Machine embroidered lace collars

 

This net fabric covered with embroidered lace collars shows how embellishments like this can be made in large numbers for the clothing industry. They are made with a multihead embroidery machine which acts like several sewing machines joined together. The net base is stretched on a frame and can be moved automatically from side to side or back and forth as the embroidery progresses

The machine includes a number of heads which contain the needles. Each needle has its own supply of thread so different colours or types of thread can be used in each one. In this case a thicker glossier thread has been used in one needle to outline and highlight parts of the design in the same way a gimp thread would be used in handmade lace.

These collars have been designed to use in pairs as the front edge is longer than the back so they would fit round the neck with the smaller edge at the back of the garment. Once the embroidered fabric is removed from the machine the excess net separating the individual collars is cut away carefully leaving the shaped collar. Any loose threads at the beginning and end of the embroidery also tend to be cut off as the backing net is removed. The lace can then be attached straight on to the neck of a garment. The thicker outlining thread will ensure that the collar retains its shape and doesn’t fray as well as providing a slightly scalloped edging to the design. The whole process is a fast and economic way of producing lace clothing for the mass market.

A painted lace tablecloth

 

Over the Easter holiday I was lucky enough to visit Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum where I saw an exhibition of some beautiful portraits painted by John Singer Sargent. He was part of the Broadway colony of artists painting in Worcestershire at the end of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries. The exhibition also featured some works by the other artist in the group including ‘Between two fires’ painted by Francis Davis Millet in 1892.

It wasn’t the subject of the painting that attracted me. In fact I felt a bit sorry for the puritan man in the picture who looks rather intimidated by the two maids on either side of him. It caught my eye because of the accurate depiction of the lacework round the tablecloth, which you can see in close up in the photo at the top of this post. It is in fact drawn work where threads are pulled, or drawn, out of the background cloth and the remaining threads are used as a background for embroidery stitches. The horizontal and vertical threads you can see were originally part of the cloth and the diagonal ones were added as embroidery stitches with a needle and thread. The raw edges of the rectangular shapes would have been secured with closely worked buttonhole stitches like the edges in the image below.

However this embroidery, although it looks like the lace in the painting, is not drawn work because the threads used to make the pattern across the open space are thicker than the cloth threads and have been added afterwards as free embroidery.

I was also interested in the caps on the maids’ heads especially as I had been looking at speldenmuts a few weeks before. The ones in the painting are much smaller than the caps from the Netherlands and beautifully painted so you can see the gathers and the spots on the muslin. However I wasn’t sure that embroidered muslin would have been use for servants headwear in the seventeenth century, which is the time that the painting is set. I’m also dubious about the net curtain at the window. I’ve seen several paintings and photographs of similar half curtains at the windows of cottages in the nineteenth century but not in the seventeenth. Who would have thought that a casual visit to an art exhibition would have thrown up so many textile questions!

Bayeux tapestry stitch

 

During our Icelandic textile tour we had a workshop to learn about Bayeux tapestry stitch, which was used to work the famous Bayeux Tapestry. It is a traditional technique in Iceland and is thought to have originated in Scandinavia. Fifteen ecclesiastical pieces worked in Bayeux stitch from the late 14th to the early 17th century still survive in Iceland.

The stitch is also known as ‘laid and couch work’ and is designed to fill a large area using minimal embroidery thread. A thread is laid across the area to be filled, a small stitch is used to secure it and the thread is then taken back to the original side, parallel to and adjoining the first thread, where another small securing stitch is made. The entire area to be filled is covered with thread in this way, on the surface, with the reverse of the work showing only the tiny securing stitches along the edge of the area.

Once the area is covered in close parallel lines of thread, another thread is laid, at a right angle to the original threads, on top of them. This thread is then secured at intervals with small couching stitches at approximately 5 mm intervals. As you can see from the images, the upper threads and the couching stitches can be the same colour as the main work or a different colour.

Working the upper thread in parallel lines is the traditional way of working but it is also possible to work curved lines as well. Once one upper line of thread has been worked others are then added to cover the entire area to be filled. To give some definition to the different parts of the design the area to be filled is usually outlined with stem stitch before it is filled with Bayeux tapestry stitch.

The earliest examples of Bayeux tapestry stitch are the Bayeux Tapestry and a fragment from a tomb in Durham, England, both from the 11th century. The Bayeux tapestry tells the story of the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy in 1066. It is 70 m long and about 40 cm deep and it is thought it was commissioned by William’s half-brother Odo Bishop of Bayeux and embroidered by women in Kent in the south of England in the 1070s. At that time, Anglo-Saxon needlework known as Opus Anglicanum was famous across Europe for its high quality. The Tapestry is housed in the Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux but is being loaned to The British Museum in London from September 2026 to July 2027. This will be the first time it has returned to England since being made in the 11th century.

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.

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.

Machine lace Schiffli designs

 

These lovely lace designs come from a catalogue produced by the Christian Stoll company of Plauen from the late nineteenth century. These laces would have been made using a Schiffli embroidery machine. This machine could embroider on to a machine net background to imitate handmade lace or could produce guipure lace by embroidering onto a ground fabric that was later destroyed to leave only the lace behind.

At the end of the nineteenth century there were several methods for disposing of the backing fabric including treating the ground fabric with dilute acid before embroidering it then putting it in a hot room where the ground threads deteriorated. Alternatively the thread could be treated with an alkali such as ammonia then the embroidered fabric could be place in an acid bath to remove the ground. A cellulose base could also be used which could be removed by heating or acid treatment after embroidering. The number of patents relating to the disposal of background fabrics at the end of the nineteenth century shows how keen inventors were to find the ideal method. If these guipure techniques were used, the designer had to ensure that all parts of the lace were attached to other areas or include bars of thread joining the separate elements of the design so the lace remained in one piece once the background had been removed, alternatively the lace could be applied to a net background to keep the elements of the pattern in place. The Schiffli lace machine was invented in the 1860s in Switzerland and ‘Swiss’ lace became very popular throughout Europe at the end of the century for curtains and clothing.

Indian shisha mirror work

Shisha (glass) mirror work is unique to India. According to Anne Morrell’s book on Indian embroidery it is thought to have developed in Baluchistan or Gujarat and may originally have incorporated naturally occurring mica rather than mirrors. Blown glass is used now which is broken into pieces and then cut into shapes, most often circles. However in one of the examples I bought the ‘mirrors’ seem very flexible and more like cardboard than glass (see below).

Anne describes the traditional technique for holding the mirrors in place with two vertical and two horizontal threads forming a cross across the face of the mirror. This cross forms the base for the top stitching which comprises buttonhole, herringbone, or chain stitch forming a circle round the edge of the mirror. It’s important to get the tension of the holding stitches just right as if they are too loose the mirror falls out and if they are too tight it’s difficult to work the circle of edge stitches.

That’s the traditional technique, however at one of the women’s cooperatives we went to we were shown a different method. The embroiderer made a ring of thread round her finger, worked buttonhole stitch all the way round it to make a ring and then slip stitched it over a mirror on the base fabric which was held in place with stitches through holes in the mirror (see above). Embroiderers, particularly those working for a living, will always use faster ways to produce the desired result if they can, because time is money. Whatever the method and the materials used it is a beautiful technique that is unique to India.

Indian chain stitch embroidery

Chain stitch can be made using a needle, a hook or mechanically using the Cornely machine. Anne Morrell in her book on Indian embroidery suggests that chain stitch was probably introduced to west Gujarat from Baluchistan although there is also a theory that it was imported from China. Although chain stitch is seldom used in contemporary Chinese embroidery it has been found in textiles in ancient tombs. If you are embroidering chain stitch by hand it is quicker to do it using a hook rather than a needle and it results in a more regular line on the reverse of the work. The hook is similar to the ari (the shoemaker’s awl) used to embroider leather for footwear (see my blog of 25 March), although, because it is held differently, the handles of the two types of hook are different.

Embroidery with a hook is generally easier if the fabric is fixed taught in a frame. For needle work the fabric may be held in the hand or in a frame. Anne Morrell notes that when embroidering chain stitch using a needle, the worker generally stitches away from herself and this makes it easier to produce small even stitches. The two pieces shown here are variations on the same pattern produced as a sheet of square pieces approximately 10 cm in size, which are cut up to allow the purchaser to buy as many as they want.

Mojari - embroidered Rajasthani footwear

In Jodhpur we saw these beautifully embroidered traditional slippers being made. These are for a wedding; those with the open back for the bride and the ones with the closed back for the groom. These ones are expensive and are also embroidered on the soles as well as the uppers (see below). Although there is a distinction between male and female footwear the shoes can be worn on either foot, they aren’t shaped for right or left.

The embroidery is worked in chain stitch with a hooked awl called an ari. The work is similar to tambour work but the stitches are worked through fairly stiff leather which means the ari have a working life of about 12 days and then they have to be sharpened or replaced. The hooks are made of metal and the ones we saw had been constructed from the spokes of an umbrella. An awl is also used to attach the embroidered upper to the leather sole of the shoe.

Women’s textile cooperatives in India

One of the things I enjoyed most about my recent textile tour to India with the retreatrecreate group was the interaction with local women. We visited formal textile cooperatives as well as women working in their villages and were welcomed so generously everywhere by the women and their curious smiling children. They all gave us small cups of masala chai while we admired their work as they showed us the techniques they use and answered our questions about their work and lives. All the members of our group were craftspeople so we appreciated the work being done and were genuinely interested in the details of the techniques.

At the Sadhna group in Udaipur we learnt how the group trains and encourages women in local crafts such as embroidery, applique and block printing. Over 600 women work on a piece work system and are given the materials they require as well as access to sewing machines. We joined some of them in a workshop where they showed us how to embellish fabric with shisha mirrors, how to work fine applique and how to make small round fabric buttons. I was delighted my teacher praised me for my neat stitching in the applique work as I felt I’d passed the test!

At the Sambhali Trust in Jodhpur we joined the women in their workshop to see their embroidery for cushion covers and fabrics for soft toy making. They were a lively group and were very interested to see photos of our children and grandchildren and to find out about our lives. The Trust is a non-profit charitable organisation which provides free education to women and girls and trains them to earn their own living through stitching. After our time in the workshop we joined some of them for a cookery demonstration and a delicious lunch.

At other times we visited women in their villages sitting in the shade working on their embroidery together in sociable groups. These settings suggest a simple life with no cares but the reality is that these women are supplementing the family income as well as carrying out all the responsibilities women have throughout the world – their life is not easy. They all had stocks of beautifully made crafts for us to buy at what we hoped were reasonable prices and most of us bought pieces at every place we visited. At least the money goes straight to those doing the work and it places a value on women’s work and gives them some status as breadwinners in their villages.

It also allows them to work in their homes while keeping an eye on their children, rather than having to travel to find work or to labour in the fields. Hopefully, the fact that we had travelled specially to see them also raises their status within their community. Despite the differences in our economic circumstances I felt that at the end of the day we empathised with each other as women and stitchers – I hope they felt the same.