I have been reading embroidery blogs for a few years now. At some stage I came across a story that started seeping into my consciousness. A story about a jacket. At first I was just aware of the story. Then slowly I began hearing more and more about it from a few different angles. Eventually, the drips of information built up and I had a whole pond full of images and details that I was swimming around in. It began to look very enticing and resulted in me diving in.
Years ago, in 1986, I spent a year living and working in Boston. Having been born on an island in the Caribbean and then growing up on the beautifully warm coast of Sydney, Australia, I learnt to swim from a young age and really can swim quite well. Not everyone in Boston can swim really well. They have long winters, short summers and not many readily accessible beaches. So, I was with some American friends and we went to Walden Pond for the day. Someone mentioned how difficult and dangerous it was to swim across the pond and being a bit feisty I took one look at it and thought 'that's nothing, I've been swimming in the ocean all my life, how hard can this be?'. I was probably even foolish enough to say something like that. Anyway, I dove in and swam across the Walden Pond (think Thoreau - living simply in the woods at Walden Pond) and to cap it off, I swam right back. Naturally enough, I was right. It wasn't actually hard. But somehow my friends' reactions kind of ensured that I would forever retain this in my memory - their surprise : my brash confidence. No harm was done. I was well and fit and it was an easy swim for me. They were gracious and congratulatory but on some level I felt foolish. I was showing off a skill from another environment. Perhaps it was just the 'showing off' that I think about still, all these years later. Anyway, I don't think I'll be showing off anything anytime soon but I do feel perhaps I've been a little foolish.
I want to show you why though, so you can understand.
I have signed up for three (count them....three) of the online courses offered at Thistle Threads.
This, which you see before you, is the Floral Glove Needlecase kit.
And this is the jacket. If you like embroidery, please do take a moment to have a look at this.
But really this is the exciting video below. The one where the designers and some of the stitchers first saw the partially completed jacket on Faith, their model. The jacket doesn't yet have the finishing touches, but it is sewn together and you can see it sparkle and glitter.
This embroidered jacket was an exciting and creative and collaborative project that involved hundreds of people. It was very attractive to me on many levels. The history, the research, the desire to understand the past by thorough attention to detail, by immersion in the style and materials and techniques of the past. The desire to understand the women who have gone before us. Not that I ever would or could identify with an elite, but it is no trouble to try and understand and explore beauty.
I wanted to explore my connection to Boston again. I also wanted to take some small part of that excitement and commitment to the past and bring it into my own home.
It is no small endeavour - that what I have undertaken. Three study courses, a whole new style of embroidery, the re-creation of historical pieces of embroidery. It has required me to invest in a new embroidery floor stand and new embroidery frames. My tapestry floor stands (all three of them) were not able to adapt to this style of embroidery frame. After much reading, I was aware that I would probably need a 'slate' frame for this style of embroidery. Some online reviewers introduced me to a type of frame that performs like a 'slate' frame but has the advantage of being easier and quicker to set up. Anyway, Santa was very kind to me and the floor stand and two embroidery frames appeared, if not exactly under the tree, within proximity of the tree. The bearded gentleman then put the frames and floor stand together for me. Seen here is the floor stand.
And here below is an old thread painting embroidery of Tanja Berlin's that I completed a few years ago but haven't yet taken off the frame. It is about the same size as the linen for the Floral Glove Needlecase.
As you can see here, I have draped the Floral Glove Needlecase linen over the frame. I think it will work perfectly. I just need to find a way to finish off the pansy and then I can have the frame for this new project.
Tricia Nguyen, who runs the Thistle Threads business and teaches the online courses, is an engineer who attended MIT (as did my father, many, many years ago). Being an academic, and very passionate about historical embroidery, when you do one of her courses, she presents you with pages and pages of instructions and historical research. I have started two folders per course. One for the instructions and one for the history. Course notes and historical information are sent every month, for the duration of the course. Some courses are reasonably short - say 6 months, some longer - 18 months.
I haven't yet made a start on any one of the new courses I've signed up for but I have diligently gathered all my materials, filed all my instructions and once I've sorted out the pansy and found a finished home for it, I'll be ready to start the Floral Glove.
