Suzani embroidery

 

I’ve just returned from an amazing tour of Uzbekistan with a group of textile enthusiasts and thought I’d blog about the lovely suzani embroidery I saw there. It is named from the Persian word ‘suzan’ which means needle and was traditionally used for wall hangings, bedspreads and table covers throughout Central Asia. In the past it was part of an Uzbek girl's dowry and she and her family would begin making her suzani textiles from a young age.

Many suzani are made by groups of women, each stitching one part of the cloth and then combining them to make the final piece. This often results in variations in colour and design as you can see in the image above with the changes in colour of the flowers in the central section.

Suzani were thought to bring good fortune, protection and prosperity to the brides new home and many of the motifs have special significance. For example pomegranates signify fertility, vines are linked to growth, and the sun represents light and life, while other images are talismanic to deflect the evil eye.

Chain stitch is the main stitch used to outline the motifs, delineate borders and often to fill solid areas. It can be worked using a needle and thread or using a tambour technique with a hook. In many suzani only the motifs are filled with stitches, but in more intricate designs the entire surface of the cloth is covered in stitching.

Another method of filling large areas is Bukhara couching. In this technique the first line of thread is couched at intervals along its length. The second row, below it, is then couched so that the couching stitches are slightly to the left of the stitches in the row above, and so on with the following couched threads, thus forming diagonal lines of stitching. Bukhara couching (the upper section of the image above) gives a slightly flatter appearance to the work when compared with the chain stitching in the lower section.

Although chain stitch and Bukhara couching are the main stitches used in suzani embroidery, some examples also incorporate buttonhole stitching and satin stitch as well as decorative couching and alternating coloured stitches in chain stitch. We were lucky enough to see so many beautiful examples of suzani in workshops, museums and markets and were pleased to see that the art of suzani is being revived and preserved for the future.

Draught for a machine lace tablecloth

 

This is a draught, or the instructions, for a tablecloth to be made on the Nottingham lace curtain machine. The first step in producing this type of lace is to design the pattern, which is done by the designer drawing freehand onto paper. That design is then passed to the draughtsman who converts it into the draught, essentially by digitising the design into a series of squares, which are recorded on graph paper by hand painting the individual squares. The draught forms the coded instructions for the lace machine. It is then sent to the card puncher who produces a set of jacquard cards based on the draught, which are then used in the production of the lace.

The draught also includes hand written instructions including the size of the lace; this piece is 36 inches square. The written notes also specify that this tablecloth should be made in ‘single action filet’, meaning that it will resemble handmade filet lace when it is made. All Nottingham curtain lace is made in a series of blocks but they can be open or closed and thick or thin giving an appearance of shading. However when making single action filet lace all the blocks tend to be fairly solid, emphasising their similarity to handmade filet lace. There is also a stamp on the back of the draught giving the Nottingham address of the firm of designer draughtsmen who made it, as well as the pattern number and the date (April 1970). So this lovely image includes a wealth of information.

Early twentieth century tape lace

 

These tape laces are all advertised in one of the monthly issues of The lace and embroidery review in 1911. This was an American magazine produced for trade buyers which discussed the new seasonal trends and contained many advertisements for buyers and suppliers of lace and embroidery. This advertorial shows ‘some beautiful real tape laces’ available from P K Wilson and son. It shows a range of design styles and suggests that the top and bottom ones are possibly Bohemian lace (a term described later in the same issue and discussed in my blog of 14 November 2024).

The fact that these laces are labelled as ‘real’ implies that they are all handmade. It is hard to see from the image but the second piece does seem to include lines of tape that have been gathered and folded to make the pattern and then joined with simple filling stitches. So this piece is probably handmade, although the tape itself is machine made.

In the third piece machine-made tapes have also been gathered and folded to make the bold designs on each side. This was probably worked by hand over a machine made net, with the surplus net being cut away once the tape had been sewn in place and joined with simple filling stitches.

The piece on the fourth line was probably worked in a similar way with the edging tape and flowers added to machine made net. The central swirls could also be made using a fine tape, but I think it would be much easier to work this part of the design in tambour lace with a hook and thread producing a fine chain stitch. Tape lace was certainly popular in the early twentieth century; customers appreciated its bold designs and manufacturers liked it because it was quick and easy to make.

London landmarks in lace

 

This machine-made, lace panel of Westminster Abbey in London is one of a series and I have another one depicting Trafalgar Square. Many of these fairly small lace panels (they are 30 x 45 cm) were made from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s and I’ve seen others of famous UK landmarks such as Edinburgh Castle and Nottingham Castle. The two I have are made of a synthetic thread so are definitely fairly modern in construction. As you can see in the detail below, they are very cleverly shaded by using a limited range of stitches and the square format of this type of lace lends itself well to depicting architecture.

I don’t know how many different landmarks were part of this London series. I have seen lace panels of Buckingham Palace and St Paul’s Cathedral but they did not have the same border as my two examples so I don’t think that they are part of this series. A search on the internet does not reveal much and concentrates on the images of London shown in the Battle of Britain commemorative lace panel, which I know very well having researched it and written about it many times. However, the images on the commemorative panel are not views of London landmarks, but mainly images of bomb-damaged London buildings. I bought my panels online but I assume they were originally sold as souvenirs for tourists and that is why I think they must be part of a wider series of London landmarks in lace.

Alternative lace bobbins

 

I’ve started a new piece of work, which will be 3 or 4 m long and 20 cm or so wide. As you can imagine it requires quite a lot of thread and my usual lace bobbins aren’t big enough to hold it all so I had to find another solution. I had a look through my bobbin collection and found several continental bobbins that I’ve been given over the years by kind friends, which are just right for the job. So thank you to those of you who have given me gifts of bobbins over the years, they are proving very useful. I’m also enjoying using them as they remind me of my lace travels and they are pleasing to work with. However, even these lovely bobbins are not suitable for some of the thicker threads I’m working with. The ‘hairy’ thread you can see is actually made of paper and is too voluminous to wind round a conventional lace bobbin. I tried winding it round various other cylindrical items but none worked well, sticks were too thin, paper spools too light and toilet rolls too big. Then I discovered two old spools from reels of thread, which worked perfectly, and the thread holds a half hitch nicely to keep the thread in place.

Another problem was the thick thread in the ball, which is made from hemp, and was too bulky to thread onto a spool. Also I want to use a long quantity of it without having to keep joining it, so I decided to keep it in the ball. I started by pinning it down while I made the lace but that was fiddly and time consuming so in the end I just tied a rubber band round it to keep the thread in place, which is working well. The thread does have a tendency to twist, but I find that if I hang the ball over the edge of my pillow as I work it untwists itself and provides the tension I need. I feel quite pleased with my alternative lace bobbins and working with such thick thread means the lace is progressing quickly too.

Swiss embroidered lace curtains

I’m back doing more lace curtain research this week and have discovered these very pretty Swiss embroidered curtains in a lace curtain catalogue from the west London department store Whiteley. The catalogue was produced in the early twentieth century but unfortunately no actual date is given. Swiss is a confusing term in the context of lace curtains because it can signify various different techniques. The Nottingham lace curtain machine can produce Swiss and Swiss combination stitches and Swiss lace is also a term for chemical lace. However, The very light open design of these curtains makes me think that they were made using the Schiffli embroidery machine straight onto a net background.

The three designs of curtains here were all available in white or ecru. The curtain with the design of irises (main image) cost 12/9 for a pair in the sale and each one was 126 inches long and 50 inches wide. The curtains in the lower image are both 126 x 60 inches in size, but are more expensive. The ones on the left cost 17/9 per pair and the others cost 24/3 per pair. I’m not sure why there is such a discrepancy in price as they both seem to have equally complicated designs, requiring similar amounts of work. All three curtain designs are sold in fairly large lengths and widths indicating that they are for a house with large, but not lavish, windows and their price, even in a sale, suggests they would have been bought by a well-to-do customer.

Raised petals in Bedfordshire lace

 

Raised petals are added to lace to give a more three-dimensional appearance to the design. The group of raised petals that you see on the left here were worked separately to the main design and then sewn in place once the work was finished. It is probably possible to make the petals directly over the main piece of lace, and attach it to the lower edge with sewings as you work, but I think making it separately and then attaching it with needle and thread is much quicker and easier. Also, Bedfordshire lace does not traditionally use sewings, so the old lacemakers would not have been familiar with the technique.

The addition of raised petals seems to be left to the worker's discretion as the pricking for the lace does not indicate that the petals should be raised. Perhaps raised petals were only included in the lace if they were specifically requested by the lace buyer for a special piece.

I haven’t seen many examples of Bedfordshire lace with raised petals so I don’t think it was a commonly used technique. However, in this pattern by Thomas Lester the inner row of petals in the large flowers could easily be raised, and Lester’s work was just the type of high quality lace that would have been likely to contain such a detailed embellishment.