More progress has been made on my lace mats based on research
into early twentieth century women who had to leave work on marriage. In the
end I decided to embroider the text using couching so the four mats each have a
phrase from the marriage ceremony: ‘for better; for worse; for richer; for poorer’
embroidered across them. I bottled out of using a marker pen for the writing because
although it seemed to disappear quite effectively when I ironed it on my sample
I was worried, probably unjustly, that it might not work properly on the final
mat so I wrote the text on paper in indelible ink and used that as a pattern
under the fabric. I also had to make some decisions about attaching the lace to
the mat.
The lace represents the creative work of Amy Atkin and
women like her and I wanted to show how easy it was to strip that work and life
away. My initial thought was to use pins. I like the sharp piercing nature of
pins and their hint of veiled aggression, which seemed to match with the
subject, but I decided that it would be difficult to send the pieces to
exhibitions like that as they might come loose or even injure someone! I
therefore decided to tack the lace in place instead. I wanted the tacking to be
obvious though, so I decided to use a red thread, which is often used to symbolise
women. I think the red thread works well and I can always add a line of pins as
well if I’m exhibiting the work myself.
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