Fashioned from Nature - The Victoria and Albert Museum

While I was in London last week, I took the opportunity to see the Fashioned with Nature exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  Watch the slick trailer below.  If you have a chance to see it, there are more reasons than you think to see it!

The exhibition is on two floors in the fashion galleries and concerns the use of materials from nature (including oil) and the impact on the planet.  A good set of message as textile waste is actually the biggest waste stream in the world and has become a huge issue in fashion/textile engineering (I just gave a talk at a wonderful MFA Boston symposium regarding textile industry that was a mix of history, fashion and high tech all in the same room.  We all said the conference should have been recorded as it was terrific!)

But there is an entire case of 17th century embroidered objects on the first floor - and inside it was a big surprise:  the prototype for the Plimoth Jacket!!  It has only been in storage for years.   So if you would like to see it live - it is on display until January 27th, 2019.  There is a nightcap, glove, and purse, jacket arm, several bed covers as well as a few other objects in the case.  Well worth a look as there are so many yummies in the British Galleries as well!


I couldn't resist taking a selfie with Ms. 1359-1900.  When I came into the exhibit - I said "oh hello miss, I haven't seen you in awhile, so lovely to see you again".  Brings back sweet memories of the start of this huge adventure.

While I was there, I picked up some prizes for an upcoming contest as well.... hmmmm.

Tricia

New Classes in Planning Stages

I have been fielding a few worried email from folks who are interested in some of the upcoming

One of the yummy things to be investigated in the course

classes and thought that they may have missed the sign up time.  You haven't yet!  Time frames have slipped a bit between lots of different things - getting stuff manufactured, availability of the graphic artist, and just life stuff.

But there is rapid progress on many fronts - just not all visible to everyone.  I expect the whitework course to be available for sign ups around January 1st (here's crossing our fingers!).  The sweet bag course wasn't planned until late 2019-2020 so it is in various stages of planning and material 'getting'.

Getting ready for a course has many angles.  Since mine are more history/workshop based and not a single project, there is quite a bit of background info that needs to be put together and other people's schedules impact it greatly.  I have decided to use Pintrest to provide the extra images of historic pieces that are weblinks to try to solve the problem of museums changing their sites and thus links going inactive.  That has been hard to keep up with.  Pintrest at least keeps a permanent copy of the picture so if the link goes dead, you can at least see what was discussed.

I have now three large boards built for the Whitework course - on 'secret settings' at the moment.  And I have been to a few museums in the last few months to see specific pieces to answer some questions.  Of course then there were a few samplers that came on sale and I got them - changing some of my plans.  And then there are the diagrams and the 'math' and the few course projects.  And very important - working on the material supply.  When you need 200-300 spools of a particular thread (multiplied by X threads), you fast find out that a few of them don't have enough on the cone.  So there are piles of thread spooled all over the place and the ones that are not complete are competing with slots in the dyeing schedule.  This is the most often need for delay with six months being the most often next spot open in the pots.

In Lyon at a Passamentary Factory discussing
how some things are made

All of September was spent honing down the list of threads needed for the Sweet Bag and Flemish Casket courses and getting really specific and making prototypes as I was headed to Europe to visit factories.  That was well worth it and I can't fully go into the mind explosion that trip was - so much was accomplished.  I visited four companies and samples and prototypes and schedules and technical problems to solve all are on the deck.  Nothing is as fast as you and I would want, but it is always worth waiting for something really yummy!  And on top of it, I had the chance to visit many of the sweet bags I wanted to be inspired from and take notes and pictures of issues I had identified.  As one colleague says:  "chance happens for a prepared mind"  This certainly was the case as capabilities that wouldn't have been noted at some facilities were noted on this round as I was in the midst of trying to solve certain 'I want that material' problems.  And you can see many historic pieces, but when you are really active in making - you need to go back and see them again to figure out how they handled certain issues, your mind wasn't prepared the first time!

Then a big time sink I didn't know about was the talks I would be giving in Sept/Oct and the time they would take up.  Giving a talk at a conference, depending on its length, can take about a week full time preparing.  I had four since Sept 1 - all new and on different subjects.  The exciting thing is that I will be able to share the one for tomorrow on NING with those who have been in my classes - look for it in about a week.  It concerns how reproduction materials are made and I think will be of great interest to everyone as - in a not planned moment - the week before I needed to build the talk, I was in Europe and could film exactly what I needed.

Meanwhile, I finished the tent stitch casket (need to film putting it together) and am getting close to the end of the Harmony casket.  But that takes precedence to the samples for the Whitework course.  Going to Europe, being out of the country much of the summer and having my son go to England for college - well that took about eight weeks out of my schedule when I was planning on when the Whitework course would be ready to take students.  That part is life....

CASKET EMBROIDERY FINISHED!

I know I have been really quiet of late - that's because I was so busy vacationing in far off parts of the world, getting a kid off to college (it is really hard to send a kid overseas - a lot more than buying a mini-fridge!), and working!

One of the things I have been working so hard on is the Five Senses Tent Stitch Casket Stitch-Along. And I am soooo excited - I am done with it!!  Here are all the pieces roughly lined up with how they will wrap around the casket.  That big back panel was just killer and I spent so much time on it.  I even took the thing around the world again - working on it in New Zealand, Bora Bora, and Sweden.  I started it in Sweden two years ago and it has been to France, Greece and Italy too.  Quite the traveled casket!

Can't waste any time - too much to do!

There are some statistics too - 181 tubes of soie paris.  That is how much it took.  Now not all of those tubes are completely empty as some colors didn't run out.  But tons of greens and blues as you can imagine.

Finished embroidery for a double casket

Now you can imagine how excited I got laying them all on the floor to see it all and my mind started running towards - OK - let's glue it on!!  Then immediate deflation.  It will be weeks before that can even happen - ARG.

I am on a speeding train at the moment (hence no blogging).  When I got back from an extra long vacation (we took kids far away and out of much internet as a last big family break) I had to go full time into manufacturing and packaging Frostings.  Half of them are out the door as well as the Gold Master Class kits.  Then sending kid off to London.

Then started two months of keynote talks.  How do I get myself into these?? It started with a 3 hr one on mentoring robotics.  The next three are in rapid succession and span topics from reproduction materials to the revitalization of the high-tech textile industry in Massachusetts for a meeting of industry leaders.   In other words - nothing overlaps!  So I have been heads down in powerpoint for weeks with gasps of air stitching this casket.

Tomorrow I turn 50 and when my family effectively couldn't put a party together without my help (really...why do I need to make every decision - just jump out from behind a couch with some random assortment of friends and get a cake and light it on fire!).  I told them to bag it because I just don't have the bandwidth to plan my own party and I certainly don't want to clean the house for it.  :-)  And yea, the 25th anniversary three weeks ago was not exactly an event either.  We grabbed a bite during soccer practice.

Tuesday I leave for London-Lyon-Paris-London-Nottingham-London.  It is a long delayed trip to see manufacturers of our yummy threads and deal with the next several years of planning on what to make.  Finally with my older team gone and the younger team having many years to grow, I can take the time to do a big business trip.  And it gives me an excuse to see my son in school.  And as luck had it (haven't had the chance to tell the stories) - the other captain of the team is there with him too.  I am so looking forward to it, even thought this is just chaos.

But I thought I would come out of the shell for a few minutes and blog the finish of the casket.  When I get back - the last of the threads will be in my house for another huge Frostings shipment to the next group of people.  I will be getting ready for the Winterthur symposium.  And THEN I can finish this casket!

Collection of 17th Century Embroidery for Sale

This week is antiques in New Hampshire week, part of the Americana circuit that includes NYC in January and thus a good point to go looking for embroideries.  After the sampler, quilt, rug rich auction earlier this week, this weekend has a collection for sale at Northeast Auctions that is rich in 17th century embroideries including at least one casket that was featured in the Cabinet of Curiosities course.

The Susan Mackay and Peter Field Collection is up for sale on August 18th.  Some of the embroideries are below.  The grouping starts at Lot 128 and there are over 20 of them, including a stump work mirror frame that is described in its title as in "attic condition" which I think is the funniest way of saying 'more than a bit rough':

Folk Art Auction Today - Sunday, August 12th

Skinner Auction Sunday August 12, 2018

Skinner Auction Sunday August 12, 2018

There is a great auction of an amazing folk art collection here in Boston today and there are many, many embroidered samplers and memorials if you are in the market to buy or to look and see.  Most are New England samplers with a few of the highly valued New Hampshire and Rhode Island ones.

If you love folk art, there is something in every category from pottery, furniture, paper-cutwork, paintings, toys, etc.  At the very least it is fun to look through the online catalog!

Autopsy of the Montenegria Stitch

Many years ago, Amy Mitten did the very difficult thing of figuring out the Montenegria Stitch, a stitch popular on 17th century samplers, and how to work it around every type of direction change possible - and published a little book on it.  If you have ever come across this challenge - you know what a dilemma it is.

Montenegria Stitch - challenging with that long leg

You may have come upon this stitch with its long leg that goes over two graph squares when working a sampler, any modern designer only includes it as a linear band - a straight line that divides an area.  But on 17th century pieces, it was used for bands as you would use cross stitch today - things like this graph:

A typical area where Montenegria Stitch issued in 17th century pieces

So just look at that pansy.  How would you approach that????  There are right angles, there are diagonals that to into a straight path, there are verticals that move into a diagonal.  This is a one-way street to the UFO pile because you can't figure out how to do it!

That is why Amy's little book was FANTASTIC.  At first it is hard to imagine a book that only covers one stitch - but when you realize that as you move from a downward diagonal to a vertical - you just look that up that case in the book and it shows you the stitch progression to do it.  And then as you approach the next transition, you look up that case - and there is it!  Figured out for you.  To be honest - if you like band samplers from the 17th century - it is a MUST in your library.  And yes, it takes 128 pages to diagram out all the conditions you come across.  This version also does the reversible method as well (OMG) so it has been expanded since the first edition that I use all the time.

The book on one of my whitework samplers for the course

This book is spiral bound to make it a work horse while stitching.  But it has been out of print for a VERY long time.  Amy has decided under popular protest to reprint it this summer.  But because it is on special paper (it holds up to constant use) and spiral bound, she isn't going to do it 'on risk' - meaning she is taking preorders and will hold only a small number of copies after printing (I asked) for a few late comers/mistakes in shipping.  So if you want it - YOU NEED TO ORDER IT NOW.  It is going to print soon and will ship in mid July.

Why am I promoting this???  

Well, I am teaching the big whitework course, starting later this year.  It will be band samplers with the reticella and other cutwork on it.  There will be a design your own portion of the course.  So I can't anticipate every direction change that you might need for each stitch you decide to use.  And I am NOT going to plagiarize her book and republish all the information in it.  I considered including the book in the course but I have no idea how many people will be in it and how many years it will run - so ordering 100-500 books is just not feasible for me today - especially with the materials I am having manufactured.  So I am ENCOURAGING people who are thinking of the class who don't already have the book to get it.  One band stitched in montenegria stitch with this book and you will scream "WHY DOESN'T THIS EXIST FOR OTHER STITCHES???".

There are a handful of stitches that have these long arms where the stitch progression goes over more than one graph square.  They are, to coin a phrase "a bitch" to work on 17th century samplers.  And they never used cross stitch for those bands, I am sorry to tell you.  In one of the samplers I am including in the course, I used a different one that was original to the piece and it took me a full month to figure out the transitions and to graph them for the instructions.

So Amy's book - totally worth it.

Some of you might say - well, Darlene O'Stein's The Proper Stitch is the bible of these stitches.  Yes it is.  But she only diagrammed out 1-2 cases for each stitch.  While it is a wonderful book and is a fantastic resource, to have diagrammed out all the cases for these types of stitches it would have been 500 pages and thus they weren't and so it leaves the geometry yoga to you.  That's where Amy's book came in to do one of the most frequent stitches.  I have done about 40% of the cases of Alternating Double Backstitch for the Whitework course.  It takes FOREVER.  So save yourself the agony and just get Amy's book.

5000 meters of silk purl

Wow.  Did you hear that earthquake?  That was a manufacturer falling collectively out of their chair as that email got read.

Yup - I just ordered 5250 meters of silk wrapped purl for the Harmony with Nature Casket class that I expect to start offering next year as well as sending over pictures of the piece in process to show the hard workers at the purling machine who make the threads!  I heard that the purling machine is 'open' at the moment and so I decided to get it busy again before someone else claims the time.

That's a lot of silk purl and it will take a LONG time to make it.

I will get back to the robot story soonish.  I am under the gun at the moment stitching to get ahead on lessons while I am gone as well as packaging items for a new frostings box with my teen summer labor AND getting ready to disappear on vacation for weeks.  So I expect to blog during vacation when I am in down moments.

A section of back frieze under stitching at the moment