Dear Lacemakers, The copies of correspondence I'm responding to appear at the end of this memo.
I'd like to support Tamara's suggestions. We've discussed this subject of starching lace a number of times on Arachne. The old starches were made of flour and water, and could be quite effective. They can be washed out, though flour residue will remain for many washings. We wrote about the starched bonnets in Sweden sometime in 2000, after the OIDFA Convention. And, I added that the Japanese use rice flour to secure the loose silk and gold threads on the backs of embroidered items, avoiding putting on so much that it bleeds through to the top (right-side) level. What Newbies need to know is to *never give advice to use hair sprays or nail polish on laces*, because *this information may be chosen as easy and be remembered and used on antique or valuable laces* long after you've told someone what you used on a craft lace. If you want to put hair spray or nail polish on craft laces, that would be a personal choice, but we should never (especially when casually discussing, demonstrating or teaching) let the advice slip by without a precautionary reminder. Hair sprays and nail polishes and a number of other items contain chemicals that can be very damaging to lace. Please remember that you wash the sprays out of your hair in a few days, and remove the polish from nails with very harsh chemicals. A comment on using metallics with fibers such as cotton, linen and silk: They do not travel well together. In the embroidery community, a good teacher will caution people that the mass-produced instructions that say to put both in your needle and work them together are just responding to a perceived need to work quickly. An experienced stitcher will thread two needles, and stitch over the same area twice. Once with cotton, linen or silk. And then with metallics. This prevents the two threads from twisting, and will present a much smoother result. Also, you need to know that temperature and humidity changes affect different fibers differently. If you've ever owned old Chinese embroidery, you may have experienced items where the gold outlining threads are hanging loose. This is because the silk couching stitches have responded to temperature and humidity changes, and the expansion and contraction of silk fibers have caused them to be "cut" by the gold threads. It all depends on your priorities, but be very aware of why the presentable life of an item may be shortened when you attempt to use materials in new ways. Every technique, when tried in a new way, needs to be "thought out to the conclusion (result)". Sometimes a working material is not suitable. A reminder: Heat and steam from ironing can cause synthetic metallics to melt. Always test these threads first - take some directly from the unworked skein and try under the pressing iron. Previous correspondence from Susie and Tamara: "Actually I think the problem might come from differences of tension in threads: linen and cotton threads are elastic, metallic threads are not, so when you remove the pins elasticity takes over . one way of preventing this could be to starch the piece of lace prior to removing the pins (using stiff/heavy (?) starching ) and iron it immediately after removing the pins ." Question: How would you starch the piece without getting the pillow wet? Thanks, Susie Johnson In a message dated 1/17/05 12:39:39 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > If you're "philosophically allergic" to starching (as I am), wash the > lace and, while it's still sopping-wet from the last rinsing, > finger-stretch it over a smooth (glass or stainless steel) surface. If > it shows any signs of drying before you've finished shaping it, > sprinkle with clean water. In this case, the tension holds the fibers > to the surface (Newton was a genius <g>), and the pins aren't needed. > You can starch at the same time, if you insist, though I'd recommend > "natural" (flour, sugar, etc) media, not a hair-spray or fingernail > polish, especially if you want to use your flat surface (in my case the > glass-covered coffee table in the living room) again - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
