Chantilly lace

 

Fine, black, Chantilly bobbin lace was first made in about 1840 in the northern French town of Chantilly. It is a very fine, open lace, generally designed with floral patterns, which drapes beautifully. The lacemakers in Chantilly originally made blonde lace using white or cream thread, but as fashions changed they started using grenadine, a black, matt, silk thread, for their lace. The style became popular and other towns in France and Belgium began to use the black thread and make Chantilly style lace as well.

The main designs in Chantilly lace are worked using half stitch, often incorporating open filling stitches in the centres of motifs. The main design elements are outlined in a thicker black thread, or a group of black threads, and the net background is a light twisted Lille ground. The resulting lace has a delicate appearance and was used for veils, shawls, gloves, parasols, edgings and flounces.

Because Chantilly lace was time consuming to make, pieces were often made by a team of lacemakers each making a strip of the pattern. The sections were then sewn together using an almost invisible stitch called point de raccroc. Occasionally this stitching comes apart with time and the joining line between sections is revealed. By the early 1900s, competition from machine-made lace, and changes in fashion, meant that it was no longer commercially viable to make Chantilly lace by hand, but lace enthusiasts still make beautiful Chantilly lace for their own use.

Lace fans inspired by the elements

 

This series of four bobbin lace fans inspired by the four elements has been in production for a while. It began with the blue, water fan, which I made for an exhibition in Valtopina, Italy in 2013. Having made the water fan I liked the concept of having a series of them representing the other elements of fire, earth and air. I decided to use the same format for all of them, with the same lace pattern, wire frame and silk paper making up the leaf of the fan, but in colours appropriate to the different elements. I decided on brown and beige colours for the earth; orange and red for fire; and the greys, blues, mauves and ivory you can see in the air fan below.

Although the elements are quite different, the finger like design of the bobbin lace worked well for them all, as it can represent water droplets, currents of air, flames of fire, and layers of earth. 

The silk paper surround also seems appropriate as it forms a firm barrier but also includes threads and layers representing aspects of the various elements. I finished the final piece of lace a while ago but have only just made the silk paper and combined it with the lace and wire frame. I’m pleased with the resulting set of fans and they make a nice group for exhibiting.

Antarctic expedition lace panel

 

This panel was made in 1957 to commemorate the Commonwealth Trans Antarctic expedition, which took place over the years 1957 and 1958 and was led by Sir Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hilary. During the expedition Fuchs became the first person to make an overland crossing of Antarctica, which entailed covering 2200 miles in 99 days.

The lace was made in cotton thread on a Nottingham curtain lace machine by the Stiebel ad Co lace company based in the city. It was designed by John Belton and depicts the aurora australis (the Southern lights) over the sea and snowy landscape of Antarctica with explorers, equipment and penguins. The panel is often known as the Magga Dan panel after the name of the expedition ship, which is also shown in the scene. As well as its interesting subject matter the panel is also unusual because it has been hand coloured with dyes and stencils to highlight the Southern lights and other aspects of the design, to give the scene a more three-dimensional appearance.

Casements and brise bise – curtains from the 1930s

 

I found this combination of curtains in a 1933 Lace Furnishings catalogue and thought they made an interesting pair. The casement net curtain is the one with the all over pattern and was designed to be hung down the length of a window. It could have been gathered at the top or left as a panel. The householder would have bought a length of the net (35 inches wide) and made up the curtain herself, so she would have had to make an allowance for a hem at the bottom and a turn over at the top of the curtain, to make a channel for the hanging rod. The brise bise fabric (16 inches wide) was designed to be hung half way down a window rather than from the top, in the style we know as a café curtain. It wouldn’t have required any sewing as it is finished at the bottom and  there is already a channel for the hanging rod or cord at the top. I can imagine the curtains being used in a kitchen, with the brise bise across the lower half of the windows and the larger curtain over the window panels on the back door. I like the way just a small part of the main design has been used on the brise bise, to link the two curtains together without overwhelming the smaller curtains.

Both these curtains were made from artificial silk (a much more evocative name than viscose) and cotton. They were available in dark ecru or could be dyed in a variety of shades which the manufacturers guarantee to be fadeless. Dyed fabrics cost more than the standard dark ecru but unfortunately the catalogue doesn’t include prices. The householder could choose from ivory, champagne, blue, copper, rose, gold, putty, old gold, tango, green or brown. I think I’d go for ivory or champagne so they didn’t make the room too dark, what do you think?

Whispers from the library at West Horsley Place

 My latest piece ‘Whispers from the library’ has just been installed at West Horsley Place as part of the ‘Hear my voice’ exhibition. At the start of the project, the artists taking part were invited to a tour of the house and gardens and asked to respond with a textile work inspired by the venue and giving a voice to someone linked to the place. My piece was inspired by the early sensation novel Paul Ferroll written by Caroline Clive in 1854 and the subject of a letter found in a copy of the book in the library at West Horsley Place. The letter was written by Caroline to Richard Monckton-Milnes, a previous owner of the house, the creator of the Crewe book collection, and an advocate for women writers at the time.

 

The book begins with Paul Ferroll murdering his wife so that he can marry another woman and ends with him escaping from prison after being condemned to hang for the crime. The net curtain acts as a sieve trapping whispers from the book in the library. The bobbin lace represents sound waves emanating from the library and the embroidered lines capture the voice of Paul Ferroll’s wife as she narrates her side of the story. Her words are a cry for justice.

 

The Victorian readers of the book were confused by its dubious morality in allowing a convicted murderer, who stabbed his wife in cold blood while she was asleep in her bed, to evade justice. Caroline Clive felt obliged to add a concluding chapter to the fourth edition of the book in which Paul Ferroll dies in exile, thus allowing natural justice to prevail where the law of the land had been subverted. It is this final chapter that is the topic of the letter in the library. However, many readers were not satisfied with that ending either and she was obliged to write a prequel entitled Why Paul Ferroll killed his wife. It is in this book that we learn some of the wife’s story and the love triangle that underlies the crime, told from his point of view, however her voice can now be heard in the whispers from the library at West Horsley Place.

 The exhibition opens next week and runs until the end of October (4 August-31 October). Other artists exhibiting include Machiko Agano, Beverly Ayling-Smith, Anne Jackson and Alice Kettle. The curators are Lesley Millar, Alice Kettle and Clare Clinton.