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.