Today at the Ratti Christmas party I found myself talking to a woman from Textile Conservation. I mentioned that I had had an inquiry about finding someone to repair tatting. She said, "There are people who do that sort of thing." I asked her for names and she provided two that I had already heard of. "What do you think it would cost?" I asked. She said, "several hundred dollars. The conservator would have to look at the piece, decide what needed to be done, write it up and have the client sign off on it." "What do you think the hourly rate would be," I asked. "About $50 or $60 dollars and hour" was the reply. We didn't go into it, but it is also sometimes the case that "ethical conservation" requires that the conservator make the repair in a distinctly different thread so that it is not confused with the original work. This is not what people who want to use lace are usually looking for. Also, the conversation had started with the question asked by her of me, museum lace consultant, whether anyone still made needlelace. She apparently knew that people still make bobbin lace. This opens the question in my mind as to how many textile conservators actually know how to make lace. I am sure that they are good at mending, but I wonder if they can for instance fill in missing areas. So the question is also, for several hundred dollars, what does the job actually look like at the end. Devon
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