Working in the archive as research assistant for the ‘Lace Unarchived’ exhibition in 2018, I regularly came across the imprint ‘Property of the Federation of Lace and Embroidery Employers Associations’. Embroidery on net is generally not considered by lace experts to be ‘Nottingham Lace’. The patterning is added to the background net as a second additional step, often in another factory altogether. As an embroiderer, I am interested to find out more about the embroidery side of the industry. Was it significant to the area; why don’t we talk about ‘Nottingham Embroidery’, only ‘Nottingham Lace’? Does the person on the street know or care about the difference?
Many of the items in the NTU Lace Archive are stamped ‘The Property of The Federation of Lace and Embroidery Employers Associations’
For my Advanced Research Module I investigated an idea that Sharpe & Chapman (1996) included in their research with the tantalising phrase: ‘Embroidered Lace is not seen as a pure article’(p327). This refers to the trade of ‘running’ or embroidering the pattern by hand on pre-made net, made either by hand or machine (Earnshaw p53-4). But I was also interested in other types of embroidery and other types of net.
Laser engraving on to tracing paper is still one of my favourite effects
I set about making my own ‘net’ or background for embroidery by engraving a net pattern onto different materials and then embroidering using my machines, or embroidering on a background to create patterned holes with a threadless needle.
Concentric needle holes made by stitching onto plastic film without thread
In the end I abandoned those ideas as I simplified and refined my project, but the samples I created using laser engrave on fine papers and silks are some of my favourites (look at the reflective video on laser samples!), and I will return to some of them very soon for JC Middlebrook.
sample pieces on cheap tulle, before final embroidery onto cotton bobbinet
In my final pieces I used cotton bobbinet from Swiss Tulle to give the lace some body and some stability to the layers within the lightbox. So I embroidered the text as picot layers onto bobbinet for the large lightbox and replaced all laser cut elements with embroidery on net in the small lightbox. The net could be pinned in place to avoid unwanted movement of the embroidery within the box.
Ian had made the large box in April and I still had no idea whether I was going to be able to get a laser design to put in it, so I thought I’d crack on and at least make an embroidered layer. After the success of the text layer in the small box I decided to make the text as picot as a separate layer, as embroidery on net. Click on the gallery below to view how I went about it, more info in the captions
I printed off the design as a template and taped it all together at full size. I laid the net over the top to line up the design as I went
Three sizes of Charnia
The embroidery set up. It’s easier to use the machine at this height rather than seated
The first template. The key was accurate hooping, making sure the net and stabiliser was completely square in the hoop
I started out using small templates to line up the design but found I didn’t need this as I could line the start point up with the end of the last word
I placed the stabiliser on top of the net to avoid any snagging issues
Lining up the text was easy on the large touch screen
Embroidery in progess
Finally
You canmake out the shadow of the text on the grass
The movement of the text appealed to me
Embroidery on net drying in the breeze
Trimming the stabiliser from the embroidery
Washing the lace to remove the stabiliser after embroidery. I was worried that the cotton bobbinet would shrink. It didn’t, although the embroidery pulled in a little. I found that it was possible to get it back to shape after washing by blocking it onto an ironing pad with pins, and pressing lightly
As described in ‘What are Sprigs Brides and Prickings?’, a ‘bride’ is a traditional term for the joins between lace motifs. I was trying to scale up a design to fill the first of my lace light boxes, and bigger overall design size wasn’t working. I thought I could take multiple, smaller motifs, joined together with brides. I photocopied multiple motifs in varying sizes and began laying them out onto a large sheet of paper. The idea of using some keywords to make joins (pictured above) was somewhat tricky as the gaps between sprigs were too wide, making the overall fabric was too floppy, and the words were illegible.
My tutor suggested I try to flow the words between the motifs, making them much closer. I laid out the sprigs on my embroidery software this time, printing off an A4 layout. Using my trusty fountain pen, I took the short sentence I’ve been using throughout the project and wove it between the motifs, looping and expanding the letters to fills the gaps more fully.
“She found something interesting and took it to her teacher, who said don’t be silly we have already decided that isn’t possible”
It wasn’t easy to find a path through the motifs without doubling back, so I used single words in a contrast colour to add more brides
“Charnia” “Tina Negus” “I believe her”
I had to scan the hand drawn layout back into my software to make into an embroidery design, and worked through a number of way of digitising the stitches. Several test stitchouts and refinements required! As always it looks very different before the stabiliser is removed!
Stitching out on water soluble backing was effective, but I tried separating the two layers, the brides to be stitched onto net backing and suspending in front of the motifs (which of course would have to be joined with some kind of stitch)
The motifs only joined at one point per word, which seemed weak
The words seemed too long
I printed out lots of motifs and wrote words from my project into the gaps
My tutor suggested I use the words flowing between the motifs, and the penny dropped. I added a change of colour for additional keywords (which helps where there were too many gaps and I couldn’t ‘flow’ the text!)
The lace when stitched out
Lace before stabiliser is washed away
I also stitched text onto net, without the motif, to suspend as a separate layer in the light box
Lace with straight stitch joins to hang behind the text on net
I’ve been exhibiting in Karlsruhe, Germany for almost ten years now. I was invited to join a group exhibition by the GEDOK group in summer 2019. I showed two new lampshade designs, incorporating my laser cut design and LED lights. You can see the lampshades in the gallery below
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The blue version had a holographic insert which distorted the lights inside, the gold was simply cut silk. This, combined with a large filament lightbulb, was really eyecatching. I found it distracting that you could see the inside, so if I were to repeat the design I would bond silk to both sides of the stiffening.
The blue lampshade twinkled (see the video below)
I was supposed to travel to Karlsruhe with the work and install it myself. However, I didn’t make it to Germany as my Mum had a stroke the weekend before I was due to leave. I decided to stay at home with her instead. Luckily my fellow artists were up for a challenge and put the whole display together for me. It meant I had to design some step by step instructions for putting the light together. They did a fantastic job!
The lampshades on exhibition in Karlsruhe July 2019, image supplied by GEDOK Karlsruhe
I used the waste from the laser cut to make a wall art piece. See the gallery below for more information on how it worked
Using laser cut waste, a simple idea to use pieces of silk waste from the lampshade
The silk has a variety of inherent shading, due to light reflecting on the fabric grain
Everyone loves it!
The pieces create shadows when lit from the side
Using waste from my large silk lampshade, pinned into foamboard.
If you have seen the film Arrival (2016), based on a short story by Ted Chiang and directed by Denis Villenueve, you will understand the boundary or border between the visitors and the people communicating with them. They wrote or drew their communications onto the border. The human protagonists were concerned with interpreting the communication. My light box experiments in 2019 put me in mind of the glyphs written on that border.
Arrival (2016)
You can see in the video below, I planned to make some kind of light installation, probably freestanding, for my second year. I planned to include colour and movement to the light and experimented with how big I could go, and how much distance between light and polypropylene.
Jayne Childs: MA Lighting sample 2019
I also used the laser cutter to engrave the front of the poly to see what that looks like (nice, as it turns out, but no effect on the refraction). I liked that you can see some kind of pattern, even with the light off.
Sailing the sea of #sketchbookwoes, I found myself spending a lot of time in the laser room with Sue Turton. After a basic intro into what the laser may be capable of, I was fascinated by what I could do, not just through cutting but using a low powered laser to engrave or etch on the surface of the material.
Laser flat bed cutter
laser flat bed cutter is much more powerful than the Grafixscan
Laser engrave on tracing paper is one of my favourite effects
Laser engrave onto tracing paper using the grafixscan
The laser cutter in action
Laser engrave test on papyrus
Laser engrave on silk is very pretty but severely weakens the fabric
Layers of laser cut paper and card
Laser cut lace design on tracing paper gave translucency but cast very strong shadows when lit
Laser cut on black core card. The design was based on a small section of a design found in the lace archive at NTU
Laser cut onto polypropylene, had to use the flat bed for this, as the grafixscan was not powerful enough. Made a pleasingly rounded engrave though, as the PP melts slightly
Lights on -laser cut (printed) tracing paper and lace behind the engraved PP
Lights off-laser cut (printed) tracing paper and lace behind the engraved PP
Close up -laser cut (printed) tracing paper and lace behind the engraved PP
Laser cut paper, this sample was very fragile because the paper is too soft but made a very pleasing shape when suspended
Laser cut paper
Laser cut paper hanging 3D
Laser engrave samples on plywood as samples for the final box (pre-lockdown)
(and of course on one of my favourites, tracing paper)
Laser engrave samples on plywood as samples for the final box (pre-lockdown)
(and of course on one of my favourites, tracing paper)
Laser enrgave design for the lacelightbox June 2020
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The university has a number of flatbed lasers for cutting but one large Grafixscan machine which can be used to engrave all kinds of materials. the construction of the machine meant the base material did not have to be totally flat or thin, and the Grafixscan was super fast, producing engraved samples in minutes or even seconds.
Laser engrave onto tracing paper using the grafixscan
It could engrave areas from a jpeg or (which I preferred) lines of less that a millimetre from a vector file. These lines to me were as the bobbin thread in a lace machine, fine as hair. I imagined ways of using this to engrave a ‘net’ ground on which to embroider. As it happened I didn’t go down this line, but at least it gave me an avenue to investigate while I got my sketch on.
