I collect fans - in any condition and of all types from any country. Must
have over 100.
Having sticks made or buying ready made might be beyond the pocket of some,
but that's no reason not to make and mount a fan.
I carefully remove the leaf from those old ones in poor condition - the
threads of woven fans usually give way along the creases. Currently they're
all stored flat between sheets of acid free tissue paper, but the plan is to
conserve (rather than restore) them in their present state by mount them on
muslin something similar for stability. Some are really pretty with painted
scenes, lace or sequins.
If I have a set of sticks with good guard sticks, but poor intermediates,
and another of similar size with god intermediates, but only one or broken
guard sticks, combine the two to make one good set of sticks - Ann Collier
does this all the time.
Plastic Spanish fan sticks come in a few sizes, but the most popular are the
ones with sticks about 10 inches long. There are very few patterns to fit
this size. You can't usually resize a pattern because you not only have the
outer curve and overall size to consider, but the inner curve complicates
matters. There's probably a call for a lot of patterns of different types of
lace in this size if someone has the skill time and inclination to produce a
book.
Neutral sticks are often better to show off the lace, and the cheap Chinese
paper fans have plain bamboo sticks which are the same thickness all the way
up, with the guard sticks gradually increasing in width. These can be cut
down and sanded to a suitable length, and will then fit anything from the
smallest leaf to one that's the same size as the original, and the diameters
of the inner and outer curves don't matter. You can paint the sticks if you
want, but the natural bamboo looks fine with most laces. The only problem is
that there might be too many intermediate sticks for the design used. They
can be broken out easily, but that leaves the rivet joining them loose. It's
difficult, but you can find very fine nuts and bolts to replace the rivet
and paint the heat of the bolt (at the front) with coloured enamel to
disguise what it is. Alternately, if the fan is going to be kept open for
display, winding thread around the rivet at the back where it won't show
will keep the sticks tight. Not ideal after all the work put into the fan,
but as a last resort if you really want to make the fan and just can't find
sticks you can afford.
I've also repaired intermediate sticks where the bottom is mother of pearl,
bone or ivory and the top thin wood by using the intermediates of Chinese
bamboo and paper fans as replacements for the broken wood. If the broken
intermediate is bone or ivory, the break will be behind the lace and you
have both pieces, a small piece of tissue paper wrapped round the stick and
soaked (only just) in superglue will usually hold it and is virtually
invisible. A right-hand cleanly broken guard stick (where the back won't
show because it will be at the back) can be repaired with a thin piece of
card to act as a splint after sticking the broken edges together. A hairline
crack will be visible on the outer side, but if it's patterned it shouldn't
show. A left hand one can be repaired in the same way and shouldn't show
from the front because the lace will be stuck to it.
Bone will absorb water, so don't wash them. I've tried the recommended
whiting, lemon juice and renaissance cream, but find the best is to just
wipe plain bone with a damp cloth; for clean fancy ones I slightly dampening
a tooth brush and quickly scrub. Dry quickly with a clean cloth. It's
usually the crevices which are grimy.
Mother-of-pearl is made up of fine pieces stuck together with and a stick
will disintegrate if it gets wet. They usually don't need cleaning.
I've made three fans - a small torchon one on Springett's plastic sticks, a
Bruges one on Chinese bamboo sticks and an edgeing with beads mounted onto
wooden Spanish sticks (the type which usually has a piece of cloth around
the top edge and a postcard stuck to the wooden sticks). For the last one I
removed the postcard, scrubbed the colour off (it was only water colour) and
sprayed the sticks red with car enamel. The curved edging is white torchon
with small red beads.
After spending a few years working on Lace Guuild Assessments, I'm currently
working on the Bruge-type (not true Bruges) fan from Veronica Sorenson's
'Modern Lace Design' which was the first lace I saw in a book in the 1980's,
and which made me want to make lace in the first place. I'm making it in
pale colours rather than black, without gimps and with just one filling.
This will be mounted on either black or natural bamboo sticks because of the
small inner curve. In spite of all the fan sticks I have, I still haven't
got a set which will match the inner curve.
Just my experiences.
Jean in Poole, Dorset, UK
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