My camera was hiding in the trunk. It came out as soon as I wasn’t looking for it anymore, and I got these pictures. The first is of Mary D, who came up from Virginia to work on the lace this weekend. She set herself a goal of 6 repeats/day, and was well ahead of that by Sunday afternoon. Her hands moved so quickly the photo is blurred.

It was a treat to me to have some quiet time to chat with Mary; bobbin lace as a technique doesn’t really call to me (fortunately, my fiber room is bursting with supplies and tools) but it was fascinating to hear about how she came to learn to make lace, and how she enjoys the puzzle and challenge of working complex patterns with many pairs of bobbins. I asked her if this lace, simple as it is and with very few bobbins, comparatively, is boring. Fortunately the answer was no, because working with the metal threads presented its own challenges.

Here are two pictures from my visit to the New England Lace Group on Saturday. I thoroughly enjoyed the day, and was pleased to find I knew more people than I thought I was going to – Bryce, Jill H and Carolyn W have all been to work on the Plimoth lace, plus there was Carolyn H who had invited me, and Mary came for the meeting, and also Elisabeth whom I’d met a few years ago at a Weavers’ Guild of Boston meeting. They all, old friends and new, gave me such a warm welcome, and were so admiring of the work. I feel funny, always in the position to accept all the praise for the project – I’m officially passing it on to all of you, who really deserve it!

Carolyn left a detailed comment about working with the GST. I thought more people would find it here:

The main feature of the thread that I had to learn to deal with is similar to what the stitchers have noted: it is raspy when rubbed against other threads. This means that when tensioning, I had to be very careful to note if the GST got caught anywhere and had to fuss with it a bit more than some other threads. The positive side was that once in place, it did not move much because of the wire structure.
Another tensioning problem was that the silk stretched a bit more than the metal, so if pulling too hard the wire would break leaving an area of bare filament silk that “puffed” a bit if not twisted. These areas were not very noticable if in whole stitch cloth, but showed up more in half stitch or filling areas. Once I got used to it, though, I could avoid over-pulling and my rate of metal-popping went way down.
If the GST rubbed too much on the edge of a bobbin or hairclip (I used the same kind of small hair clip to hold the thread on the bobbin as is used for the metal threads, shown on an earlier blog entry) the wire would break, so I also learned to make sure I moved the rubbing spot often. Kind of like avoiding nerve wear in carpel tunnel syndrome!
I’ve now finished the Torchon square with the GST so can also comment on tying off with it. I used magic threads at the start, so just had to pull the GST through the loops. It was raspy, and in one case my magic thread broke because it was so much thinner and weaker. Overall, though, it was easy to manage the GST and the knots held well. I used a surgeon’s knot(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgeon’s_knot) to make sure the silk held tight. The knot ends could be bent over to a spot on the back and stayed put because of the wire.
And the outcome? The colors are wonderful, the lace has some structure from the wire so I could see using it for flowers, leaves, etc in 3-D work, sort of a middle-ground between silk and actual metal wire. The gold is not obvious but adds another depth of sheen to the silk, and glimmers subtly in certain angles of light. I really like it and plan to use it for more lace pieces.

-Carolyn W

I just had to add my two cents on this piece of ’show and tell’ that Carolyn Wetzel brought in at the last session.  I had close-up pictures that I really wanted to post as they showed the gilt sylke twist used as bobbin lace.  It was very exciting to see her piece.  I had been thinking about begging someone to try it out.  Carolyn had a few comments on working with it from a ‘how-to’ point of view. I hope we can convince her to add her experience to the blog as a record.

There are others out there trying this thread for a number of other stitches and uses that were not historically found.  Please let us know what you are doing with it.  I can tell you that I made GST silk purl by hand about a month ago for a project I will be teaching.  I will try to post a picture of it soon.  Another very, very strange twist is that the thread is conductive.  Of course, if you wrap a copper-silver-gold wire around silk, it is basically an electrical wire.  My main occupation is in a field called electronic textiles which is now growing rapidly.  One of the big problems in that field is that all the yarns we use are gray (stainless steel or silver based).  The industry has been very excited by this GST development and many researchers are trying the thread to see what other textile processing techniques can be used without destroying the wire wrap.  I hope we can find some good ones, for both the historic and modern users will help provide a market to keep the thread alive.

Tricia

One of my very favorite parts of these embroidery sessions is getting to see all the beautiful items our talented volunteers bring in for show & tell day.

First up is a piece of bobbin lace Carolyn W is working using some Redde Gilt Sylke Twist.

In the second picture Carolyn is removing some of the pins.

A few weeks ago Carolyn left a note in the forum about her silver lace thread tarnishing. I sent Tricia a note about it, and then Carolyn and Tricia corresponded. Tricia sent me a copy, thinking the subject and her answer would be of interest. Has anyone else had such a serious tarnishing problem with this thread or another?

I believe that the wooden box Carolyn mentions storing her lace threads in is a divided carrier from Orleans Carpenters. If you have one or are getting one of the Embroiderers’ Story ones, think about not storing silver threads in it.

Dear Tricia,

The silver thread for the lace sample is what tarnished. When I finished the sample piece I left the thread on the bobbins, with the clips on and the loose ends hanging off. The bobbins were left in an open wooden box, so they were exposed to room light, etc. Last week I got them out to set up a new piece with the leftover thread and saw that all the thread that was exposed, loose or on the top layer of the wound area not under the clip, had tarnished to a dark gray with rainbow accents – looks somewhat like those iridescent
metallics. Because the core is white it really showed up like candy stripe – my thread has many sections that does not have very tight coverage by the silver so lots of white shows through. Those sections were also much more stiff/brittle than the untarnished
thread.

I was inquiring on the forum because I wasn’t sure if the tarnish was part of the design plan, to be more authentic looking. I’ve held off on starting my new piece because it was going to be edging for a sachet, and would be exposed, so I am debating if I want the
tarnished look or not. I may modify plans to make something that would go under glass for better protection – but then I lose the glittery effect of the gold thread and moving parts with the oes.

Do you have advice on the best way to prevent the oxidation? Is it mostly light, moisture, or oxygen that causes it?

Best,
Carolyn W
Carolyn -

Sulfur is the main agent that tarnishes silver and the concentration of sulfur accelerates the tarnishing. There are different % of sulfur in different media – from the air (light) to skin and skin oils (higher) to certain woods and wood by-products (paper) which can be
pretty high. Some plastics will have sulfur concentrations depending on the plastic. The goals is to reduce the exposure to high sulfur contact to prolong the tarnish process, which will happen.

We choose the highest silver content (90%) thread as it will last the longest under good conditions. I will say that I have a spool of this thread that I bought in 2002 and it is still bright except for a light, light tarnish on the little bit peeking out from under the acid-free tissue it is wrapped with. I have other silver threads under glass that are now tarnished but took about 10-15 years to get that way. They are now 25 yrs old but not fully black – more brown.

My first guess is that the wooden box is the culprit here. When you got the kit, we had it wrapped on acid-free board with acid-free tissue around it to put it in the best conditions possible for storage. I am sorry that I hadn’t written a blog or something in the directions about storage of the silver. We debated about silver or false silver for the project. The GST is done in gold wire and not silver strip like the original jacket partly for that reason.

Mark, as a metals person, pointed out to us that the culture at the time would have understood that the silver would go black over time and would have accepted it as part of the process because they didn’t have any other option. Their value system relating to the materials would have accepted that. The big question comes, how fast did it happen on those beautiful pieces! Therefore we decided to work with original materials. We have options today and so fret about it.

I have been trying to track down a certain journal article written about a simple set of lab tests that can be done on paper products to ascertain the relative sulfur content. It was written to give museum curators a scale of test results to use to test display and storage
materials for silver and silver plate pots, etc. Everytime they are polished, a layer of silver is removed. So some materials are ok for short term display but not for long term storage. I need to try a few more libraries to get it – maybe the MFA library next. I am not sure how difficult the tests are for the home embroiderer to test her storage, pricking paper, etc.

I hope this explains things. I am so sorry that a layer of the silver has tarnished. I would suggest that you take a tarnish felt and wipe the surface and see if that removes it. I was able to remove a layer easily off my jewelry the other day with one.

Tricia