![\"Visiting](\"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/visiting-Is-Sinnus.jpg\")
Learning about a local embroidery for one of my previous books.<\/p><\/div>One of the things that I am really enjoying about researching my next book is how much I am learning. Another is the fun of sleuthing.<\/p>\n
As I research this book I am spending a lot of time searching through museum and library databases and catalogues in search of images and information about my chosen subject. Because I am dealing with another language and also dialects of that language, there is a lot of sleuthing to be done. Once I have used the most common term for what I’m looking for, then I use as many alternative terms as I can find. Things are not always catalogued as I might hope. I guess that has to do with items being catalogued by many different people (speaking\/writing in different dialects) over many years, at different museums\/libraries. Cataloguing appears to be a more inexact science than I would like.<\/p>\n
When you find something, it can feel like a real victory. Over the past weeks I have expected that in one particular region, given the other embroidery that was common there, I would be very likely to find the style of embroidery I am studying on a particular item of clothing. It just seemed to me that it would be logical that they would have used it there. A museum curator had agreed with me that it seemed likely. However, I had looked and looked and found no evidence of it. Until this morning – I FOUND SOME! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
I was looking through a range of images, checking each one, and suddenly, there it was: the embroidery I had been looking for! And it must be a fairly important example, because whereas the other items I had been looking at only had about 3 photos each, this one had 10, with many detail shots, showing exactly the sort of information I wanted to know. The Gymnast actually said to me, “I’ve never seen you get so excited about anything before.”<\/p>\n
The other day I was looking at some images and I noticed a little detail in the stitching that I had not seen\/noticed before. (Quite possibly I had *seen* it, but not noticed or understood what it meant.) I was so excited! It answered another of my questions that I had. Since that time, I have noticed it on another example, from a different region.<\/p>\n
There is so much to be learned. Sometimes I just browse. I choose a wide search term and then just see what I can learn by observation. I’m not looking for anything in particular, just drinking it all in.<\/p>\n
By observing, taking notes, looking at locations, dates, materials, motifs, and more, then by looking for patterns in that information, you can learn so much. From what I know, I can make hypotheses about other things, and then go looking for historical evidence to back up my hypotheses. Sometimes I find it, and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes it just sits there, niggling away as a question, until finally I use the right search term and find the evidence.<\/p>\n
I am totally enjoying all that I am learning and discovering. What a joy! What a privilege!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Learning about a local embroidery for one of my previous books.<\/p>\n
One of the things that I am really enjoying about researching my next book is how much I am learning. Another is the fun of sleuthing.<\/p>\n
As I research this book I am spending a lot of time searching through museum and library […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,65,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embroidery-musings","category-white-threads","category-writing-books","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8671"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8677,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8671\/revisions\/8677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}