Requests

If there is a particular article you want from the past on American Folk Arts please request it in your post.  I do not generally answer emails or posts made on this blog.  But I would be happy to repost any articles or answer questions you have regarding sewing techniques, history of designs, or articles I gave posted in the past.  Thank you for visiting, and I hope all your needles are filled with wonderful threads of many colors.

Gimp and Wire and Lace Oh My!

April 8, 2014

Burano Lace

This little oval with flowers has a mesh background with the flowers and leaves outlined and then filled with variations on the buttonhole stitch.  This particular type of lace is often called Burano.

I generally like to outline the major elements of any design before I place any of the background reseau.  The outlining can be done any way the stitcher prefers.  The techniques for this have been covered previously in this article.

I have included another example of lace that has been partially stitched.  This lace is not Burano, but it sure looks like it!  I will explain the differences later as we go along.

It is always a problem getting a design onto the fabric.  Prickings were made and these were dusted with chalk.  The chalk sifted through and the different designs were outlined with thread as has been discussed previously.

I have made a design for you to practice with plenty of open space for reseau.  You can use a perle cotton or silk perle thread for these designs.  Remember these threads constitute the ground of the lace, they should be substantial enough to hold up while being washed.  You would not normally use a gimp thread. 

This drawing is copyrighted and all Rights are Reserved.  Please refer anyone who would like a copy to this site for a copy of it. 

I will be back to discuss reseau and how this lace might be stitched, or what the designer intended.  Lace could not be held together without the background mesh.

If you would like for me to make patterns of these other drawings please request it.  At this time I cannot answer your comments or requests, but I will be happy to draw the patterns if requested.

  

For the record, I do a large amount of research in books that are out of date and are no longer covered by the copyright, so you are free to make copies of the photos, except where noted otherwise.  I will be adding the bibliography back on the website at www.americanfolkarts.com as time permits.  

February 4, 2014

This is the back side of the pricking for the design above.  I used two sheets of 100 weight cardboard that were taped together before I pricked the design.  Generally I tape the design on too.  I use a good variety of tape like 3M blue label easy release, so it doesn't shred the cardboard when I remove the design.

When I was first researching lace I had the hardest time figuring out what to use for the gimp, horsehair and wire.
Then it dawned on me that the people who were making the lace used whatever they had available.

Duh!

Blush!

Finally, I figured out enough to really start making sense of lace!

So after I made a huge bobbin pillow I figured out how to makes things really work.

I use a needlepoint pillow, a square of poster boards, or one of my hoops to hold the fabric that I tack  the pattern on.

I use a sewing thread in a contrasting color to couch down the outline of the design using either gimp, wire or horsehair.

Did that get your attention?

Gimp is this.

Chinese Knotting Cord at 8mm from Bead Smith.  It is perfect for the edge of just about any design.

The wire I use is from Panacea Floral Cloth Covered Spool Wire, 32 gauge at Michaels.  I generally don't have to wrap it, but if I do I use whatever thread I will be making the lace with.

The horsehair was particularly difficult because it comes from the horse's tail.  I just was not well enough acquainted with any horses that cared to let me examine their tails.  ;)  If I had ever seen one that looked like he/she would have cooperated I can assure you I would have waded in.

But then it occurred to me that what the lacer did was simply use a fine, springy filament that would cause the lace to stand up around the wrist or face.

So I went and got me some Fireline from Bead Smith.  It is called braided bead thread and it's about 0.010 inches in diameter.

I got the colors Crystal and Smoke.  One is clear and the other gray.  

Now all I needed was a pattern.  Oh boy, are there patterns, the very first lace that was done with bobbins, but it was not nearly as popular as the kind that could be made with a threaded needle.  This was before the 1600's. 

I saw a piece of needle made lace from the Tamir region west of China that was used to make a hat with felt.  It was about 5,000 years old.  But then that is west of China.

There are literally hundred and hundred of patterns.  There are books of patterns!  They are so simple to do, it is almost insulting to try and explain them.  Hence the explanation of supplies

Back in Europe they simply took the idea of braiding and started making lace the same way as they had done with the bobbins by weaving back and forth between the couched edges with a threaded needle.  They tacked or couched the gimp and horsehair down around the outside edge of the lace. 

 Just gimp was temporarily tacked on the inside edge of the lace, that would be the side attached to the garment. 

Then they took a threaded needle and simply wove back and forth between the edges.  They added threads in the middle parallel to the couched edges if they needed to make wider lace for the  design and just cut those away when the design narrowed again. 

The only problem anyone had was figuring out a neat way to get around the pattern without having to cut the thread too many times.  And really, that helped them stay awake, because it was about as interesting as a bowl of oatmeal, maybe a bowl of cold oatmeal.

And of course poking holes in the pattern was a just plain fun.  So I tried these really large tacks.  They are about 2 inches long.  They are very easy to hold as you punch out your design on a piece of paper.  I use cork board under my push pin, but a folded towel would work.

Well, that's it!  I will be more than happy to share some patterns with you.  I will have them posted later on my website at the Stitch Dictionary.  

Look for them under Lace Patterns, Woven in a month or so.  Thank you so much for stopping by.  Linda

The Mystery Sampler will be posted a band a month here in what's new.

The chart for the second band is at 

http://www.americanfolkarts.com/BandTwo.htm

Click on the link to see the charts.

I used Creme Linen 32 count, 30 inches long by 8 inches wide 

Be sure you leave three inches of cloth at the top of your project for finishing. 

I also used two strands of blue floss like DMC 792, ecru perle #8 and #12.

There will be finishing instructions at the end of the posts for all the bands. 

Crescents

The Crescent

Gosh it is good to be working again!

Here is the design I want you to experiment on.  It has a lot of different design elements for all the lace fillings we will be discussing.

Sorry about the watermarks, unfortunately they are necessary. 

 I put this in the drawings tab at the top of this page it should be a better source to copy.

Please use this 's' shaped crescent for this exercise.

*Make a copy of it and place it on a piece of muslin and mount it all in a frame or small hoop.

*Then work around the 's' design with outline stitches.  Remember stitch one, skip one.

*Tear or cut a strip of the interfacing off the width of the purchased interfacing.  The strip needs to be about an inch and one half wide.

It is a really thin interfacing but of good quality.  It is not woven.  Instead it is felted with shorter fibers that run in one direction so it can be torn evenly.

I bought it a long time ago and have no idea what brand it is.  Or for that matter what it's name is.  But if you ask an older associate in a sewing fabric department or store, they will help you find it.  Ask someone who sews clothing.

Twist it along the length.  Then bundle and stitch several of these twists down onto the design using the four-sided stitches or a ladder stitch going back and forth through the outline stitches.  You can stagger the twist in the bundle for narrow ends of the design.  Cut away any excess length.

You will have to use your judgement for how high you want this crescent to be.  Later I will discuss the flat Venetian Point, that will add to your understanding.   It takes awhile for all this to start making sense, be patient. 

Be prudent while stitching it down,  it does not need to be laid down with permanence as the buttonhole stitches will secure everything.  So few stitches are better.

If you look at the crescent below you can see the ridges and valleys that have formed with the threads only. 

You can use the interfacing only or with the threads.  

You need to try several ways to see what works best for you.  

* To find the best laying technique.

*To develop a tension in the covering stitches like the buttonhole or satin that is attractive.

*Find out which fibers, interfacing or threads, are the best for you, what is cheapest, most available.

*Be sure to stitch over it, use both the buttonhole stitches and the satin stitches.

DO NOT STITCH THROUGH ANYTHING!

All of this lays on top of the pattern and muslin and nothing but the outline stitches going through the foundation.  You could use dissolving paper even for that.   And you can run most dissolving paper through the printer, of course, use caution.  

My interfacing is completely washable, make sure yours and the threads are too.  This lace was done in a neutral color that would go with clothing, any clothing.  You can use colors later.  Right now just stick with the tried and true.  Like DMC perles and flosses.   They are easy to find, inexpensive and very good. 

Don't expect to go right into a project and be successful.  Try a couple of the things I am offering now and later, then plan a project.  I want to make a fan, been at this for years and still haven't fixed on a design I want.

I am getting my soap box out here, I have stitched a couple million inches if not miles.  And every time I start stitching I have to warm up.  The first fifteen minutes look like a train wreck!

Then lo and behold, everything gets warmed up and my stitching smooths out, my eyes are adjusted to the size of the stitching and everything looks pretty good.

You have got to stitch it, all the really great musicians, dancer, artist, authors PRACTICE.

REST!

Join me, you will love this, it is so much simpler than you would ever have imagined.  It supported whole villages, whole regions.  There were no printed instructions.   Everybody stitched, so how hard could it be?

Okay?

I am putting up my soap box for now. 

   I found this picture in the Dictionary of Needlework, second edition, page 95.

   I got the second edition volumes for a birthday present several years ago. What a boon! There are the most amazing pictures in them.  I am sure in 1882 London this book was the rage.  

   To continue I was discussing the decorative top stitches previously. That they should be smooth and without defects like bulges or indentions.  What follows is my method. 

   Punch holes around the design to couch the outline of the design. Then you will need to add the strips of interfacing. I cut out a piece of cardboard and placed the design on it, and then punched out the holes for the outline stitches with a blunt needle that has a very large bead glued on at the eye. (There are also paper punches used in 'paper quilling.' Also cork pads to hold the design while you punch, a folded towel will work too.)

    In the punched holes for the design go in and out of them around the design like redwork, sew a stitch, skip a stitch around the design. These outline stitches will eventually be cut away, and all the rest of the stitches that follow will be worked on top of the design only.

   Tack the interfacing inside the crescent with the same thread you will stitch the design with so that it will not show up if any strays are missed when you cut and remove the stitches on the back of the foundation later.  Use the stitches just made for the outline, be frugal!

   Now make four sided stitches over the design again using the stitches just made for the outline.

  These stitches need to be the same thread you will use to make the stitches of the lace crescent.  

   The cross over stitch of the four sided stitch must be made perpendicular to the design outline, and the stitches that follow the outline must be fairly parallel to the outline. There will be smaller stitches on the inside curve than the outside curve.

    Do the four sided stitches loosely, because later you will need to weave the extra threads needed in and out of the cross over stitches. You want the interfacing and these threads packed in to the four sided stitches as shown in the photo.

   Then whatever decorative stitch you decide to use, satin or buttonhole, make sure they fan out or in so that its crossing stitch is perpendicular to the design outline as done with the buttonhole stitches in the picture above. 

    I like to draw the outline in ink and pencil in the fans on to the design, erasing and redoing them as needed until I am satisfied with their arrangement. Then use the drawing as a guide for the stitching.

    I like to do the buttonhole stitch with the perles inside the design too if I have a really openwork filler. I also top both sides of the outline with the buttonhole stitch if the little extras call for it. Or I use satin stitches if those will work in the design.

  

©2013, Linda Fontenot, All Rights Reserved, please refer anyone here for this article.  

Lace Stitches

I got busy and brought the rest of the lace pictures over.  You will need to scroll down to see the new things.  

Lace is a fascinating topic that seems almost infinite.  The names of the lace can make my head spin there are so many!  Or so it seems.  But first, let me show you the laces I like.

Alencon Point

Gros Point

Punto n Aria

Gros Point a form of Venetian embroidery

The couching is very important.  Don' t slack here, lay a thread with some body, and couch it at 90 degree angles with a contrasting thread.  I have a photo of one of my other projects to show you.
As you can see I kept the same angle on my couching stitches at the bend in the leaf edge.  That helps me keep the rows straight and aligned as I use the couched threads as a guide.  Something I prefer to do. 

I use a contrasting thread for the couching because I will use it later when I cut the finished motif away from the fabric I used to make the leaf.  I guess you could really call it all punto n aira, but no one does.

This fourth photo is also taken from a European book dated 1894.  I was impressed with the photography.  Especially when compared with the woodcuts.  Like today the late 1800's and early1900's were a time of transition, and lace was dying.

Many excellent studies have been done on why lace died, how it died, and the effects of it dying.  Lace making was a decent living until this time, whole villages were sustained with the effort of making and selling lace and then the machines started making it faster.  But, if I pause and think a moment about this.  Why would you labor every waking moment of the day to make lace when you could find a job in a shop selling lace?

None of these events occur in a vacuum.  We look at them in isolation to understand them, but they never existed that way.  We all have choices we can make, if you can make lace I bet you can sell it better than the person who may just wear it.  True?  And so, my point is made, the world is ever changing, things come and they go, just as lace did.

Unfortunately the lace was made by a class that did not leave careful notes on its production, so we are left today with more mysteries than facts.  I love a mystery, my library is full of mysteries and their solutions.  I am so glad I have this opportunity to explore it, it has been the adventure of a lifetime.  For the longest time, I had no idea what I was looking for, talk about overwhelmed, amble through a hundred or so books over and over again trying to get your arms around an idea, a thought, a hint, absolutely anything.

Everyone was categorizing the types of lace, all I found was a few categories of lace needle-made, bobbin-made and knitted. What was the mystery?  Of yeah, the names!  Well names are a cheap effort, you don't have to lift a finger to call something a name.  And so the mystery widened.  Especially when they started getting 'cute' and used names from another language.  A language, mind you, that they barely understood.  That told me a lot, once I figured it out.

I knew that the designs were coming from the same source that crewel embroidery had come. I was more than familiar with crewel over a long period of stitching it.  So rest assured lace can be easily designed from the legacy of crewel.  And crewel has a legacy back to the old german from which it evolved.  Yep, the vikings.  I almost fell out of my chair when I was looking up the word embroider, I always want to add another 'er' on the end of that word.

The New Oxford American Dictionary said the word "originated from late Middle English from the Anglo-Norman French 'embrouder' and that word was from the Old French word 'brouder' meaning to decorate with embroidery, which in turn, had a Germanic origin."  The Vikings brought me embroidery!  Astonishing, seems they left a lot more than I was aware of until now.

And so . . .

The photo of the design has the fillings in place.  All the fillings are from the buttonhole stitch with variations that are numerous.  And the names!  Oh my gosh, the names are legion, in any European language you prefer.

Please examine the directions of the stitches. Like Crewel the stitches suggest growth patterns and it would be helpful for the embroider to fill in direction lines in the pattern to help them follow these growth patterns.

The bars that hold the motifs inline or in place are also covered with buttonhole stitches and have picots, that I will also cover another time.

In the satin stitching you can see the bundles of threads that were used for the underlay of the satin stitches, that the number of threads varied with the size of the edging.  You can see the holding stitch used to hold the top layer over the filling stitches used to fill the space.  What you may not be able to see is how poor a job the satin stitching was.  It bulges and sinks with whatever it was laying over.  The filling stitches used as underlay left large craters and bumps and then the bundle of threads whipped stitch onto the fill just followed the topography.  There is a bette way of doing this!

Quite possibly the stitcher changed the pattern from a flat point design that had a satin stitch border on the edges of the designs with a toile or cloth filling. And she didn't have the internet to help her do the gros point edging.

But I digress, the buttonhole fillings are especially nice in the photo as the tension was perfect.  You can see the tension of the stitches at the top left side of the motif on top of the design.  That wavy edge suggests the stitching was packed enough to pull in the toile, the fabric the buttonhole stitching created.  And that the couching at the edge of the design kept it all in place.   Unfortunately you can't see the 'thrown threads' in the toile if there are any.  A lot of assumptions can be make here and they would all probably be wrong.

I have some drawings of the buttonhole stitch below.  Again they hardly tell the whole story of stitching these rows of filling. And the variations are infinite!  Copyright 2013, Linda Fontenot, All Right Reserved, you must have permission to use this in any fashion.

This is the buttonhole stitch with a laid or thrown row.  This stitch will fill a space with a solid toile.

This buttonhole stitch is done back and forth.  Unlike the thrown bar or thread that stitch over a row, throws the thread back across and starts over again on the same side.

You would use this stitch if you wanted to make a pattern or openings in the toile.

The final photo, and unfortunately the left side is blurry.  So much so that I couldn't get anything from it.  But the right side is pretty good.

I wanted to go over the satin stitches, because there are several alternative methods of getting a great satin stitched edge.  I have used crushable interfacing that I find at the fabric stores, the best kind will tear easily into strips.  It usually will tear easily in only one direction so you may have to buy a couple of samples before you find what you want.  

I twist the strip of interfacing fairly loosely and sew it down with a loose four-sided stitch.  I do them loosely in case I want to add threads to the bundle. And you can do the same thing with the bundle of threads.  By doing a four-side stitch over the filling of the outline and doing it perpendicular to the design outline you will have a very nice satin stitch.  

The four sided stitch needs to be a little loose, don't draw it down tight leave some room for more threads.  This is a judgement call and really only experience will help.  I will post an example.  I know from my own experience as a stitcher and a teacher,  the biggest cause for stitching problems is tension that is too tight.  Pulling hard on a satin stitch will ruin it.  You have got to leave a little loft in the arch the stitch forms.  The surprising thing for me was that it didn't take long to learn this.  I tried the laying tools, I tried pretty laying tools, long ones, short ones, slick one, rough ones.  Hated them!  It was just easier to stop the madness and figure out a better way of doing these stitches. 

You will find this true for most of the category of straight stitches.  So I started paying closer attention to what was happening with the stitch as it formed, then paying more attention as I stitched them, just a little more and ta-da! 

Remember this, if you lay your stitches on a bias, you will have hills and valley, like those in picture four under the satin stitching, and nothing will fix it.  You would have to rip it all out and redo it.  

Don't pull tightly.

Practice!

Read my articles, vbg

The buttonhole stitch is legion it has been adapted to so many things!  And still it is just a buttonhole stitch .  And of course I have another drawing that shows the stitch without any fabric, just in the air.

No difference between the two, because there is not fabric in one of them it appears to cross over itself and might look different.

Copypright 2013, Linda Fontenot, All Right Reserved, you must ask for permission to use this in any manner.

Welcome!

Welcome back to American Folk Arts' blog. Technology keeps moving forward and I have to keep updating my website. This Google Blog will contain all the projects from us and the site will be the reference for all the topics mentioned here. You will be able to access anything you want from us at either portal.

I've been busy preparing a new module for you about the laces I want to share with you. Lace is a forgotten and very much misunderstood art form. And I realize your time is limited so the projects will be smaller ones that you can do quickly. And I will offer a variety of ways to display your treasures! These little jewels are a wonder, I would like to have a box full of them so that I could arrange and rearrange them ceaselessly.

Something New
I have a new feature to the left of this column at the bottom of that column, it is a listing called 'Stitch Dictionary.' There you will see an item called 'Wrapped Bars', if you click on it, you will be taken to the explanation. Sometimes, you will have to scroll down the page to find the exact item I have mentioned under the heading like the one called "Diagonal Wrapping of Bars" in the topic 'Wrapped Bars.' I know they have 'targets' for these topics but I have been around a long time and I remember having to rework my website because they did away with the 'targets.' %^(

Top of the Page
You might have noticed there are topics running across this article. You can explore those pages for projects and drawings.

I have spent a lot of time arranging these pages in the past and have decided to change the style of my pages because I would really rather sew than spend hours with the layout of pages of instructions. To that end the photos that accompany the instructions will be at the end of the article, they will be large and can be printed. They are copyrighted by me, but you have permission to make a single copy for your personal use. These designs are not for resale or distribution without written permission from me. If someone wants a copy of any of these articles please direct them here to make their own copies. These are all copyrighted items.