The Plymouth Tapestry at Pilgrim Hall Museum

08/16/2025

For needlework artist Elizabeth Creeden, it’s all about the details….this scene from the Plymouth Tapestry shows departing Pilgrims preparing to board the hired ship Mayflower and a purchased vessel, the Speedwell, in the summer of 1620. Notice the woven wicker cradle- based on a real object in Pilgrim Hall Museum’s collection that is believed to have been brought over on the Mayflower. And the large dog at lower left is the mastiff mentioned in early sources on Plymouth Colony.

08/03/2025

Our project reaches the 75% completion mark as the latest panels head off for conservation mounting - 15 of the full series of 20 six-foot embroidered scenes are now done! Conservators Kate Tarleton and Charlotte Hamlin have worked closely with the Tapestry creator, artist Elizabeth Creeden, in ensuring these magnificent needlework scenes are carefully mounted for their longterm care and future exhibition. Now just five more panels to go….special thanks to The Coby Foundation for a grant early in the project to support the conservation work - helping us get this far!

05/31/2025

Panel on the Mayflower crossing is underway….

04/12/2025

This scene of the exiled English Separatists in Holland as they planned and prepared to embark on the Mayflower journey is taking shape in artist Elizabeth Creeden’s studio right now! It is the 12th in the series of 20 embroidered panels that will make up the Plymouth Tapestry. Stitch by stitch, our heirloom Taoestry project is getting closer to completion!

01/26/2025

Our terrific conservators have been carefully mounting three recently finished panels of the Plumouth Tapestry - we expect to be able to show these latest scenes at the museum this year, including the Separatist Pilgrims’ years of exile in Holland and the traumatic pandemic known as the Great Dying that occurred during part of the same period in Wampanoag homelands. These scenes will bring the total of fully completed panels to 13 - and with two panels currently being worked on and the final five in design, we are getting closer to the Plymouth Tapestry’s completion.

11/09/2024

Another milestone in our project with the completion of Panel 11. This panel illustrates the history of the Great Dying, the European-introduced infection that devastated Indigenous peoples along the eastern seaboard from Maine to the Plymouth-Cape Cod area before the Mayflower's arrival. Designed by artist Elizabeth Creeden in consultation with Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribal member and author Linda Coombs, the panel represents a pivotal moment in the story of America's beginnings in early Plymouth. Coombs took the first stitch on the panel in June 2023 - almost a year-and-a-half later, it has been completed by the artist's team of Tapestry stitchers: every detail made with care and sensitivity as part of a collaborative process.

09/10/2024

In the studio with the Tapestry stitchers, we see that Panel 10, illustrating the English Separatists’ 12 years in Leiden, The Netherlands is just about complete, and not far behind are Panels 12, Tisquantum’s Return to Patuxet, and Panel 13, showing events and circumstances that influenced the Pilgrims’ decision to leave for America. Next up: The Mayflower Voyage!

05/18/2024

Honor to be in the studio with the amazing Elizabeth Creeden of Plymouth and the stitchers of The Plymouth Tapestry at Pilgrim Hall Museum and UK artist Kirstie McLeod, creator of The Red Dress embroidery project, with Beth McLaughlin, curator of Fuller Craft Museum, where the Red Dress is on display through this weekend. Artists like these uplift us all!

12/28/2023

This year has seen lots of progress on Panel 10 showing the city of Leiden, Netherlands, one of the significant places depicted on the The Plymouth Tapestry at Pilgrim Hall Museum. Leiden was home to a group of exiled English Separatists for a dozen years before some of them left to embark on the Mayflower. Back in 2022, Tapestry artist Elizabeth Creeden enjoyed showing the Leiden panel to a group of enthusiastic and knowledgeable Dutch visitors including Michael Roumen, Marlijn Kok, and Jori Zijlmans! Maybe someday when this amazing artwork is completed, this special panel could be exhibited in the Netherlands!

10/11/2023

Wow - the award-winning Chronicle on WCVB Channel 5 covers the amazing The Plymouth Tapestry at Pilgrim Hall Museum this Thursday, October 12th at 7:30 pm. You can stream live at https://www.wcvb.com/nowcast , or watch later on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChrhpjHMvCoJQtXPs17BAQA Kudos to artist Elizabeth Creeden and the project stitchers - here's a timelapse view of the team in action!

08/15/2023

We are in great company on EGA's list of amazing needlework tapestries!

The Bayeux Tapestry has inspired a number of needlework tapestries with the purpose of capturing the history of various cultures.