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Showing posts with label trim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trim. Show all posts

18 March 2022

Duran Textiles: new silk ribbons

Duran Textiles, the Swedish company producing historical fabric reproductions, has redesigned their website. They're introducing an entirely new range of 5.5 cm (2-1/8") wide silk ribbons with pretty flower designs, at about – gulp – SEK600 (EUR60) per meter ($55/yd). They don't say outright which products are new, but I think there are a few new cotton prints too. 

Portrait of a Lady, Anton Raphael Mengs workshop
"Portrait of a Lady", with flower pattern ribbons,
from Anton Raphael Mengs' workshop
(public domain, {{PD-US}} ). Source: Wikipedia .

27 June 2017

HSM 2017 #6: 'Metal' bobbin lace

My 'silver' lace, 2 cm (3/4") wide
Traditional metal bobbin lace is made from metal thread, which consists of a thin metal strip wrapped around silk thread. Today's 'metal' thread is wrapped with metallized plastic instead. (Experimental bobbin lace today sometimes uses solid metal wires, which is a completely different thing).

Metal lace is relatively coarse compared to linen lace, and typically uses simpler, non-figurative, designs. Heather Toomer explains in "Antique Lace" (2001) that the stiffness of the metal threads makes them unsuitable for complicated designs (page 119). Still, styles changed over time, just as for other lace.