On May 23, 2004, at 10:32, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dianna Stevens) wrote:
Here is a question for the textile peoples. I am mixing my tatted laces with
pine needle baskets. Impressive and quite pretty. (totally unorthodox, but
then I like it). The question is how does shellac effect the textile over a
period of time?
The threads I have been using are size 20 Manuela and some LBH size 60. The lace is tatting (so far).
OK... I have no idea what *shellac* might do to threads, but I do have a - recent - "insight" to report on the matter of other stiffeners... :)
I'm working all-out, trying to bring the (xyz, hateful, and misbegotten... at the moment, anyway <g>) "Two-Pair Inventions" booklet to completion, before I leave for Europe...
Part of the chore was attaching the Snowflake samples to black felt for copying. The 10-12yr old ones - unstiffened, or stiffened with Manishewitz potato starch or the shirt spray starch are all *fine*. Not as stiff as I might like, maybe, but OK, and they have not changed their colour (the first few years, I'd wash them after the Christmas tree was down, for storage. Then re-starch before hanging. The "lazy" won over the "correct" *again*, as I grew older, and I don't do it anymore... <g>)
Three years ago, I heard someone recommend hair spray and, having got a free sample of it, used it on one of the Snowflakes. About 18 months ago, someone recommended sparkly nail polish, and I tried *that*, also.
The samples which had been stiffened with chemicals (hair spray and nail polish) look *super*; they keep their shape/size much better than the ones starched in more traditional ways, and none have changed colour so far. But... <g>
In attaching the lace to a background, when I tried to push a needle through a pinhole, instead of enlarging, it broke the hole open. The chemicals made the lace so rigid, that there's less "give" than in wire lace... :) Until I've photographed/copied the lot, I'm not going to *try*, but I would bet that those pieces are like communion wafers -- wherever you apply pressure, you'll get a crack.
I'd assume that shellac would do the same thing to soft fibers, as hair spray and nail polish do. Possibly (if it's anything as it used to be 30 or more years ago), it'd add a yellow or orange tinge to your lace as well.
So, you'd have to decide *which medium* in your "mixed media" work is more important to you, and then follow the "rules" for that one. You put tatting on your basket and treat the whole as a *basket*, then your lace is going to be a "basket case" (sorry; irresistible <g>). You treat the whole as *lace*, and who knows (*I* certainly don't) what's going to happen - overtime - to the pine needles...
If it were me, I'd do nothing in the way of a finishing coat, grab my first prize at the Fair, and run all the way home to dis-attach one from the other <g>
--- Tamara P Duvall http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) Healthy US through The No-CARB Diet: no C-heney, no A-shcroft, no R-umsfeld, no B-ush.
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