SHOW OFF!

   Displaying textiles at a Fair is quite a problem - you can't do much with the one 6' trestle table usually supplied and there are no hooks or rails to help on the walls.    You can show small piles of similar things on the table but you really have to have hanging space for most larger pieces.  So you must resort to collapsible dress rails which are heavy (if strong enough for considerable weights)and take up quite a bit of your valuable floor space.  Over the years I have assembled a variety of props which work quite well and I list them for your info. in case you have similar problems.   The most useful aid is my  Florence Nightingale screen frame which has three rails on each side.  These screens were used at Scutari and other hospitals for privacy for the patients and are well made and very strong, I used to see occasional examples at the big Ardingly Fair in Sussex and have always assumed they were surplus army stock considered obsolete and unhygenic for modern hospitals and sold by the then M.O.D.  The upright poles are sturdy and the rails equally strong and the ingenious iron hinges are pretty unbreakable.  I sometimes set it up on top of, and at the back of, my sales table.  Some people find laundry airing racks handy but they are only good for small items.   I have never seen a Florence Nightingale screen  with any  original fabric, but knowing Florence, and how efficient and practical she was in all her efforts to improve the care of the army, I expect it was something very strong and serviceable and unlikely to have been any flimsy and pretty cotton that we associate with bedrooms screens. 
   A little wire newspaper stand with shelves for folded papers acts as another display aid.
   A folding bamboo bookcase, painted blue, makes good shelf space for heavier linen articles and is light to carry and set up.

    I have invented my own 'rack' which consists of two 4" X 2" upright posts about 8' long and have two circular holes (diameter of the two poles) drilled through the 4" side one at the top end and another 15" lower down, for two rails. It has no base . Also, at the top there are two small pegs about 3" long, attached with a string just above the holes, one on each side. I then have two round poles (the rails) about 8' long with pair of small holes drilled to be each side of the uprights when the pole is slipped through the large round holes of the uprights, to take the little pegs on strings. The second (lower) pole can then be inserted and I do not bother with pegs there as the top is firm enough. The whole thing is then safely wedged against a wall if possible, behind the display table(s) which are heavy with linen, etc., and I tie the uprights to any available table legs so it cannot fall forward and maim me and my clients! The two uprights and 2 poles fit in my car with the ends sliding down beside the passenger seat and the whole thing enables me to show large tapestries, long curtains and much more. This saves excessive handling, folding and creasing and gives the customers a good view of large pieces, and the scale of any patterns. See enclosed very rough diagram.
This home-made contraption is now for sale as I have only one small final sale to attend - It is £18 (rather less than the cost of the timber and will easily pack into an ordinary car or van.  Regret cannot deliver as am too old for long journeys!
Contact 01225 866 136. 

BOOK this BOOK

This lovely book is in perfect condition and contains a wonderful treasury of pictures, descriptions and examples of American textile art.   I am selling it because it is quite heavy and too large for my book case and also because I am trying to reduce my reference library now that I have retired from dealing and must cut my possessions down to a reasonable number!  This tome covers furniture, china and other decorative arts and has 443 excellent illustrations, many in full colour, so it is a superb reference book as well as being a fascinating book to look at for pleasure.     Price £30 to include postage.  contact dbaer@onetel.com.

Mini gifts and big signs

A group of  Marottes  ('bonnet ladies') wearing traditional French lace caps

 In the past, the French artisans, the carpenters, the shoemakers, the weavers, the iron masters, worked to very high standards - they had trade guilds and  to set up a workshop they had to work apprenticeships and there were very strict rules about where they were able to work, and erect a trade sign (the source of those delightful hanging signs showing a large example of their trade, a padlock, or a shoe or a plough, a hat or roof tile,)  They were all trained to produce goods that were typical of their own province in France and if you go to the large agricultural museum in Troyes you can see the dozens of differently designed tools, sickles, hammers, rakes, etc., and all can be traced to the areas were they were made and then used.
      I  used to see and buy quite a lot of mini examples of these different objects, little clogs, little baskets and mini treen objects and toys,  thinking that they were apprentice pieces but I was told that they were usually made as presents for the artisan's friends' children on special days, birthdays and Noel!   So the basket maker would make a clog out of cane and willow to give to the cobblers children, the ironworker would make little pots and plates of metal for the potters family and no doubt the children used them and decorated doll's houses with these miniatures.   They are highly collectible, of course, and I used to have a string of buyers for them and they very rarely found duplicates of their collections, all were original and hand-made!

    The trade signs were big money and most French dealers had a good idea of what they could fetch in francs;  nevertheless, by very active searching in Brocante sheds and lean-to's I unearthed several for my primitive art dealer in Knightsbridge!  A top hat was one of the favourites, then a padlock, followed by a large painted wooden clog and a roofing sign showing a man laying tiles on a steep roof cut out in silhouette style.   When I went to the Rural Museum at Laduz , beyond Rouen, there was a wonderful collection to admire - if you like primitive and rural byegones, this is a hugely enjoyable place, all gathered together by one family in delightful old farm buildings.   My favourite things were the papier mache women's heads with formal hair dressed with a central parting, and staring straight ahead, with pert noses and severe mouths, which were known as bonnet ladies or 'marottes'   and were used to display bonnets in old shop windows.   They appeal to a lot of collectors and are sold for hundreds of Euros!  I know copies are now being made, but they do not have the charm and little rubbed  noses of their older sisters!

CUSHIONS, DOWN AND OUT FROM EIDERDOWNS

19C. Toile and ticking lined Cushions  in red/white shades

 A selection of toile-covered cushions all made from short remnants or damaged pieces too small to do anything else!  Depending on the size of the pattern or picture, I cut the cushion shape accordingly and sometimes it is a good idea to place a cut out sheet of transparent poly. sheeting on top as a guide so that you get it exactly right and don't cut off the heads of the important people depicted.    If cushions are to be used a lot, have them made with a zip hidden under the piped edges and use a washable trim of bobbles or braid or cotton cord.  Down feathers make the best fillings but are expensive, otherwise use duck feathers.  If you have a worn-out and leaking eiderdown, you will be able to make lots of luxurious cushions with the down/feathers but it is a messy job to extract all the contents and needs to be done outside on a still day or in a garage.  Wear an overall and cover your hair!  Put any surplus feathers in a plastic bin bag and tie tightly.! I do not recommend chicken feathers - they get lumpy and can smell unpleasant!   If you are using valuable, fine toile, it makes sense to back the cushions with ticking or all-over diaper pattern in matching colour; and back the toile itself with an extra layer of fine cotton;  this will also help to make it stronger to take more wear.  Linen sheeting is equally good, but choose a faded shade as Persil white is too obvious!  When you stuff your cushions, make sure you push a handful into each corner of the pad to fill it out, then fill the remaining bag-space, with an extra handful for the final opening, which you must stitch down firmly with fine feather-proof stitching.  Shake well and place in your zipped cover.  Do not over-fill as the cushion needs to support the sitter comfortably and must not burst under the strain!

A NICE COINCIDENCE!



A French working shirt, hand stitched in coarse hemp,

   I have often had customers looking for their own initials on the linen sheets, but as they are always in pairs, usually in cross stitch, but sometimes in white satin stitch on the more elaborate ones, it is quite difficult to get them both exactly correct for their new owners, and the same applies to sets of fine white damask table napkins.  Most people are happy to have the last one for their surnames and no doubt make up a story for the first, or their guests assume they belonged to a great grandmother, no less!  
  Recently I read a mention of the present fashion editor of Vogue magazine and this recalled a good memory.  I was at home on a hot summer's day when the door bell rang and two girls in shorts and floppy summer hats stood there asking if they could look at my stores as they were planning an event under the name of Swallows and Amazons!   We trawled through the old French sheets and underwear, all white linen, and some coloured prints for making little girls' summer dresses and then they spied the cream smock shirts worn by the male peasants from the 19C. right up to the beginning of the last War.  The taller of the two tried one on and looking down at the 'tail' of the shirt, gave a little scream of delight - she said to me," you must have put it there specially for me "well" I said "I don't even know your name" .  And it turned out they were her exact initials, "L.C." and it also turned out she was working for Vogue Magazine.  For a long time now, she has been the Fashion Editor - one of the very top journalistic jobs!  and she obviously had great flair as well as a lucky streak.  I have twice found the right initials on long sets of table napkins which made the hostess very happy for her dinner parties, and I have a long list of wanted combinations to hunt for on my tours of the linen stands at French fairs.  If you have A. or M. for your first name, or B. for the second, you could be quite lucky as these are the most common initials, both in this country and in France.

A square deal for pillows

teatime napkins used for pretty bed cushions

Elaborate damask weave with a frill

Pique and handmade red/white trim

I am aware that in the US 'pillows' are referred to as what we call cushions. Continental pillows are square, so English rectangular cases are not much use. French cases are usually made to take a 24" square filling and are buttoned one end, with small m.o.p. buttons but I have some that are 28" square, quite large.  The best have those linen-covered buttons, designed to go through a mangle or for pressing with a heavy iron.  It's worth looking at the details of a second-hand pillow case, however prettily embroidered and starched - hold it up to the light and you may find the weak lines where it has been folded and pressed many times and is wearing thin. Torn and damaged lace and initials are not worth restoring. Sometimes you can rescue a fine monogram from a corner and apply it to something else. Check any embroidery, as you may not want to rest your cheek on a well embroidered rose or highly elaborate initial in raised satin stitch, ( it could work like an  unwanted stencil!)and any hemstitching in drawn thread work can be risky if old and used, - if it is beginning to fray and some of the 'jours', the openwork slots, ditto the corners, are faulty, its life is quite limited. Linen is always the best, but quite difficult to find in first class condition and expensive, so cotton is sometimes the better buy for everyday use. Some of the old vintage pillowcases have the most exquisite and fine embroidery on them - initials, crests, trails of finely worked flowers and then openwork borders and lace trims - a sight to behold - but they are best used, as many Americans do - as pillow shams and not slept on.  It is a sad fact that the grease from peoples' heads  and hair does cause problems, and shortens the life of these exquisite creations.

I often make pretty little 'bed' cushions in fine materials: I have used blue bordered damask linen tea napkins with fringes for one lot, white vintage pique (a sort of embossed heavy white cotton), backed by fine white striped damask sheeting for another lot, parts of a torn Marcella white bedspread with tassels for some others and added red and white hand -made frilly cotton lace trimmings to others where Toile de Jouy has been used for the bed curtains. All have pure down fillings and have zips hidden under the trims for easy removal and washing. They make nice presents. You can get pure down out of good old (clean) eiderdowns, but do the filling in a dust bin in your garage or you will resemble a snow goose when you emerge from the job.

HOUSE KEEPING AND KEEPING STANDARDS UP

Sorting linen, tea towels and oven cloths.  Hotch-potch of tickings

   

     Although my grandmother was running a large household most of her life and entertained her husband's business and banking friends on a big scale, she was extremely frugal and wasted nothing.   My mother inherited these habits but very much by necessity - a rambling unoccupied, un-modernised Welsh country house had to be run with the minimum of domestic help and yet everything had to be done in a very proper old fashioned way.  The attic floors had to be scrubbed  on your knees for the great Spring Clean, all paint washed, all furniture polished back and front and every drawer re-lined with clean paper; the leather books in the library polished,  the furniture cream itself was made in the pantry with a mix of castile soap, beeswax and parafin and bottled for a year's supply:  every brass fitting on the doors, windows and all light switches  were polished with Brasso (my job - "and don't you dare spill any as it marks the wallpaper and carpets for life" !
 The carpets were brushed with used tea leaves to freshen the colours and  remove the dust, all the glass lampshades taken down and washed carefully, blankets and bedcovers washed and treated with mothballs, windows cleaned in and out with chamois leathers.  While an awful lot of this care-taking might seem pointless today,  I think it did inspire me with a love of sorting everything into good  order and  piling things neatly in the drawers and on the shelves, all of which continues with my work in the textile business.  I remember quite vividly being taught when I was about 10 years old how to clean a pine kitchen table.by scrubbing it with a mix of sand and Vim (scouring powder) and being told I was wasting too much Vim which was expensive, (6d. a big canister!) when sand was better and for free. See more housekeeping memories in BLOG titled UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS and my 'economic' lifestyle!

THE SATURDAY BOOK

This book, which is a compilation of photos by Edwin Smith and his wife, Olive Cook, is one of my favourites when I have a few minutes to spare and I dip into it, remembering some of my own finds which were similar to their big collection of treasures, great and small, rare and some as common as pebbles on the beach.  In fact they loved the seaside from Norfolk to Weymouth and there are lots of fishy things, shells and sailors'  tokens and many are shown in their cottage setting on mantlepieces and crowded shelves.   They elevated these charming objects to a 'collection' level when they were two-a-penny in junk shops and markets and many of them are now highly collectable for their charm and sometimes their rarity ..

The Circles of your Mind?

                                                  

Whetting your appetite!

   I met Olive who lived near Dunmow in Essex when my Uncle Clough, aged 90, visited me for a week, while his wife Amabel was visiting a granddaughter in India who was under the influence of Hare Krishna.  Clough Williams-Ellis was a very memorable and lovable character and the architect of the Welsh Hotel Village Portmerion.  Olive  and Edwin had been great friends of his and we drank her very strong coffee with all the grounds in the bottom of the cup and he told me I should make coffee like that for his breakfast!  He also had a mission to visit Bishops Stortford College because they had removed 4 urns on the front and top of the first modern building to be listed (for Health and S. reasons) which made him very cross.  Luckily they were later found  in a nearby garden and restored to complete the facade and Clough felt that honour had also been restored.  He went on to Caius College Cambridge from my house, as guest of honour for a Dinner, although he had been rusticated there when he was a first year undergraduate, and that delighted him!