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Restoring the Elegance of Trapunto Whitework Quilts

4/10/2018

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Four trapunto quilts arrived at Museum Textile Services this winter for conservation. Three belong to Hammond-Harwood House of Annapolis, MD, and a fourth is being donated to the New England Quilt Museum, in Lowell, MA. These wonderful examples beautifully showcase this historic style of quilting that was popular in America in the mid-nineteenth century. The quilts varied in condition, but were all treated in a similar way and exhibit a wide spectrum of this style of whitework.
Trapunto quilting is also known historically as stuffed quilting, whitework quilting, or corded quilting. The names accurately describe the technique used to make these labor intensive quilts; trapunto in Italian means "to embroider," and in Latin it means "to prick with a needle." In this quilting technique, 2 to 3 layers of cotton or linen fabric are sandwiched and sewn together. Once sewn together, the artist would hand quilt or embroider a design over the entire quilt. Many of these designs were available as a pattern, or could be created completely by the artist.  
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Example of trapunto quilting. Photo courtesy of Glen Haven Historical Society, New York.
Similar to other textile art such as mourning pictures, images quilted in these such as urns, cornucopias and flowers hold symbolic meaning and can tell a story. Traditionally, the threads would be moved aside with a needle from the back of the quilt and tiny amounts of stuffing or cording was pushed into the voids made by the quilting pattern. This created a raised effect that was beautiful, yet subtle. Once an area was stuffed to satisfaction, the threads at the back that had been moved aside are again worked back together to make the entry area invisible. ​One of the Hammond-Harwood House trapunto quilts has a more delicate backing fabric, which allowed it to be more easily stuffed.
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Detail of trapunto quilt made by Elizabeth North, after conservation and bleaching. Image by MTS.
This style of quilting is believed to have originated in Sicicly in the the 14th century, and continued to be popular across Italy and Europe through the 18th century.  Immigrants brought the technique to America with them and it enjoyed popularity from the early 19th century, peaking mid-century. It became less common by the 20th century, as it was so time consuming and the country was being vastly changed by the industrial revolution. The trapunto quilt belonging to a private collector is a fine example of one made in America in 1823 and prominently has the name “Elizabeth North” across the top, possibly having been made for her as a wedding gift.  It also features two urns of flowers and an overflowing cornucopia of flowers.
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Damage to this trapunto quilt clearly shows the thin backing fabric through which the cotton batting was originally stuffed. Image by MTS.
​The three quilts that we conserved at MTS underwent similar treatment, a process of wetcleaning and bleaching with the reductive bleaching agent, sodium borohydride (NaBH4). Wetcleaning cotton and linen fibers with the addition of a sodium borohydride bath is beneficial both visually and chemically, resulting in healthier and brighter artifacts. Sodium borohydride cannot be used on protein fibers—such as silk and wool—because they are naturally acidic and the sodium borohydride solution is alkaline (approximately pH 10). 
As cellulosic textiles age, hydroxyl groups (-OH) are converted to carbonyl groups (=O), which contribute to a dingy brown or yellow color. The chemical process known as reduction adds electrons to the cellulose fibers, stabilizing their molecular weight and returning carbonyl groups back to colorless hydroxyl groups. The combination of dissolved soils and cellulosic degradation often turn the wash bath the color of strong tea. The reaction of the sodium borohydride with water is also produces hydrogen gas bubbles, and the bath may give off a smell reminiscent of sulfur or chlorine. It is important to agitate the sodium borohydride wash bath regularly to allow all sides of the textile to come in contact with the surface of the water where the chemical reaction is taking place. Especially dirty whitework quilts receive additional baths with a solution of the anionic surfactant Orvus, before being rinsed and air dried under a cotton wicking cloth.  ​
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Detail of Elizabeth North quilt, after conservation and bleaching. Image by MTS.
Cleaning discolored textiles is always rewarding, and restoring the legibility of these three-dimensional trapunto quilts is no exception. Viewers will enjoy seeing the results of conservation when the quilts are exhibited in their museums.
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Sarah Uhlendorf Stebulis is a former registrar, curator, and museum director. She was also Assistant Administrator for the Lowell Historic Board and Office Manager for Preservation Worcester. Sarah continues to provide freelance collections cataloging for private collectors, and is excited to return to her textile conservation training. 
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Uncovering Concealed Objects

3/6/2017

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This month at Museum Textile Services we were excited to conserve a set of four concealed garments: a shoe, a shoe sole, a boot, and a bonnet. The objects were found during renovations to a 1725 Ledyard, CT, house, and were located in the floorboards of an attic above the birthing room. ​The boot and bonnet are 19th century, while the shoe could be even older. The bonnet closely resembles silk crepe spoon caps from the Civil War era. ​
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Interior of a Civil War era bonnet, before conservation.
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Exterior of a Civil War era bonnet, before conservation.
When items such as these are hidden in secular or religious buildings, they are often placed close to doors and fireplaces, or under floorboards. These areas were considered the weakest parts of the house, where malevolent spirits might enter. Concealed garments are often interpreted as protective symbols. As Dinah Eastop and Charlotte Dew explain in their article Secret Garments: Deliberately Concealed Garments as Symbolic Textiles:

…The concealed garment is symbolic in
that it stands in for the wearer; the former wearer stands for his/her community of interest (e.g. their household/trade). Arguing by analogy moves the protective role of garments for the body to the protective role of the house for these inhabitants.
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A similar Civil War spoon bonnet.
​Deliberately concealed garments are often heavily worn and bear the imprint of the wearer. The objects we conserved show many indicators of heavy use including separating layers of leather and abrasion to the fabric at the interior of the shoe, holes, heavily caked on mud and dirt, and evidence of re-soling on multiple occasions. The bonnet was generally deformed and was missing layers of fabric at its interior.
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Concealed boot, before conservation. Courtesy of private collector.
The shoes and bonnet were carefully surface cleaned with a micro-vacuum attachment, toothbrushes, and vulcanized rubber sponges. During the process, we found different types of beans in the toe of the boot. While they easily could have been transported into the shoe by way of rodents, it is also possible that the beans were put there by the people who originally concealed the garments. Beans, seeds, and corn cobs symbolize fertility, and are often found in historic homes along with concealed objects. ​
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Interior of shoe, before conservation. Note the separating layers of leather. Courtesy of private collector.
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Bottom of shoe, before conservation. Note the multiple layers of the shoe sole. Courtesy of private collector.
After cleaning, the garments were humidified in a Gore-Tex chamber to facilitate reshaping. We were concerned with the leather hardening, or crosslinking, in the presence of water, so the objects were very carefully monitored. When dry, the leather was treated with renaissance wax, a micro-crystalline wax conditioner and cleaner. This did not change their appearance greatly, but will help to coat the leather and aid in its preservation. Support mounts were made for the two shoes and the bonnet from pieces of Ethafoam covered with knit jersey. A custom box protects them all and allows the owner to easily show them to friends. 
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Concealed objects, after conservation and mounting. Courtesy of private collector.
We are excited that the concealed objects will be returning to the house in which they were found, and continue to tell the history of the home. For more information about deliberately concealed objects, see the the website  developed by Dinah Eastop and Charlotte Dew.
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Morgan Carbone has a BA in Art History from Grinnell College. She recently finished her Master of Arts degree in Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Morgan's interests include lace knitting and cats.
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Museum Textile Services e-Magazine, Issue 5

9/28/2016

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We welcome autumn with the latest issue of the MTS e-Magazine. Flip through and learn more about the past year's coolest projects, what is upcoming for 2017, and see who is on the MTS team. You can share the newsletter with your friends or print out a PDF copy.
If you'd like to learn more about what we're doing, please visit us regularly at our website and subscribe to our blog. Feel free to spread the word to your friends. They can also subscribe by filling out the Mail Chimp subscription form. And lastly, we'd love to hear from you about the magazine or with any textile conservation questions. You can post a message on our facebook page or use the contact form right on our website. ​

Camille, Morgan, Kathy and Courtney
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Conservation of a Mourning Embroidery

6/27/2016

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​Museum Textile Services recently conserved and reframed an exquisite early 19th century embroidery of a young woman visiting a caged bird.  In the tradition of mourning embroideries, the maker first painted portions of the image onto silk and then used satin stitches and French knots to embellish it. After completion, the silk canvas was stitched to a larger piece of cotton to allow it to wrap around a shingle of wood. The textile was then laced with strips of cotton and jute to maintain tension, which remains good even 200 years later. The textile was framed behind reverse-painted glass in a gilded wood frame secured with hand-cut nails. The mounting and framing system is likely original.
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Framed embroidery before conservation
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Framed embroidery after conservation
The embroidery itself is in excellent condition. The primary condition issue was the state of the reverse-painted glass. The black paint was no longer adhering to the glass and the flecks of paint had migrated throughout the frame and onto the textile. Another major concern was the wood shingle, which had broken in half and was in direct contact with the textile. Because it is rare for original framing systems such as this to survive, we devised a strategy to leave the textile laced around this wood. The frame was left as-is with its worn gold finish, but the reverse-painted glass was sent to specialist Linda Abrams, who was able to restore the black areas while leaving the original gold and silver paint.
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Reverse of glass before restoration
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Reverse of glass after restoration
First, the embroidery, glass, and frame were surface cleaned with a high efficiency micro-vacuum to remove dust and paint flakes. The cotton and jute lacings were released from the cotton margin at the top of the embroidery, which was in an advanced state of deterioration. This allowed a piece of four-ply acid-free mat board the size of the wood shingle to be slid between the embroidery and the wood, providing a solid surface and a barrier between the textile and the wood. A new strip of archival twill tape was hand stitched to the failing cotton along the top edge of the textile. The cotton and jute strands were then sewn to the new piece of twill tape, restoring the tension around the board. 
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Top edge of board during conservation.
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Top edge of board after conservation
​Prior to reframing, a barrier of photo-tex paper was cut to the shape of the newly-painted black area on the back of the glass. This ensures that the relatively fresh paint would not bond to the back of the textile as it ages. The glass, followed by the embroidery, were placed into the frame and pinned with stainless steel headless brads. A two-ply acid-free backing board was placed in the frame next, which filled the remaining frame space without pushing unnecessarily against the back of the lacings. The frame was sealed with a barrier of marvelseal. The original hanging hardware was reused and fitted with a new coated wire. 
It was such a pleasure to conserve this beautiful embroidery. We hope that it will see another 200 years of history. 
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Morgan Carbone has a BA in Art History from Grinnell College. She recently finished her Master of Arts degree in Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
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Bleach Season at MTS

5/31/2016

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​We have been bleaching and wet cleaning a variety of textiles this spring at Museum Textile Services, including christening gowns, wedding gowns, coverlets, lace, and embroideries. Our favorite method employs the reductive bleaching agent sodium borohydride (NaBH4). Wetcleaning cotton and linen fibers with the addition of a sodium borohydride bath is beneficial both visually and chemically, resulting in healthier and brighter artifacts. Sodium borohydride cannot be used on protein fibers—such as silk and wool—because they are naturally acidic and the sodium borohydride solution is alkaline (approximately pH 10).
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Christening gown, before bleaching.
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Christening gown, after bleaching and blocking.
​As cellulosic textiles age, hydroxyl groups (-OH) are converted to carbonyl groups (=O), which contribute to a dingy brown or yellow color. The chemical process known as reduction adds electrons to the cellulose fibers, stabilizing their molecular weight and returning carbonyl groups back to colorless hydroxyl groups. The combination of dissolved soils and cellulosic degradation often turn the wash bath the color of strong tea. The reaction of the sodium borohydride with water is also produces hydrogen gas bubbles, and the bath may give off a smell reminiscent of sulfur or chlorine. It is important to agitate the wash bath regularly to allow all sides of the textile to come in contact with the surface of the water where the chemical reaction is taking place.
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Coverlet before bleaching (left) and after bleaching (right). Courtesy of Adams National Historical Park.
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Paragon embroidery after bleaching.
Remarkably, sodium borohydride is a color safe way to bleach cellulosic textiles. Along with many white coverlets and quilts, we have bleached embroideries and samplers that have a linen or cotton ground and multi colored cotton thread. First, we test the color fastness of the colored threads. If there is dye bleed, the object is not a good candidate for full immersion wet cleaning. We have also had success bleaching a white rayon wedding dress from 1947. Rayon is a synthetically produced cellulosic fiber with a naturally high pH just like cotton, linen, and other plant fibers.
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Coverlet, before bleaching. Courtesy Adams National Historical Park.
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Coverlet, after bleaching. Courtesy Adams National Historical Park.
If you are a textile conservator with experience in wet cleaning and bleaching historic artifacts, you may be interested in our MTS Handout, Bleaching Textiles with Sodium Borohydride, available on the MTS website.
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Morgan Carbone has a BA in Art History from Grinnell College. She recently finished her Master of Arts degree in Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
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John Brown Lennon's Tails

3/23/2016

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​​Museum Textile Services has received a set of tails bearing the label of Charles P. Pearson, New York. The three-piece wool suit was made for John Brown Lennon in 1899 and now belongs to John's grandson, Matt Lennon. Four generation of men in the Lennon family have worn the tails, and conservation is now in order to preserve and clean this family heirloom.  
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Front of suit jacket, before conservation.
John Brown Lennon was a second-generation tailor born in Wisconsin. Trained by his father in Hannibal, Missouri, John attended Oberlin College for less than a year and then moved to Denver to try his hand at farming and mining, before returning home to take up the family trade. He married Juna Allen in 1871, and later they had one son. John joined the Journeyman Tailors Union of America (JTU) in 1871 and quickly rose to the union's top post. As General Secretary, he also served as editor of the “The Tailor.”  On September 4, 1894 the Great Tailors’ Strike took place in response to pervasive sweatshop conditions. This event reduced the JTU membership by half and forced the JTU headquarters, and the Lennon family, to move to Bloomington, Illinois. 
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Label found on inside pocket of the suit jacket.
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An excerpt from the "The Tailor," published in 1901
Lennon continued to serve as general secretary of the JTU until 1910. While acting as General Secretary, he held the position of treasurer for the American Federation of Labor from 1890 to 1917. John remained active in his community into his late life, running for the mayor of Bloomington in 1917, likely wearing his New York tails to political events in Illinois. John died in 1923 and left behind a rich history to be unearthed on the occasion of the conservation of his fine suit.​​
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Courtesy of Find a Grave.

The tails are in fairly good condition, aside from degrading silk in the jacket lining and a large tear in the seat of the pants caused by Matt's son's senior prom antics. MTS will first stabilize the tear and then the suit will be dry cleaned. A new button will be constructed to match a missing silk-covered suit button. The suit will be packed in an archival box and safely stored so that future generations will be able to wear John Brown Lennon's tails.

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Morgan Carbone has a BA in Art History from Grinnell College. She recently finished her Master of Arts degree in Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
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"But Bless Our Hands That Ebb Away"

2/16/2016

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​In our previous blog post we talked about Lily Yeats and her role in the Arts and Crafts movement in Ireland. Today we will be discussing the various methods used to conserve and frame this historic embroidery, which will be on display at the McMullen Museum at Boston College from February 5 to June 6, 2016, as a part of the exhibit “The Arts and Crafts Movement: Making it Irish.”
​When Museum Textile Services received the embroidery it was mounted onto an acidic board behind a gold paper mat inside an oak frame. The ground silk was wrapped around to the back side of the board and strung with orange linen thread. The mounted object was quite a bit smaller than its frame.
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Embroidery by Lily Yeats and Brigid O'Brien, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.
In order to center the mounted embroidery into the frame, someone had taped it to the back of the gold window mat. MTS conservator Cara Jordan was able to be remove most of the tape mechanically with limited loss of silk. Small areas of tape that were more difficult to remove were humidified, allowing Cara eventually to lift the tape from the silk.
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Tape on the reverse of the embroidery.
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One edge being humidified,
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The edge after tape was removed.
In order to remount the embroidery, the orange lacing had to be removed. The thread was cut in a few key spots, after which it was easily unlaced from the silk ground. The orange thread was too weak to reuse, so it was returned to the client. To our surprise, the back corners and an area of deterioration on the front had been glued to the board. Cara successfully released these adhered areas with acetone.
Cara remounted the embroidery onto a board of the same size as the original because the deep folds in the ground silk retained a memory of that shape. She lightly tensioned the embroidery around a new archival 8-ply board to which she had attached cotton poplin. While the embroidery was face up, it was hand stitched to the outer edge of the board using DMC cotton thread. It was then flipped over onto a padded surface and the folds of fabric were arranged on the back of the board before being hand stitched in place. The embroidery was then flipped face up again and Cara placed a network of hand stitching around the figures. Once the embroidery was properly mounted, the areas of damage were couched to the fabric-covered board with Gütermann Skala polyester thread. 
​Since the newly mounted embroidery was smaller than the frame, Cara needed to make a spacer system to properly position the embroidery. She cut a ring of corrugated polypropylene and covered the interior edge with archival frame tape. A new gold mat was cut for the piece to hide the sharp line between the faded front and the still-green sides. The mat was adhered to the polypropylene spacer with archival double-stick tape. The embroidery was then framed behind UV-filtering glass in its oak frame.
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Mounted embroidery with the polypropylene spacer around it.
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The unfaded bright green edge of the mounted embroidery.
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The mounted embroidery with its mat adhered to the spacer.
We hope that you are as excited to see this embroidery at the McMullen as we are! 
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Morgan Carbone has a BA in Art History from Grinnell College. She recently finished her Master of Arts degree in Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
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"The Proud and Careless Notes Live On"

2/1/2016

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In December, 2015, Museum Textile Services textile conservators Camille Myers Breeze and Morgan Carbone traveled to Boston College to condition report, vacuum and install a tapestry now on display at the Burns Library. While there, we looked at an embroidery done by Lily Yeats and Brigid O'Brien in 1915, which needed some conservation TLC. The newly-purchase embroidery will be on display in “The Arts and Crafts Movement: Making it Irish,” opening at the McMullen Museum at Boston College on February 6, 2016. The exhibit contains over one hundred artifacts from the Irish Arts and Crafts movement. 
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Embroidery by Lily Yeats and Brigid O'Brien, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.
​The signatures “BO’BRIEN” and “Lily YEATS” are stitched at the bottom corners of the embroidery. Brigid O'Brien is credited as the designer and Lily Yeats was the maker. Yeats had been involved in the Arts and Crafts movement for many years by the time she made this embroidery. She studied embroidery under May Morris, daughter of William Morris, starting in 1888. In 1902 Lily, along with her sister Elizabeth and friend Evelyn Gleeson, founded the Dun Emer guild in Dublin. Dun Emer focused primarily on tapestry and carpet making. In 1908, the group separated and Lily and her sister founded Cuala Industries which ran a printing press and an embroidery workshop. The embroidery that MTS conserved was created in the Cuala embroidery workshop around 1915. 
Framing the central figures in the embroidery are two banners reading, "The Proud and Careless Notes Live On But Bless Our Hands That Ebb Away." The text is from the W. B. Yeats poem The Players ask for a Blessing on the Psalteries and themselves from his collection of lyrical poems called In the Seven Woods. The poem was also Elizabeth Yeats' first hand-printed publication at Dun Emer, in 1903. W. B. Yeats was the brother of Lily and Elizabeth Yeats. Their other brother, Jack Butler Yeats, designed textiles for both Cuala Industries and the Dun Emer guild.
The Boston College embroidery has several condition issues, including fading due to light exposure, an area of unidirectional loss to the right of the figures, and gummy adhesive tape holding the back of the mounted textile to an acidic paper mat. Stay tuned for our follow-up blog on the textile conservation treatment by Cara Jordan.
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Morgan Carbone has a BA in Art History from Grinnell College. She recently finished her Master of Arts degree in Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
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The Abigail Brooks Adams Firescreen

1/4/2016

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A lovely, richly colored firescreen has just been conserved at Museum Textile Services, and is a perfect seasonal subject for the MTS Blog as we head into the cold weather. In the 18th and 19th centuries, fireplaces were used constantly to warm the house, bringing bright, hot, roaring fires in the long, dark New England winter. A firescreen protected the faces--and sometimes voluminous clothing--of those sidling up to the fire from its high heat and sparks. For wealthy families, these screens also became lavish decorative objects, stitched and designed with care by the women of the family.
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Beaded and needlepointed firescreen made by Abigail Brooks Adams, 1808-1889. Courtesy of Adams National Historical Park.
This firescreen was made by Abigail Brooks Adams and is part of the collection of the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts. The Adams family produced two presidential couples, John and Abigail Smith and their son and daughter-in-law John Quincy and Louisa Johnson. The third generation of Adams, Charles Francis and Abigail Brooks were also a political power couple, and it was Abigail Brooks Adams who made this beautiful firescreen. You may recall that in 2013 MTS replicated a set of silk bed hangings purchased in France by Abigail and Charles, which we documented in a series of blogs.

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Portrait of Abigail Brooks Adams by William E. West, 1847. Courtesy of Adams National Historical Park.
Abigail had immense patience and skill to stitch hundreds of slim glass beads to her canvas, and perfectly create the symmetrical floral pattern in even, soft wool stitches. The deep cherry-red glass beads, and the warm gold of the bold initials "ABA" stitched into the center, must have glimmered and shone in the candle light before the fire. This attention to detail is an impressive feat for the mother of seven children who would have also balanced running a large household with accompanying Charles on political events, sometimes all the way to England. The Massachusetts Historical Society holds the papers of the Adams family, including a notice in the Quincy Patriot of November 13, 1858, showing Abigail served as the county manager for the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, calling for subscriptions to help preserve George Washington’s Mount Vernon mansion for future generations. 
From the letters and diaries left behind, it appears the relationship between Abigail and Charles was full of care, affection, and mutual respect. The entry in Charles’ diary from their wedding day on Thursday, September 3rd, 1829, is particularly sweet and humorous-–he clearly had eyes for no one but his Abby. ​
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Photo of the photographer’s in-laws, Charles F. Adams and Abigail Photograph of Charles Francis and Abigail Brooks Adams, circa 1883, by Marian "Clover" Hooper Adams. Photo courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
To conserve the firescreen, we first carefully remove the deteriorated watered-silk lining and gently cleaned all elements with a HEPA micro-vacuum. The beads received additional cleansing using swabs and saliva. We were lucky to find a very good match with modern glass beads, which we stitched into place and secured the neighboring thread ends. A few missing crewel stitches were likewise replaced with modern wool yarns. The lining was encapsulated in magenta nylon net and then we stitched it back in place using cotton thread. We were then able to reuse the ribbon with hook-eyes that the Adams National Historical Park is using to suspend the firescreen from an ornamental brass T-bar.
​Preserving the Abigail Adams firescreen has a nice historical echo, paying homage to this beautiful physical artifact left by a woman who herself worked for historical preservation. ​
​
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Megan Mary Creamer, Technician, has a BFA in industrial design from Massachusetts College of Art, and is completing an ALM in museum studies at Harvard University Extension School. She joined MTS as an intern in 2014.
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NATCC in NYC

12/2/2015

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The tenth biennial North American Textile Conservation Conference, Material in Motion, took place in New York City from November 16th through 20th, 2015. Camille, Cara and Morgan attended the two days of presentations, visit with several hundred international textile conservators, and enjoyed three nights of events around the city.
The opening reception took place at the National Museum of the American Indian's George Gustav Heye Center, located in the 1907 Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House designed by Cass Gilbert. Attendees listened to a key-note presentation by transdisciplinary artist Laura Anderson Barbata, who then regaled us with an amazing, high-energy stilt-walking performance with the Brooklyn Jumbies. Their costumes and dances are the epitome of material in motion.
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Camille, Morgan, and Cara at Rare roof-top bar and grill.
An international group of textile conservators presented two-days of papers divided into categories of mobile textiles: Portable Shelters; Movement from Within; Movement from Outside Forces; Removing the Soiling; Protecting Objects in Transit; Technology for Movement in Display and Storage; Conservation of Moving Objects; and Moving Collections. One of our favorite talks included Gail Niinimaa's "Moving the Mud Out," about cleaning up after the 2013 floods in Alberta, Canada. Gail's bravery in cleaning scores of
Lectures begin with an opening presentation by Denyse Montegut, Chair of the Fashion and Textile Studies master’s degree program at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where Thursday and Friday's sessions were held. Denyse spoke about some of the key figures in the emergence of textile conservation as an academic practice. Later, attendees who were trained under this elite group of pioneers were invited to the stage for a group photograph, including MTS's Founder and Director Camille Myers Breeze, who worked under the late R. Bruce Hutchison.
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Group photo of students and staff of the FIT master's degree program in attendance at NATCC, including Camille and Morgan.
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Camille's old apartment on Christopher St.
damaged objects that would otherwise have been lost proved how resilient clothing and textiles can be. Elizabeth-Anne Haldane of the Victoria & Albert Museum presented "Moving Maharajas: The Display and Transportation of Indian Costume and Textiles." The V&A's policy of moving objects while mounted whenever possible was once again proven successful, and her slides were a feast for the eyes. The final presentation was by Glenn Peterson of the Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Beyond Dummies: Enlivening the costume exhibition Charles James: Beyond Fashion with animated content" was technically and aesthetically dazzling.

We ended our trip on Saturday morning with brunch with friends in the West Village, where Camille got to visit the apartment building she lived in while she was a student in the FIT MA program. We all came home with plenty of yarn tea, and early Christmas presents. The 2015 NATCC conference was both forward looking and nostalgic in all the right ways.
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