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It is noted in various popular and academic books and articles about Dutch regional embroidery that the letter A with the bar above the apex of the triangle is a typically Frisian (Fries) form from the north of the Netherlands (Friesland), and that any embroidered item with that type of letter could be classed as Frisian.

A 'Frisian?" sampler with the initials A.K. (left hand corner), 1860s. TRC Collection (TRC 2017.4287).

Chart of an ornate ‘A’, worked on a ‘Frisian?’ sampler (TRC 2017.4287) with the initials A.K. 

A and sampler in pristine condition from 1765 (TRC 2019.2921).On Friday, 20th December 2019, Gillian Vogelsang wrote:

I have been cataloguing various sets of objects that have recently come in for the TRC Collection, including Guatemalan and Portuguese garments, as well as American feed sack quilts and toys.

But most interestingly, there was a piece of embroidery I had put on one side because my initial thought was that it was a 1970’s copy of an eighteenth century band sampler (TRC 2019.2921). How wrong you can be!

On closer inspection it turned out that the linen cloth of the sampler was made from hand spun yarn. It is a narrow band of 20 cm wide, hand woven. The embroidery threads are 2-ply silk yarns in a variety of colours. The whole of the embroidery was worked in cross stitch.

What is most remarkable is that the ground cloth is still starched and the colours of the silk have not faded. It would appear that the embroidery was worked and then for some reason it was put away and never saw the light (literally).

The embroidery consisted of five individual designs (from top to bottom):

a) a floral wreath enclosing the initials IDM (presumably the initials of the embroiderer) and the date 1765. Flanking the wreath are two winged figures wearing crowns.

b) the Crucifixion and related objects, including a ladder, a cross, a tunic, and a grail. On top of this design there is a cockerel. The Crucifixion (the representation of Jesus on the Cross would indicate that the sampler was made within a Catholic setting).

c) a depiction of the naked Adam and Eve in front of the Tree of Knowledge, with the snake climbing up the tree (Genesis 1-11). Eve is shown giving Adam an apple, as recounted in the Bible.

d) Abraham about to sacrifice his son, Isaac. A ram (?) is shown under the tree, conform the Biblical story that God provided a ram when he saw that Abraham was indeed ready to sacrifice his son (Genesis 22). 

e) a vase with stylised flowers, including carnations and tulips.

In conclusion, this is an original band sampler from 1765 in a perfect condition. An exceptional find indeed!

Postscript: see also a blog dated 8th September 2020, in which some doubts are expressed as to the date of the sampler

White kalpak from Kyrgyzstan, early 21st century, from the TRC collection (TRC 2013.0391).The Kyrgyz kalpak cap has recently been added to UNESCO’s list of Cultural Heritage! The TRC collection includes several kalpaks (TRC 2013.0390 and TRC 2013.0391). But what is a kalpak? 

It is a large cap made of felt with a black lining and rim. This type of cap has a long history in Central Asia and beyond. It was also worn in southern Russia and in the Volga region. It is known in Russian as the 'klobuk'. Wearing a kalpak often indicated the high social status of the wearer.

Nowadays the kalpak is still worn by Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Karakalpaks, ethnically related groups, all of whom are speaking a Turkic language and are living in Central Asia.

A white coloured kalpak (ak kalpak) is particularly distinctive for the Kyrgyz, who live in the mountainous lands of South Central Asia, along the western borders of China.

Museu do Oriente, Lisbon.Saturday, 14th December, 2019, Gillian Vogelsang wrote:

Today was spent walking around Lisbon (as well as catching various trams and buses), looking at the sights as well as searching for embroidery.

We spent a long time trying to get to the Museu do Oriente, it really is not easy to get there, separated as it is from the rest of Lisbon by a busy road and railway line. Whoever thought of establishing such a museum in such an inaccessible place?

But it was well worth visiting, as they have an amazing permanent exhibition about Chinese Opera with a vast array of garments and outfits. There was also a temporary exhibition about ikat textiles from Timor, Indonesia, which come from a private, Dutch collection.

We then went on in search of two shops we had been informed would have examples of Portuguese embroidery (details and examples being needed for Vol. 3 of the encyclopedia of hand embroidery the TRC is involved in writing). Sadly, however, both shops had closed down.

So should you know of anyone who would be willing to donate examples of Portuguese embroidery, and in particular, Vianna do Castelo, Guimaraes, Castelo Branco, Madeira, or Azores embroidery, as well as Arraiolos needlework floor coverings, can you please let me know (Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken.)?

1970s chiffon dress from the House of Dan Lee Couture (TRC 2019.2803a).On Friday, 13th December 2019, Gillian Vogelsang wrote:

Just before going to Lisbon for a few days, several very different donations arrived at the TRC.

From the Wijnsma Family there was a selection of garments that date from the late 19th century until the 1970’s. Three items in particular stand out, namely a jacket (TRC 2019.2801) made from black moire silk and decorated with black glass beads (late 19th century).

Secondly an American dress (TRC 2019.2804) from the 1920’s that is made of brown velvet and decorated in the ‘Cherokee’ manner with beads and tassels (an interpretation rather than a copy, and one that was fashionable in the 1920’s).

Finally the TRC received a dress and cape (TRC 2019.2803 and TRC 2019.2903b) designed by the American fashion designer, Dan Lee. It was hand painted by Hyacinth, a well-known artist working in America from the 1970’s, and who included royalty and film stars among her clients.

17th century embroidery hanging in the Lisbon Cathedral.On Thursday, 12 December, Gillian Vogelsang wrote:

As part of my research for vol. 3 of the Encyclopedia of Hand Embroidery (Bloomsbury, London), I joined Willem in a visit to Lisbon. Willem has some meetings to conduct for the International Institute for Asian Studies and the European Alliance for Asian Studies, and I have the opportunity to explore the city and visit some museums, churches and other relevant places.

Examples of silk flowers produced by the firm of Schmalberg, New York.On Sunday, 24 November 2019, Shelley Anderson wrote:

I recently made a donation to the TRC that reflects some prized textile history. The donation includes three hand-made artificial flower accessories. The red silk rose and white peony, shown in the accompanying photograph, can be worn as brooches, while the many coloured carnation (in honor of the 50th anniversary of LGBTQ+ Pride) is a stick pin for lapels.

All the flowers come from M. & S. Schmalberg Custom Fabric Flowers, a family-run operation that has been in business for 103 years. Schmalberg is located in New York City’s famous Garment District, where milliners, costume designers and tailors have shopped for fabrics for over a century. Some 400 textile wholesalers and shops still operate in the District.

Making silk flowers is an intricate process. Customers usually supply the fabric, often velvet or silk satin-faced organza. The material is treated with fabric stiffener and then dried on wooden racks. A cutting machine produces the flower shape from different molds, some of which are a century old. A hydraulic press then embosses the shapes with details like veins. The fabric is then folded and shaped by hand into different flowers.

Though fashion houses such as Oscar de la Renta and Vera Wang (who once ordered two hundred thousand silk petals) patronize Schmalberg, times are not easy. In a May 2019 article on M. & S. Schmalberg in the New York Times (read here), a manager noted that overseas competition has severely weakened the US textile industry. Years ago, he said, “Next door to us was a button man. The other side was a thread man. And a zipper guy. Now you walk the streets and everything’s coming in a box, off a boat, made in La-La Land,” the article quoted. Many small businesses such as Schmalberg have disappeared. The company also sometimes gets a small order from China, to find out later that the flowers in the order were copied, mass produced, and sold more cheaply elsewhere.

Reading about this history, I could not resist buying some M. & S. Schmalberg flowers for myself and for the TRC (the flowers are available over the internet, either from the company directly or via Amazon). And next time I visit New York I will take the company’s tour of their factory. I hope this piece of textile history, and the skills involved, exist for a long time.

Jo Swinson, leader of the liberal-democrats in Britain.On Saturday 23 November, Willem Vogelsang wrote:

Forgive me for sometimes looking at a woman, and particularly at what she is wearing. I am a simple man, and at the same time married to a textile nutter. You may understand that the result was inevitable.

You will have heard that on 12 December the poor Brits are going again to the polls. You cannot escape these days the faces (and voices) of British politicians. One of them sticks out, as far as I am concerned, and that is not Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn. For some months now I have been following Jo Swinson, since July the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Britain. And I look at her clothing and how she presents herself. I cannot help being really impressed.

She likes to wear apparently simple dresses, often in red, and reaching to below the knees, and well buttoned up at the top. All very modest, you would say. But as a man I see a woman who is not hiding her body, certainly not her ample bosom. But I also see a woman who is proud of the way she looks and proud of who she is.

As far as I am concerned, this is real power dressing. She is not a woman, such as Angela Merkel from Germany, who is hiding underneath a man’s outfit with trousers and a jacket (that never impressed me), but someone telling the world that she is a woman and politely informing all of us that we can take it or leave it.

I may almost be twice as old as Jo Swinson, but I am sure that if I ever met her and she told me to go home to wash my hands and comb my hair, I would do so immediately.