Blog & News

This is remarkable--a bobbin lace chair with an actual bolster headrest and bobbins hanging. 

lluís alexandre casanovas blanco's 'UMT' chair explores politics of traditional weaving crafts

For the past four years, Spanish architect Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco worked closely with his mother, María Lluïsa Blanco Estébanez, to develop the intriguing ‘UMT’ chair. Sporting a minimalist black frame and a delicate lace-made backrest and seat, the chair is both a furniture piece and an historical investigation into the politics of traditional weaving techniques, particularly the use of bobbin lace in decoration.

Making Lace: Global Networks

A research symposium on historical and contemporary lacemaking traditions around the world

9:30am ET to 12:30pm

Part of the Bard events. You don't have to get a ticket--apparently it will just livestream on this page on the day. 

In case you cannot get to the Bard Graduate Center Museum in NYC in person before Jan 1, 2023, they have a really nice online experience of the Threads of Power exhibit: https://exhibitions.bgc.bard.edu/threadsofpower/

Podcasts are great to listen to while you make lace! This Dressed Podcast recently had the curators from the Bard exhibit, but now there are 2 more episodes with Elena Kanagy-Loux. 

Dressed: History of Fashion podcast 

I also enjoyed the Tim Gunn episode where he spilled the tea about his academic work, and other great tidbits about his path to where he is today. 

Why Are Men Now Wearing Lace?

The gauzy fabric is not just for women’s lingerie and dresses anymore. Guys are flirting with the see-through material.

[the link should be an unlocked page at the NYT, I created a gift link]

I think lace is having a moment.

Hey nearby folks: as part of the Boston Book festival, this talk is happening at the Boston Public Library on Saturday. I think I'm going to go. It doesn't look like it requires tickets. 

Craft: The Joy of Handmade Art and Industry

The books look interesting to check out of your local library too, even if the talk isn't possible for you.

Edit to add: I realized I should add the books here because the event page might go away.

Whether you collect crafts, engage in making things yourself, or aspire to turn a long-standing hobby into a business, you’ll find inspiration and insight in this session. In The Shape of Craft, Ezra Shales exhorts us to value craft as a human instinct rather than reducing it to an exemplary object on display. In fact, Shales considers craft to encompass not only the products of the individual potter, glassblower, weaver, or woodworker, but also the products of collaborative authorship, whether they are a building or a brick. In Return of the Artisan: How America Went from Industrial to Handmade, Grant McCracken describes how, owing to Covid-19, millions of consumers of artisanal goods became producers — from growing vegetables and baking bread to raising chickens, brewing beer, and sewing clothes — and how hobbyists turned into businesspeople. They will be joined in conversation by Edgar B. Herwick III of GBH’s Curiosity Desk.

The Wall Street Journal covers lace. Wow.

‘Threads of Power: Lace From the Textilmuseum St. Gallen’ Review: Webs of Influence

If you can't get past the paywall, just go look at the online exhibit. It has the key things.  https://exhibitions.bgc.bard.edu/threadsofpower/

Cute shoes with Brazilian bobbin lace. 

Alexandre Birman’s Spring Summer 2023 Collection Dives Deep Into Brazilian Craft

did you miss listening to the radio talk on Ipswich lace on Radio Boston.   I found this  link so you can listen for the first time or review this program.

Hope you enjoy !   It was a great program!  Thanks NELG

https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2022/07/19/ipswich-lace-hidden-history

This is going to be a very niche item. That said, the more of you lace makers I meet, the more I grasp the heavy sci-tech nature of this couvige. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33366-x

High-resolution silkworm pan-genome provides genetic insights into artificial selection and ecological adaptation

Anyway: researchers sequenced the DNA of silkworms. They picked different silkworms around the world to compare them. In some species, they might still have a gene that another variety lost. Or some have a gene turned up to 11 that's only set to level 3 in another one. 

They found that one crucial different between fine and coarse silk, in this gene:

We found an 11.1 kb intron insertion and a 6.2 kb downstream insertion of the chitooligosaccharidolytic beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase (BmChit β-GlcNAcase) gene in Chunfeng and Suxiu strains (Fig. 6f). We found that the BmChit β-GlcNAcase gene is expressed at a significantly higher level in fine silk strains (Suxiu, Chunfeng) and has an expression peak in silk press at the wandering stage (which occurs at the start of spinning) (Supplementary Fig. 6b, c). CRISPR-cas9 mediated knockout of the BmChit β-GlcNAcase gene produced coarser silk (Fig. 6g, Supplementary Fig. 6d). All these results suggest a key role of the BmChit β-GlcNAcase gene in the determination of silk fineness.

I don't understand what that gene does yet (but it sounds to me like it cuts sugars off, which makes sense...), but it looks like the key. So this gene, when turned up, makes silk finer. When they knock it out, it's coarser silk.

This is wicked cool.