Hi  I am pleased to hear you enjoyed the pictures from Kate Davis. Quite a number of designers ( knitting and crochet) came to study items from the collection they are going to submit designs which will be sold to raise money towards the collection. Its only source of income is from what it can earn and grants it receives. You would love looking at the boxes but you would need weeks, months or even years in my case to study it all. It was set up by Rachel Kay Shuttleworth as a working collection set up for people to study â she collected items which she thought was of interest, some of it is poor. She wanted to educate people about lace and embroidery in particular. She was very brutal with some of her comments. The piece of lace on a small roller pillow in one of the pictures was made by me. The idea was to make it look as though Rachel had just walked out of the room for a second, so there are bits (replicas of her labels, threads, her old typewriter, some of her articles written in âEmbroideryâ etc) on her desk and the lace pillow on a table in the bay window. All the display rooms were altered last winter. One display room shows a range of pieces from the collection â to show the variety it contains. The next room shows Rachel as a teacher and practitioner. The following room has treasures from the collection and all the staff and volunteers chose their favourite item. That was very difficult because there are so many items I love. I chose a Chantilly fan that once belonged to Lady Baden Powell (a friend of Rachel), we were running out of time and it was easy to display. In the final room there are items from local degree students who have been inspired by the collection. It is good to see that Miss Rachelâs vision is alive. In the public gallery this year is an exhibition âInspired by Laceâ. Local colleges, universities, lace groups and Embroiderersâ Guilds were invited to study about 20 selected items of lace. The pieces are on display until the end of the season (beginning of November). The items had to be no bigger than 10â square â because of space. Regards Dianne Derbyshire Preston Lancashire  "I found some intriguing photos of the textile collection of Gawthorpe Hall in the UK, on Kate Davies blog;
katedaviesdesings.com I would love to have a look in the boxes of lace. Joke Sinclair, from a sunny West-Sussex in the UK" - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
