Tweed, lace and other European textiles
by Lucy Lethbridge
Anyone who, like me, has ever started work on one of those large embroideries that come in kits and usually incorporate a coloured cabbage will know that simply passing a silk thread in and out of a canvas is no mean feat. In fact, if you are anything like me the cabbage will still be the size of a walnut and the project long abandoned.
But we live in feverishly impatient times. One hundred years ago, and in some more traditional regions in Europe only a generation ago, the art of embroidery was a skill to be mastered. A family would be judged on the fineness of its linen - meticulously embroidered by generations of women using designs that were particular to their village and their family.
Now that American style leisure-wear is the universal uniform we have forgotten that clothes were once a marker of regional difference and regional crafts. Lace-making, weaving, dyeing and stitching were skills that required art and patience learned over centuries.
It's not all lost, however, and ordinary enthusiasts as well as fashion houses, are looking again at Europe's wonderful traditional skills. They are not only worth preserving for historical interest but should be celebrated as the essence of bespoke luxury in a world of machine-made rubbish.
Europe's embroidery traditions are spread all over the continent and in each country take their own unique form. Anyone wishing to know more about them might do worse than take a look at the website of the Embroiderers Guild www.embroiderersguild.com which offers a vast range of advice and courses: you may think you're a dab hand at cross-stitch, but what about the challenge of Crewel work, stump-work, needlepoint, blackwork or counted-thread? Or you could try the Royal School of Needlework in London www.royal-needlework.co.uk which as well as offering three-year degrees also has short courses on every possible kind of needle-and-thread activity you could wish for: tambour work, silk shading, beginning a knot garden, introduction to gold work; the mind boggles. The king of the couture embroiderers is Francois Lesage, whose family have been stitching masterpieces on cloth for five generations; Maison Lesage employs in Paris 120 of the finest stitchsmiths. His son, Jean-Francois now runs an embroidery business in Chennai, India, where he has revitalised local traditions and makes sensationally luxurious cloth modelled on 17th and 18th century designs popular for wedding saris - as well as for export. Apprenticeships and training are available in the Lesage atelier - but competition is stiff. www.lesage-paris.com
Lace-making is another extraordinarily intricate skill. Machine-made lace was first introduced in the mid-nineteenth century, making the handmade article, from the great lace-making regions of Brussels, Alencon in France and Venice (each with their own completely different character) highly prized. Even when the fashion for hand-made lace declined, devotees have kept the flame alight. Now hundreds of lace-makers are employed in Bruges and Brussels. The Kant Centrum in Bruges is a museum and lace school with courses from beginners to Advanced, and, for the optimistic but time-poor enthusiast, the Apostolin Sisters who run it even offer a one and a half hour introductory course (email them on visits@kantcentrum.com). Slovenia, the bobbin-lace-making school at Idrija (contact through www.icra.si) was established in 1876 and has continued right up to the present day: in fact, now it is enjoying a revival of interest. A visit to the Lace Guild website www.laceguild.demon.co.uk will give you lots more ideas.
Colder climes need different skills. On the wind-swept Outer Hebrides lace is not the fabric you need to keep out the weather with style. The traditional fashion fabric of choice must be sturdy, weatherproof and warm - in other words it must be tweed. This hairy but luxurious material is to the hardy denizens of the British Isles what silk is to the Chinese. No wonder that its original Gaelic name for tweed is Clo Mhor "Big Cloth". Tweed has been in production for three centuries, but it wasn't until 1846 that Lady Dunmore had her tartan made by Harris tweed weavers, using the wool of the hardy long-haired sheep that survived the island weather, that it became popular in the south. Now tweed is produced in many of the Outer Hebridean islands but it is still Harris tweed which is considered the first and finest, and gives its name (and its famous orb insignia) to the tweed produced in the islands under strict conditions of authenticity. Contact the Harris Tweed authority for visits, information and more ideas. www.harristweed.com. For those who want to learn about Scottish weaving traditions in an atmospheric setting which isn't too cold and uncomfortable then try one of the myriad courses of weaving and spinning available at Letterfourie House, built by Robert Adam and surrounded by 300 acres of fields in which flocks of the rare Soay sheep graze. Email them at letterfourie1@sagainternetco.uk. You can also do sacred dance classes there though they are not obligatory.
If the austere beauties of northern Scotland are bit too much for you, there are many opportunities nearer at home to study European weaving traditions. Visit the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers (www.wsd.org.uk) for tips on their summer schools in sunshiney Falmouth. They have courses on creative dyeing, wool combing, inkle loom weaving, spindle spinning, weaving twill and Galician felpa weaving - among many others. They also have several courses on felt-making, another craft on the brink of a revival in the fashion industry. Christine Waygood in Derbyshire, who has over 20 years feltmaking experience, runs two-day courses (www.christinewaygood.com) and so does Gail Cowley from the School of Stitched Textiles (www.schoolofstitchedtextiles.com).
The rhythmic shunt of the hand loom, the whirr of the spinning wheel, the slow precision of needle and silk - fast and furious it ain't but it might be just what you need.
© Lucy Lethbridge. All views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to the European Commission.