Painted lace curtains

I was recently given an interesting lace curtain (thank you Gail!) - the image shows a detail of the main motif. It has been coloured not by using differently dyed threads within the lace, but by printing colour on to it after it was made. This was probably a quicker way to add colour than rethreading the lace machine with different coloured threads, which would also have had to be wound on to bobbins and disguised within the body of the lace net in areas where they weren't needed. A similar technique of printing on to lace is used in the famous Magga Dan lace panel made by Stiebels of Nottingham, which celebrates the ship’s history of Antarctic exploration and includes ice floes, explorers and penguins in its design. The lace curtain in the picture also shows an interesting use of floss thread to form the crests of the waves and the main design of the setting sun. The lines of floss representing the rays of the sun would also have caught the light when hung at a window and, especially with the yellow colouring on them, would have given a warm depth to the design.

Mother and babe lace bobbins

I’ve got four mother and babe style bobbins on my lace pillow at the moment. Christine and David Springett in their book ‘Success to the lace pillow’ define mother and babe bobbins as ‘miniature bobbin or bobbins enclosed in a pierced shank’. Three of the bobbins in the image would definitely fit that classification. They would probably describe the wooden bobbin as a lantern as it encloses small beads in a pierced shank. However it is also a whittled bobbin, which they describe separately, and the bobbin and beads were probably carved from a single piece of wood. T L Huetson in his book ‘Lace and bobbins’ describes all bobbins with pierced shanks as church window bobbins whether they contain a smaller baby bobbin, beads or nothing at all. The Springetts use the term church window only for bobbins with empty pierced shanks. I think the Springetts have done an enormous amount of research into bobbins and their makers and I find their use of the different terms helpful in describing bobbins more precisely so I think I’ll stick with their terminology.

Instructions for tambour lace

I’ve been looking at some of the net-based embroidered and needle-run laces as I found the technique quite successful in my Battle of Britain lace panels. This week I’ve been reading Irish lace making by Eileen C O’Connor (the image comes from the booklet), as these types of lace are particularly associated with Ireland and, in fact, are now most commonly known as Limerick and Carrickmacross lace. I was very surprised to read her instructions for tambour lace which say that the working net should be tacked onto the design marked on linen paper. If you have ever done any tambour lace you will realise that the tambour hook passes through the net and picks up the thread that makes the chain stitch from below the net, therefore you can’t do it with something tacked on to the net! Further reading discloses that the designs ‘are intended to be worked with a needle and thread’. That makes sense as far as the working is concerned – you are making chain stitches with a needle and thread through the net, above the pattern, which is removed when the lace is finished. However, can it be described as tambour lace? I had always thought the definition of tambour lace was that it was made with a tambour hook. Perhaps that’s wrong, and it just describes lace patterns on net utilising chain stitch, after all if the result is the same does the technique matter?

Mind maps and lace nerves

Now I’ve finished my Battle of Britain lace commission I’ve been thinking about a new project and I’ve been considering extending my work on the link between biology, science and lace. The image is of Mind maps a piece I made several years ago looking at nerves and body tissues, using a combination of bobbin lace and silk paper. I’m interested in making something on a larger scale using the needle run lace technique I used for the central panel of the Battle of Britain commission. I’ve been looking at some histology book to get inspiration from the images of tissues they contain but I don’t want the work to be purely representational. I’m interested in looking at sight and the cells of the eye which would also tie in with my recent net curtain and veiling projects on concealing and revealing and things that can be seen and not seen. I haven’t quite worked it out yet but that’s the way my mind is working at the moment!