Conservation Stitching - day 1

 Today is Week four at the Centre for Textile Conservation where I am currently undertaking my MPhil in Textile conservation.

I had to hobble into class, (my usually 15 minute walk turned into an hour as I sprained my ankle over the weekend) but I desperately wanted to go in so I could see how stitching should be done and get immediate feedback on anything I was doing and ask questions.

 Today was my first day experimenting with couching stitch on a damaged object. We were given small squares of a blue and white squared material (something similar to a dishcloth) with multiple holes it it. 

I started off by mapping out my stitching plan on a piece of Melinex which I placed on top of the object. I learnt the stitching usually starts from the middle of the textile and you move outwards. An interesting point was made by Sarah which was how I had to decided whether I should merge two of my couching stitches into one as some of my holes were quite close to each other. However it was decided against as the thread would be too long. 

I set up my space with a footstool (YEAY win for us short hobbits!) and a task light. I chose to work with a circular needle (roughly the same size as the one given in the stitching assignment) and a red 2 ply poly thread so that I could visibly see my stitching and any mistakes I was making. I decided to also not worry that my thread was synthetic as the article "Like with Like" concluded that the composition of the thread does not necessarily influence use fullness of the couching it is more the cross stitch lines which secure the textile. Because of this I decided to make a little cardboard square as used by NT conservators for the Knole Spangled bed project. The warp and weft were quite wobbly on the textile and the support fabric was also not cut straight so I needed a guide to help me stitch straight lines. This guide took me around 15 minutes to make and was overall very useful. However tomorrow I shall bring some good long rulers and set squares in with me to help me combat this.

In the future I need to pay more attention to how long my cross stitches are as they still seem to be quite long and once I start making them short they all go a bit wonky. So I'm going to use tomorow to try and practice that a bit more.

Overall I have had a really fun day and sewing has allowed me to get to know my course mates a bit better and to realise how much time and patience even a single small tear can take to secure. 

Stitching exercise with my guide frame on top which I made from cardboard