Your name and mailing address
Entries are accepted until Midnight EST on December 18th.
Most of the samplers in this volume are American and for the Spencer Museum of Art. It was written by Barb Adams and Alma Allen who are well known textile designers working mainly in quilt art and primitives, including embroidery. They (and I) love the folk art feel of early American samplers like the one on the cover with the naive rendering of a basket of flowers.
Tricia
So I have quite a few of these to giveaway and there will be lots of winners in January who find a little something in the mail. These are a close up of a 17th century band sampler.
There are several samplers with this band on them known and so they likely have some relationship of a teacher between them.
If you want to be entered into the drawing:
Send me an email at tricia@alum.mit.edu and include:
Subject Line: Three Ladies Sampler
Body of Message: Your name and address
Entries are accepted until Midnight EST on December 17th.
If you haven't downloaded the pattern yet - it is here on my Thinkific Site. There are a few kits left as well
Today's giveaway is a set of six 2023 Just Cross Stitch issues! If you are interested in this group, there are a few rules to make it easy for me to pick you:
Send me an email at tricia@alum.mit.edu. Include:
Subject Line: Just Cross Stitch 2023
Body of Message: Your name and mailing address
Entries are accepted until Midnight EST on December 16th.
Tricia
This is the cover art for the Winter 2023 issue - I think it can be found at Barns and Noble and I am going out for my copy today. You can also read the story at this link.
They came to Janet's studio months ago and did really amazing bright photography of her earlier work as well as the four original embroidered caskets that Janet has completed. It is a really nice story to read and she was so wonderful to mention me and my classes that got her started.
Tricia
I have finally done it and joined the world of FlossTube. It wasn't that I didn't want to - that was just the time dedicated to my kids and robot team. And truthfully there wasn't a space in my house to film anything without some chaos walking by and disrupting me. Who wants to watch me talk about embroidery and hear "MOM!" in the background. And my husband looses me in the house all the time and either texts me to come down from my office while I am out at some appointment (didn't you know I wasn't home?!) or stands at the top or bottom of staircases yelling "Trish??" when he needs something. Not conducive to recording without frustration.
Finally in the Fall it has been quiet as all the kids graduated so no team anymore. We cleared out and sold the parts and suddenly I realized that the area we would film robot videos was perfect for me to film things that have been on my mind. So I asked for a 'youtube studio' for my birthday. That meant a dedicated set up where the equipment was decent and not used for anything else and I could do overthead tutorials with out the camera hitting me in the face or show things, etc. My oldest son is a total camera nerd and so he jumped at the chance. We mom's know how to get what we want done. He spent weeks doing it and teaching me how to run stuff/testing.
Now there was a little ulterior motive. The wall now is blank as the robot banners have been removed and my husband was making a lot of noise about it being returned to the dude pad he was envisioning. And all I saw was a huge wall for samplers. It needs painting from robot damage so there is a quilt hanging on our former booth stand right now. But I think he is loosing the war. He replaced the TV across from my studio last week in a move of defiance. But he needs small victories. So you all have to watch these so I have the justification to permanently hang samplers.
Well, I added in the idea of a good outdoor microphone that would allow me to record while on the move. I am always traveling to a museum or seeing a collection or something related to manufacturing for embroidery and I thought many of you would like to come on my trips. Years ago I ran three special subject tours to see 17th century embroidery related to the jackets and caskets. They were absolutely amazing but the seats were limited. After covid, it has been harder to get into collections with groups of people as museums seem to still be on the conservative end of gatherings. And the recent EGA conference in Boston was plagued by covid passed in the classrooms. So maybe right now - being a little bird on my shoulder might be fun for some!
So I am announcing my first "Travel with Tricia" Flosstube on my newly redesigned YouTube Channel. There are some dozen in the pipeline right now filmed on location and today I am on the train to another location.
The first one has some introduction on my stitching journey and goals of my video series before I launch into a virtual visit for everyone to the 400th Anniversary of the Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers Exhibition at GuildHall. It was a mind-blowing array of gold thread embroidery and not only did I film - the Master of the company encouraged me to do so. So if you can't make it to London before the recently extended exhibition closes on December 31st, get a cup of tea and watch! And subscribe as more is coming...
Have you ever started to come up for air and look around and realize it is weeks later? I came back from the UK on Halloween and it has been a whirlwind of work. Pack a Frostings Box and ship hundreds (there are a few left with no box - I am running out of boxes). Endlessly pack and ship the yummy Christmas Baubles ornament kit for all of you getting a little Christmas ornament fun out of your system. And boxes and boxes of the Witney catalogs have gone out the door. I think everyone has gotten the message that this is a special book and will soon be out of print. And all the while I was madly writing and filming the Historic Sampler Design Course so several lessons will be up and running when it starts in two days. I am particularly proud of the course so far. It will be more than everyone is bargaining for and so I am quite happy with it. And that wasn't all - but those surprises are for later.
So I came up for a gulp of air to see what else is going on in the stitching world and saw that Katie Strachan (The Queen of Pale is my name for her - stitching - she is a master of light colors) has a new course out to go with her first foray into teaching (The Elizabethan Valentine - which I think has sold out more than once). It's called the Queen Anne's Pyn Pillow and it contrasts a shinny silver background with lovely silk shaded flowers. How absolutely yummy! She had a new color of gilt sylke twist made for it and I luckily got a tube before she slurped it all up for her course.
The description of the class is here and then you can go to her shop page and register for it. I heard it is getting close to sold out so if you love it - jump on it. Can you imagine a shadow box with this pillow in it? Scrumptious. I think I would put it near my computer with a note that said 'when exhausted and need to feel like a queen - break glass and rest thy royal head'. Well I know it isn't big enough but we can dream of such fantastical things when working too hard. I think we should beg Katie for some video of it moving. Maybe it has been in her popular Flosstube series but I have been so heads down in my own morass that I missed it. If so - can someone put it in the comments so I can find it. I absolutely know this piece sparkles when moved.
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| I was so excited that pieces were photographed in macro so we could really see what was going on in the work. |
It has been a very busy two weeks getting the Frostings Box out the door and back from a trip to Ireland and off to the UK. I am here in Oxford ready for a visit to the annual Witney Antiques Exhibit and very excited! I warmed up today visiting the burial site of Martha Edlin right after getting out of Heathrow and then a quick nap and hours in the Ashmolean Museum looking at 17th century embroidery.
If you have been following the Witney Antiques Instagram you may be seeing some of the outstanding pieces that are in the exhibit and the associated book coming out for the exhibit.
I will report back soon on the exhibit which runs from now until Nov 18th daily (email to let them know you are coming) and the hotly anticipated book.
I have gotten a few emails inquiring if I will be having the book in my shop. Initially I didn't think so, but Access Commodities called yesterday to let me know that they will be able to get the book in and I will be taking preorders for the book as soon as pricing is figured out. You can always call Witney and purchase one as well if you don't want to wait a few more weeks.
Tricia
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| Screenshot from Witney Antiques Instagram of a pristine casket! |
A new free needlework nibble pattern has been posted on my teaching site. Get in and download it. The ornament is 4 inches in diameter and uses sampler stitches combined with five types of gilt die stamped spangles that I have sourced and a really fantastic twisted gilt trim made from bullion and check that is twisted around a wire.
Each of these materials are available in the store as well as an all-in-one stitching kit (I have a limited number of them available). One of the spangles can be seen below - they are super cool!
I love getting emails with photos of the finished caskets! It can certainly brighten my day to see such a monumental amount of work finished (and make all this work to get here worthwhile on my part).
Josephine Wootton has been showing us progress on her flat top casket with doors for years on the NING site for the class and it is so cool to see it all together.
Her first friezes were posted in late 2017 so it has been a long journey to get to all the embroidery. Jo said that she used designs from the original Cabinet of Curiosities course and mixed the ones she liked together on the panels. She worked it all in Split Stitch on 40 count linen (it must glow!). She laughed and said she was getting a little tired of the technique when she worked the back so the design is a bit more sparse. I think we can give her a pass on that! The casket is just beautiful. I love how she has embroidered on the drawer fronts as well - and you can see several of the small projects from the Cabinet of Curiosities as well in the drawers! What a heirloom for her!
She said she is now off to work on the Double Casket she has!
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| Friezes finished in 2017 |
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| The front and top of Josephine Wootton's Casket |
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| Josephine Wootton's Casket with old man fall pruning on the left side |
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| Josephine Wootton's Casket right side with a woman holding a flower |
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| Josephine Wootton's Casket with an amazing marbled paper that matches the purple and pink |
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| Josephine Wootton's Casket inside with embroidered doors |
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| Back of Josephine Wootton's Casket |
Deborah Zibrik has just sent me fabulous photos of her finished Five Senses Double Casket to post. Over the moon with the results!
I had to zoom into the photos to look at the silver trim closer and realized immediately it wasn't a purchased trim but had been handmade by Deborah and so asked her the story behind it:
The needle lace trim was made with a crochet hook – was single crochet on either 3 or 7 stitches to get the needed width and then made as long as required. The sterling thread is a really high quality vintage metallic thread ( almost like a passing thread) purchased several years ago in Amsterdam. - DZ
Deborah sent me some of this luscious vintage thread to play with and it is just lovely and has a wonderful patina. I just love it when people add their own panashe to their caskets with layers of stories. I really recommend them being written down on the bottom of the casket or as a note in a secret drawer to preserve it for the future. Can you imagine a descendent or museum in the future finding that note to realize the personal story behind just the trim!
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| Inside the handmade vintage silver trim changes its design |
For my caskets I was in Venice this summer and visited the last hand gold beater. You can bet I purchased the gold I was watching and filming being made into leaf. I will use it to gild the feet of my casket and will have to put that story somewhere on the box. I have many stories of how the parts were made and the wonderful people involved. Gotta start writing more of them and sticking them in drawers.
If you are on the private class site (NING) there are several caskets being shown that are getting closer to competition and it is getting exciting to see them come together. Hopefully in the next year I can post a few of them.
Tricia
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| Some of the pages of motifs in the course showing the different historic sampler styles treated |
Yea!! I have been able to launch a new online course that I have been working on it for many months and am very happy with it. It's another 'Tricia course' where it has so many layers that you might go back to it for years.
I taught this back about twenty years ago in person using only Dutch motifs and it was very well liked. But now I have expanded it greatly and found a way to put a modern spin on it to make it so much more useful. Not only is it a system of layouts with historic reference material in the pdf (also on pintrest) to see how all samplers conform to these easy layouts, but also a step-by-step design methodology. And then there is the source material. Loads of source material. There are 100+ pages of motifs and alphabets culled from samplers, mostly my collection, which span many major classes of samplers from Europe, UK, and the US. Think 10 crammed pages of quaker motifs for example.
The original course taught how to cut and paste motifs on graph paper to get your result. But this is a major upgrade. I have been working with Ursa software for months to provide the pages of motifs in formats that students can download and use in either the mac, windows or iPad version of their popular charting software. So there will be videos on how to use the software (you buy separate if you want - if not - cut and paste). But it is really reasonable - less than $20 on an iPad, which I really prefer as using the pencil is great.
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| Mobistitch interface on the iPad allows you to upload my graphs and pick and choose motifs for a new design |
Videos on the design process and how to fix common issues, how to balance whitespace, dense motifs, etc. Then selecting and balancing color and thoughts on how to select counted stitches for things like band samplers (12 pages of bands included). Lessons have mini-design projects to try out concepts and you can upload a picuture to NING to get some feedback if wanted in the course group. And I will go over non-rectangular samplers and other 3-D projects as an advanced topic.
See the full course description here
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| Examples of design work from the inspiration, methods and mistakes are provided |
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| Sampler designs in process are shown to highlight design problems that came up and how they were solved |
I forgot to blog about the summer sale running on the Thistle Threads website! This is the last week of the sale - 20% off a large selection of threads and kits. The sale ends midnight EST on August 18th. If there were thread types you have wanted to try - this is a good time to get some.
I will then be off to take my youngest to college. Cue the Kleenex! Next week is wisdom teeth so I will have a few last days being Dr. Mom and sitting on the couch watching cartoons and the movie Draft Day while he recovers. Empty nesting is going to seem like such cold turkey for us after having dozens of people in the house every weekend for fourteen years. I certainly will have more time for stitching!
Tricia
It was a very busy May for me with two graduations flanking a big trip to Europe I took to document gold thread making and silk velvets. Those types of trips end up paying dividends for years with new threads, understanding, relationships, papers, and lectures spinning out of them. My cameras and notepads are full and the boxes of threads are already arriving. So while it might be really annoying to plan your purchases a little or wait an extra few days/weeks for packages to arrive, there are huge benefits to me getting out there.
I was also able to spend a day at a collection in the UK investigating many pieces of 17th century embroidery I haven't seen before but have been on my research list. And there have been many other productive things I have been up to! I wrote an enormous article on Martha Edlin for publication and I am more than super excited about that. Can't wait until it is in print and I can start talking more about that work.
And another out-of-the-blue request came in that I was able to squeeze in before I left for a family trip to Africa to celebrate the graduations. I am going to be a guest voice on a museum audio guide!!
I am always looking for good YouTube or other documentaries on PBS to watch while I work putting threads into kits or embroidering for instructions. Yesterday I came upon a nice 2.5 hour documentary on YouTube I thought I would pass on.
I love seeing artisans who make things be profiled. You get to appreciate the work that goes into their craft and understand why something is valued (or should be valued). It also serves as a top level documentation of their processes.
For some reason, Business Insider has been doing this for a long time with documentary crews going to different parts of the world to record the 'last of'. Their series is called "Still Standing" and this is the playlist of amazing traditional crafts and their stories of the people keeping the tradition alive as well as documenting the process.
Tracy Hall in the UK has finished her Harmony Casket and it is just wonderful! It is always fantastic to see the pieces finished and hear the stories and sense of accomplishment from the students in these classes. Their pieces will be long time family heirlooms!
Look at the super cute shoes and how well Harmony is worked on the top. At first I thought I was seeing a picture of my example. Her finishing is just so crisp too!
Congratulations Tracy! She is now working on a double casket - it is hard when you get hooked!
I don't normally get emails from detectives every day - but my inbox had an unusual request this week. A police detective from the Newburyport Police Department contacted me about a cold case he was trying to bring back and solve.
Way back in 2014 as I was working on geneology regarding a set of samplers from Newbury and Newburyport with the curator of the Museum of Old Newbury, I brought out of my folder a picture of a 1820 sampler by Lydia Comb Bartlett to show him. It was a listing off Ebay. He was stunned and upset and immediately rushed to the object files.
The sampler was owned by the museum and had been in storage. Now I had just shown him that it had been recently sold on Ebay. Yes, it was missing. I had also tracked it to a 2011 auction where a better picture was held. It was reported stolen and unfortunately didn't rise to the level of investigation at the time or as the detective said, it fell though the cracks.
So the detective contacted me to have me use my knowledge of the sampler field as well as Newbury samplers to help them generate leads. I have already turned over several as well as notified many who come across collections and large amounts of pictorial data on samplers. The major sampler dealers are now on the look out. But he asked if I would put the call out on blogs so many eyes will be checking as well. The sampler was purchased by someone innocent, not knowing that the sampler was missing from a museum. And it is pretty clear that the sellers did not know that the sampler was museum property too. It is very easy for antique material to get back into the market without being noticed and passing hands quickly. That is why major auction houses and buyers above a certain amount are keen to know the provenance of objects and that is often listed going back into the 19th century on auction listings. Few people want to buy something that is ill gotten.
If you know the whereabouts of this sampler. You can contact:
Joshua Tierney
Newburyport Police Department
(978)462-4411 EXT. 1066
Travel has returned with a vengeance this year. I thought 2022 was stacked with events but this year hasn't let up. We had a stretch of a month with a robot competition every weekend we had to fly to as soon as my youngest son recovered from his brain injury from concussions (we are all still recovering from that trauma). This has been followed by travel regarding admitted student days and now the World Championship is just around the corner. Then work trips regarding textiles, two graduations to host and a family trip. On top of it my robotics team which is disbanding gets one last hurrah! We have been invited to compete in the off-season PanAsia Tournament in Australia this summer. And the kids decided to go! So we will be dragging the robot stuff (somehow) to Sydney and then traveling in a pack around Australia for a few weeks before they all move into their colleges.
So I have looked at the calendar and chosen all the periods where I could ship in volume for a few weeks and posted them on the shop.
April 4-14th
May 9th-16th
August 1-18th
As always, if you make an order in between, I will do my best to fill it that week and if I can't, I will let you know. But for obvious reasons, I can't post my exact out of town dates.
I will be doing some amazing work travel late spring - visiting some new production places in Italy and visiting old friends to cook up new threads. Those trips always result in a few years of amazing things we all get to enjoy.
I am still hoping for a Frostings Box this year, but production of threads for it stopped for many months because of the Coronation and I am sure the professional embroiderers are now stitching 24/7. Suddenly discussion of thread back-production has restarted. I have boxed what I have and in this batch is something I have been working on since the Plimoth Jacket to get back into production. I seriously thought about just keeping it all for myself as it has been so hard won.
I am still on track to introduce my completely revamped Sampler Design course in a few months. I have been busy constructing units on design, filming shorts, and charting motifs. I have several other smaller courses in development but until all the threads show up, I am waiting to talk about them. And I am testing some licensing agreement ideas with a major museum right now in the hopes that I can find a way to put some of my popular historical lectures online through my teaching site with ticketed views. It has taken me six months to finally get someone in the dept to listen to the idea and agree to estimate a proposal. Cross our fingers!
Robin and Holly have published the second half of their blog on the Lord Chancellor's Burse with more of their story and lots of really wonderful pictures. There is quite a bit of context about many of the burses that are known and their larger research project which included a summer 2022 workshop on gold thread manufacture and embroidery I ran with Robin at CMA.
There is a new book out on the 23rd of March that will become one of those 'rare library' books almost immediately. There are many interesting facets of the book set to mention - many storylines. But first, some pictures and video of the unboxing of this massive 2 volume set covering furniture and embroidery.
Earlier this year I worked with Textile Conservator Robin Hanson at the Cleveland Museum of Art on a gold threads workshop for the American Institute of Conservation. One of the absolutely amazing artifacts we pulled out for the workshop, and had inspired Robin to contact me, was a Lord Chancellor's Burse. She and colleague Holly Witchey, Adjunct Professor of the Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University have started a blog about this object with many close pictures of the amazing embroidery. It is worth a read into the background of this piece!
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| Lord Chancellor’s Burse (Purse) with Royal Cypher and Coat of Arms of George III, 1760–1801. England. Red silk velvet, silk embroidery, goldwork, pearls, jet, sequins, pendant tassels; 78 x 50 x 5 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade, 1916.1366 |
