So quiet. Since there is no interest in my collections, I have started the painful process of purging. (It sort of reminds of what happened in the English lace-making villages, when all their lace equipment ended up being destroyed -- we tsk tsk now, but probably no one was interested in saving those things at that time.) This is not a task to leave for an executor unfamiliar with the subject matter. Difficult. Some files were saved from as far back as 1952, when I was just starting high school. Others are even older, and were collected through years of antiquing. They are examples of what can happen when a passion for embroidery, lace, and hand-sewing has never faltered. Other people move from basket weaving to macrame to paper-making to gardening to etc. without much focus, but that was never my blueprint! The paper files have included every single newsletter from various groups, and document what we were doing to keep these skills and these aspects of womens' history alive. Reflects focused interest on the 2nd half of the 20th C. There is little mail on Arachne, and I found a few tidbits in some quite old Embroiderers' Guild newsletters that might amuse, to share. Following is one entry for each day of the next week. Some are informative. Others are supposed to be amusing. 1. Hand work should be hand laundered! 2. Keep a set of plastic embroidery hoops for pre-treating stains. Stretch the fabric on the hoops (this is not about lace); it is much easier to remove spots when material is taut. 3. Warm corn meal (uncooked, of course) brushed over needlework will usually pick up most soil (furrier's trick). Good hint, if you live in an area where there are dust storms. 4. To remove dust from unglazed framed needlework, crumble stale white bread onto needlework. Leave on for several minutes. Shake off and grayness should come off with the crumbs. (After this, Jeri would suggest having a friend hold a piece of screening over the needlework frame while you vacuum to remove any crumb particles that did not shake off. Some vacuum hoses have an adjustment so there is not excessive pull. You should use the adjustment, and securely tape a piece of machine-made net over the nozzle. You don't want to pull loose stitches, beads, lace appliques, etc. into the vacuum cleaner.) 5. A stitcher's husband stepped on a needle. She looked at him in disgust as she pulled the bloody needle out and said, "You BENT it!" 6. A stitcher's friend, an archeologist, was asked for an opinion of her Greek needle lace sampler. She explained that it was a lost art from an island in the Aegean Sea. The friend's comment was, "My dear....sometimes there is a reason for these arts to be lost." 7. When I was giving a lecture, I wore an antique lace shawl. After commenting that it was at least 100 years old, one of the students asked, "Did you do the work yourself?" Jeri Ames in Maine USA Lace and Embroidery Resource Center
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