Embellishing 17th-Century Dress at Plimoth Plantation (and THE JACKET!)

One random afternoon, while wandering around Plimoth Plantation's web site, I noticed something I hadn't before: an advertisement for a 17th Century Dress Embellishment conference weekend. I think there was maybe about a 90 second gap before me finding that and me enrolling, and that's only because I had to pull my card out of my wallet! Ha ha ha! Then came several weeks of waiting, but this past Saturday, at last, the day had arrived. . .



The main focus of the weekend was on 17th century embroidery, and we would be making a small wall hanging using the same techniques used to make The Plimoth Jacket. There were several designs to choose from, but of course, I had to go with the most technically difficult, because it was part of the design used for the jacket! I was lucky enough to already have one of the Plimoth Jacket thread kits in my stash, so I brought that along, and used several colors of that for my wall hanging (along with a coral color that was not in the kit, but is similar to the coral color used in The Jacket).



Much of my embroidery time Saturday was spent trying different techniques for making the detached buttonhole stitch, and learning through trial and error the perfect distance to put between stitches to create something I liked the look of. I did a lot of ripping out stitches, as one always does when learning something new!

We managed to take some of lunch break to pop down to the village!





I love getting to wander into the houses and see how life was in the 1620s. . . I also loved the chickens who wander freely, even into the houses!







Back inside, we saw more demos of 17th century stitches. . .



And we got to see the blacksmith demonstrate how he made the spangles for The Plimoth Jacket!



At the end of Saturday, Plimoth Plantation had organized a wonderful cocktail hour for the attendees, at which they were going to present to us THE JACKET!!! Carrie and I wore tiaras because it was Carrie's birthday! (This picture came out blurry because I had a shaky hand. . . Excitement over The Jacket? Probably!)



They had made a special cocktail for us, called the Pin Cushion! I wish I could remember exactly what was in it. . . I know there was grapefruit something. . . But at any rate, it was delicious - and pink!



And then, The Jacket was about to appear! Here is a picture of me as it was coming out:



Ha ha ha, okay, that's actually girls screaming for The Beatles. . . But it's what I looked like on the inside! And then. . . THE JACKET!!!





I thought they did such a lovely job of making this a real event! The lighting, the music in the background, and a really lovely speech that preceded it. And of course, getting to see it! In person! And on a person!



After the excitement, we found we had worked up an appetite, so Carrie and I headed down to the Plymouth waterfront in search of food. Of course, we had to first take a walk down to see the newly-arrived Mayflower!



And then we had some delicious, giant, stuffed pretzels at Driftwood! I got the veggie pretzel, and it was delicious, but so filling that this is what I took home as leftovers!



After getting some sleep, it was back to Plimoth Plantation again Sunday morning, to see a lace-making demonstration!



After lace-making, there was more embroidery time, and finally, we got to tour the wardrobe department! This involved getting to study The Jacket in daylight, up close and personal! I don't actually know with 100% certainty what I can post for pictures, so until I check on that, here is a picture of the mock-up that was made for the jacket. It used the pattern that was used for the actual jacket, and the same construction techniques, but of course, no embroidery! However, the pattern for the embroidery was all drawn in, so that they could be sure it would work out nicely on the real deal. . .



I had so much fun getting to talk to the people who make and maintain the wardrobe at Plimoth Plantation! We got to see a variety of pieces used throughout the years by the "pilgrims," and ask all kinds of questions. I didn't take any fabulous pictures, being too much absorbed in listening and in poking around, but here are some plants from which dyes would have been obtained in the 17th century. . .



By the end of the weekend, I had a start on my wall hanging, (not as much progress as others, but then, I spent a good amount of time messing around with different stitches and techniques and subsequently ripping and re-stitching things, and I also left a little bit early because I was fairly worn out and wanting to beat the Cape Cod traffic), and also, two thread buttons. I realized I did not take any pictures at the button making demonstration! Rest assured it was another super fun part of the weekend, and I learned to make two different styles of buttons that you see here. (The blue woven button is not quite finished yet, but the one with both blue and red is ready to be popped onto a project of some sort!)



And of course, in between all the crafting and related adventures, I had to make multiple stops into the craft and gift shops!



I have a little collection going of these Oliver Pluff teas from historic sites, so I was happy to add Plimoth Plantation to that. I got the Bohea tea, and had it for breakfast this morning. Delicious! I also have a serious crewel addiction right now (more on that in my next post, I think), so I could not resist this very pretty tree of life kit. And finally, I was so excited to see this relatively newly published Plimoth Plantation knitting book!!! I have the previous book from the 1970s which is mostly words with a few low quality black and white pictures. This one is many more pages, typed up very clearly, and includes color pictures of the projects, as well as a few charming pictures of the village sprinkled throughout, which I thought was a nice touch. Also, spiral-bound! YES! All craft books should be spiral-bound like this, because then they behave nicely, and lay flat on your workspace while you knit/sew/whatever!

I knew I was going to come away with new embroidery tricks, and exposure to other 17c embellishments, and I knew I was going to be swooning over THE Jacket, but this weekend also allowed for a blossoming friendship and meeting new possible future friends, and it inspired me to dive deeper into the intricate details of 17th century fashion! I definitely have added some new projects to my endless sewing/crafting to-do list. I still have school sucking up much of my time, but I'm determined to make sure I squeeze in little pockets of time here and there for both research and actually making things! I would declare the weekend a fabulous success, a wonderful time, and something I hope to do more of in the future!

Where Have I Been?!?

Lately, I've been feeling a bit blue about how much my life has (temporarily) changed over the past few years. I used to do at least a few big costuming projects every year, plus lots of miscellaneous costume and crafty shenanigans in between! But a few years ago, I decided that I needed to go back to school. I've probably alluded to it here and there in various posts I've written, but I don't think I've ever written directly about it, so I thought, why not write a little post, even though it's rather off-topic from the sorts of things I usually blather on about in this blog!

How the school thing came about is that I spent almost a year unemployed and barely able to get even so much as an interview, because even though I have a ton of experience working in the health care industry, and several of that specifically as a business analyst, it seemed I was not even being considered for most positions. I think it has just reached a point where you have to have some sort of a degree, or a great network of buddies who can get you a job, or you won't be taken seriously. I got lucky and a friend of a friend was able to help me land a position as a contractor. That solved my unemployment issue at the time, but a contractor is a temporary position, and I knew I'd be back in the same boat again eventually!

I started mulling over what I should pursue. In my perfect dream world, I'd work in a living history setting, making and keeping up a historic wardrobe for the living history interpreters, and having my love of studying and recreating historic clothing and accessories mean something. The reality is that there are so few jobs like this out there, and I have the added challenge of not being able to relocate for school or a job. My husband is very close with his family, has a great job that he's comfortable in, and we own and love our home. Relocation just isn't an option, and that means that it would be very foolish of me to chase after my dream position, since there's only one place I could work, and they almost never have openings. The final nail in the coffin on this dream is that I could only find one place to go to school for anything even remotely close to what I'd want to study, and it would leave me $200,000 in debt. It would be idiotic of me to put myself that far in debt for a job I'll probably never have, and even if I do, will never pay a salary that would allow me to pay back that debt in this life time!

I tried to turn my focus towards finding something that would be a more practical choice. I made a list of everything I enjoy doing, and tried to figure out how I could make a career out of it. The problem is, almost everything I love involves making things or teaching others how to make them, and I'd just never be able to pay a mortgage that way! The one thing I enjoy that seemed to have a flicker of promise is making web sites. More than a decade and a half ago, I decided I wanted to make a web site to share my love of historic costuming with anyone out there who might be interested (which was like three of us at the time, ha ha ha!) I spent a tumultuous weekend wrapping my brain around the basics of HTML, but from then on, it was smooth sailing, and I found I really love making web sites! I got excited about the potential for adding things like javascript to my site, had a ball making graphics for it, and found myself doodling layout ideas on scraps of paper. Long story short, I decided to go for a computer science degree with a programming concentration. I thought, there are plenty of jobs out there for programmers, including in my area, and there's a good chance I'll enjoy it, since I've had a taste of it with making web sites (or so I thought!)

It turns out that "real" programming is a whole other world from writing HTML! Those first couple of semesters almost killed me. It was like I had to train my brain to think in this whole new way that it didn't naturally want to do. . . Yet I was convinced it could be a good match for me because I have a lot of the personality traits that should make it work. I have great attention to detail, I'm persistent, I like tedious things, I like to challenge myself, I love puzzles. . . I just felt like, if I could just get my brain to think like a programmer, this could work! Also, I had a fantastic teacher who went above and beyond for me, being patient, supportive, and available for lots of outside-of-class-time tutoring. And then, one random day, everything just clicked! It was seriously like I'd been trying a ring of keys to open a locked door, and I'd finally located the right one. All of a sudden, I was figuring things out on my own, finding homework assignments alarmingly easy, and even speaking up in class with ideas on how to solve problems (which is a huge deal for this total introvert who typically avoids saying anything at all in class!)

So, that is what I've been up to, and why my costume-related posts have become so few and far between over the past few years. The good news is, I can see the finish line! Assuming all goes according to plan, I have only eleven months of classes standing between me and a degree. Hooray!!! I am so excited for this to be over so that I can go back to making things like I used to! I have grown so tired of feeling like there's some assignment I should be working on, or something school-related somehow looming over me, making me feel guilty every time I steal some crafting time. I'm also really excited about the prospect of having a job that I could potentially enjoy, and that is challenging and rewarding!

I wish I could say that I at least have the summer to make things, but I actually signed up for summer classes, to expedite this whole school thing! That means there won't be a lot of big projects to write about over the summer, however, since my last post (almost a half a year ago?!) I have managed to make quite a few small things. I have several skirts to write about, a couple of small costuming endeavors, and assorted other random crafty-type-things to babble about. Most recently, I've been embroidering up a storm! I took a notion to try crewel embroidery one day, and realized that embroidery projects are so wonderfully portable and easy to pick up and work on when one only has a few moments to spare, making it perfect for my lifestyle at the moment! I also got a spot in an upcoming embroidery workshop that is going to be awesome, and that I can't wait to tell you all about. So, thank you for sticking with me, and I hope I'll have some enjoyable posts for you to read in the very near future!