Clipping back time...

I KNEW there was a problem on the floor when I saw the supervisors go into the office and shut the door. I had been working for under a year at a busy 911 center and had graduated to the "info channel" where all transactions regarding warrants, tows, property and other official transactions took place. I was on my very last day of training proudly anticipating the moment I would take over the radio by myself.

It was just random normal transactions that morning- a few tows and a couple arrests. When people are arrested their information is verified through the official info channel but when they have warrants there are a few more steps. In order to make sure we are arresting the right person warrants are verified through the sessions court. At the time all we did was give the docket number and the name and await a reply but sometimes that did not work out well. Unless you verify several pieces of information occasional computer errors could cause the wrong person to be stopped.

Little did I know that the secret squirrel meeting in the office would involve me and propel me into a now passionate craft which has helped me to revive an archaic craft.

Well it happened- I was suspended from work for a day and I was devastated. I had never been suspended or written up and I felt as if it were a HUGE scarlet S, for stupid person, emblazoned on my chest. How positively embarrassing! I managed to make it through the remainder of the day and night and then awoke the morning of my shame, my suspension. Part of me wanted to be productive and clean or mow but the rest of me recommended wallowing in bed after my husband went out the door. I tried napping and reading but nothing could bring me out of my funk so I surfed the internet for things to watch.

At the time we were renovating our 1906 shotgun house and what would now be our bedroom was an empty shell full of storage with an extra mattress against the wall. I pushed it down onto the floor and plopped down with a laptop and a pint of iced cream. (Might as well REALLY wallow in misery- a comedy movie at the time called it getting "chip faced") A few minutes into surfing I found myself on a movie site and decided to really go wild and watch a foreign film. I have always enjoyed them and the minimal amount of work it took to read subtitles was worth it.

I finally settled on a French film about a young woman who went to work for an embroiderer who did work for the great couturiers in Paris. It was very easy to embrace the film; it was extraordinarily beautiful and I was mystified by the work. Tambour lace. Delicately made lace with beads and sequins, wonderful stitching and embellishments. The woman had stretched web-like netting over a frame and sat with a tiny hook set in a handle busily stabbing in and out creating a line of what looked to be crochet. At one point she lifted the frame. She was sitting in the dark with an oil lantern glowing in the background. As she raised the frame the lantern caught the sequins and beads and the whole canvas lit up. I don't know that I could do justice to it but to say it looked like the most beautiful night sky would not come close to how lovely it was. Glistening sparkling stars. Surely that is what this artist had in mind. Midnight blue with shining diamonds. I was breath-taken.

I recall the first thought in my mind was "I MUST learn that. I MUST know what that is". Not in a "wow this is cool, that would be cool to know way, but in a "this will make me complete" way. I saw that and I knew it would give voice to the beautiful things inside me. Little was I to know how the coming parts of the movie would impact me.

Further on in the movie, still enraptured by the beautiful creation of a moment ago, the young woman is taught by the older to operate an amazing machine. It looked like a sewing machine but was in no way the same. Old and black, full of gears, the machine was love-worn and had been used until the work surface was soft and shiny, an instrument of beautiful creation. Under the table the young woman's hand turned a crank handle, around and around, forward and backward until I realized that the foot of the machine, a ring actually, was moving under her direction.

I was mystified by the beading and sequins of the netted lace but this was different. The union between operator and machine was a ballet! As she turned the handle under the table and the machine responded in kind, a delicate line of heart shaped stitches followed. I could not place it at first but realized on a second watching that it looked like crochet. The young woman sat in the dim sooty studio using this amazing machine to make the most wonderful designs on napkins. They were gentle undulating lines of perfect stitches which followed the edge of the napkin until she clipped it off with a flick of her scissors and deposited it in a pile next to her chair.

It was a little hard to see what this actually was but I was HOOKED. It was only later that I found out that the delicate netting was tambour lace in which a fabric or netting is stretched over a tambour frame (french for drum) and the lace is formed with a tambour hook which resembles a crochet hook. The resulting stitching looks like a simple chain stitch in crochet but done through the fabric. The machine was a totally different story. In 1846, due to the popularity of tambour lace and the interest in mechanization, the Bonnaz machine was invented. Working like a sewing machine but only requiring 1 thread below the hook which plunges into the fabric grabs a loop and then carries it forward where the needle stabs again inside the loop pulling another up. This wonderful machine enabled people to create consistent and beautiful tambour lace in a fraction of the time.

But wait! There's more! In 1854 the patent was bought from Bonnaz and rebranded the Cornely machine. Not only did Cornely produce the basic chain stitch machine, it had machines which stitched down braid, tape yarn and more. Add to that a second spool which twisted the threads together or one which made delicate holes and a whole movement was born! There are many varieties of Cornely machine and I would have loved to have them all but, alas, they are quite rare nowadays.

Rarity surely did not stop me from a dogged pursuit of this wonderous machine. I searched online sites, and sellers until 8 years later I finally came upon a machine in an online auction and met my future teacher. After emails back and forth I made the commitment and bought a 1948 Cornely K machine which was capable of chain stitch, chenille (same chenille as high school letter jackets) and twisting. Days went by and I monitored the delivery service website and app and email with the same attention of an expectant mother. When the day FINALLY arrived I received a deceptively heavy carton and tore in to it in the back porch.

Okay I knew NOTHING about this machine. How it worked, how to set it up, what I needed but I KNEW I would make something of it. Despite hours of searching the internet did not provide much in the way of instruction. It was, after all, an obscure machine which made lace that not many people knew about in a country far from mine. It took, perhaps, 2 agonizing weeks until I had assembled a table, a motor and belt and I finally sat down to stitch. Surely I would experience the same awe-inspiring oneness with this craft as I had two months before. Uhhh. no. Not to be.

That first day was my first day of really learning and art and all that went along with it. I felt as if I were back in school with no teacher. Inadequate, stupid, hopeless, helpless- I realized that in this pursuit I would need a teacher and ally. I emailed to the man who sold me the machine. I must say it was a hard email to write. "Hey- I just bought this machine and spent a lot of money and have NO idea what to do." I wanted the magic and I wanted it instantly. After all, I was a successful adult. I went to school. I was about to learn about the difference between a craft as a passing interest and a life-long skill.

I was never good at following through as a child. I was ALL about the shiny new things to try and learn and none of the follow through and get good at it. Half-finished projects cluttered my mom's workroom and while she methodically finished her own projects I flitted from project to project learning just enough to "know it" and not enough to be passionate. This new Cornely skill learned as an adult could NOT be about that. I really wanted to know the history, the uses and how to maintain my new-found friend and my Cornely mentor was the key.

Mr. A is a life-long operator born to an embroidery family. He has seen it all, done it all and is a wealth of information just waiting for the perfect person to come along with the drive and desire to carry on the rich tradition his grandparents started. I did not meet him until years later but he was just as I anticipated- a lovely man with a friendly, but serious, smile who created stunning works of art in an out of the way workroom at the end of a street. No sign on the door to tell you the delights you would find within, machines perched in tables awaiting work, cones and cones of gorgeous thread and yarn and samples tacked to the wall with outdated calendars. It was a magical wonderland to me but, alas, I would not see it yet.

On the telephone he was patient. As I teacher I could tell he had done this before, talked down new operators like an air traffic controlled talking down a retired elementary school teacher landing a 767. First do this, then this, then this. I swallowed my pride and made the decision to put my trust and learning in this voice on the phone until I got the machine threaded (hours). ...And we're off! Uhhh.... no. Something was wrong. I tried to describe to him what I was seeing and after an extended exchange of pictures and videos the diagnosis was in. The Drive shaft and wheel was bent by the shipping company dropping the box. I was devastated but Mr A. seemed non-plussed and said "Here are your three options. 1 You can send me back the machine I will refund you. 2 You can send me the machine I will fix it or 3.... You can fix it yourself." WHOA.... I am a police dispatcher not a mechanic. Mr. A said that since I had taken on an antique machine there would not be mechanics on every corner and now I was the mechanic for my machine. "You have to learn this. You should WANT to learn this because it is part of this art." Reluctantly I agreed and upon receipt of the package with his help I installed the part.

The work was slow at first- understanding how the machine worked and how to not overthink hand movements etc. I doggedly stitched until my husband was tired of not being fed, the banging of the machine and all the little bits of trimmed threads. But he relented because he could see the passion with which I jumped in although I know he was secretly worried I would get tired of the machine and it would take up space in the porch.

I pushed on and at about a year I knew I was getting good and began to think about doing Cornely work for pay. Mr. A, as an experienced operator made tens of thousands of dollars a week in the height of his work. I was dollar struck thinking about it but forgot the many many years he spent developing his business and building a name for himself. Regardless, I started a business and developed a plan remembering that I had to offer something unique. Mr. A and I had become friends by that time and I recall him saying one time when I mentioned drapery sheers "Oh no! My grandmother did that you don't want to do that. It is so labor intensive." That was enough for me. I love a challenge and if drapery sheers were hard then they were for me!

Cornely sheers are lovely. Beautiful patterns stitched on netting or sheer batiste in floral or geometric patterns. At their best they are extraordinary works of art with figures and flowers and even at the least they have simple patterns just stitched. Of course I should have started with the simple patterns but that was not my style. I started with the hardest flowers and berries I could find. As with all things I learned from Mr. A the biggest was follow advice offered from people who know what they are doing and do it the way they say. I retreated from the ornate to writing my name, simple flowers and designs until I became proficient. I moved to working on sheer material and then to the Mt. Everest of Cornely work- netting.

Anyone who has seen a tutu in a ballet or worn a Halloween costume with scratchy tulle knows what netting looks like. This is not it! The netting we use for Cornely work is fine and delicate of silk or cotton which tear easily and move around with the agility of a reptile under the presser foot. Without Mr. A I would have never learned the secrets to transferring designs, keeping the fabric straight, working slow and loose. I bought a bolt of cotton netting and set out to find a project.

I won't detail the convoluted path up to my first drapery but let's say it was done with absolutely NO knowledge of applique or cutwork on a Cornely machine. By that time I was proficient at the machine and could make wonderfully stitched designs. I received a commission to make a 5x12 foot sheer panel for a mansion in our state and now, thinking back, I shudder at how little I knew and how very very MUCH work it would be. My husband, an architect and historian, prepared a wonderous design based on a small engraving found at the house and I dutifully transferred it to cotton organdy and layered that upon the flimsy cotton net. He rigged a large work table for me out of an old drafting table and I set to stitching. It took a week to stitch but my elation was short-lived when I found out how long it would take to cut away the unneeded parts of the organdy to reveal the design. Clipping applique is not hard, just tedious. I spent hours with my legs propped up holding 12 feet of lace listening to the television and snipping away. I had read all the recommendations for scissors, did my research but the thought of a $200 pair of embroidery scissors blanched me and my wallet. My mother was a staunch believer in less is more and even though something is reasonably priced does not mean it is not reasonable. I was in 3rd grade, I think, when Fiskars scissors came out. We were NOT allowed to touch them (but we did when mom was not looking) We were NOT allowed to cut anything but fabric with them. They were exotic compared to our old Singer shears. Lightweight and of the space age with bright orange handles. I recall mom using her original pair up until she died though I never knew where they went. She had pinkers and then tiny embroidery scissors.

Embroidery scissors! I invested in 2 pairs (later only several more as the slipped down the sides of chairs and worked their way into secret parts of my work bags. They were ubiquitous of my work and went everywhere with me. I clipped on that drapery cutting away the extra fabric to reveal the remaining design for a month. It was tedious and exacting work as the fabric had to be trimmed about 2 mm next to the stitching. Careless trimming would result in cut netting which would later need to be repaired. The drapery went to Florida, Minnesota, and around our state of Tennessee in it's bag along with me. Periodically I would unfurl it and glory in it but was not to know how very special it was until we arrived at it's future home a month later.

I was not able to sleep the night before, in fact I was up a majority of the night ironing, cleaning, checking rechecking re-rechecking. We pulled out at 8 am and arrived at the palatial home and I was in awe of the room we were to work in. NOW I understood- this 5 x 12 foot sheer would be installed in a grand window in the receiving room of this lovely home. Adjustments made I stepped back after a 4 year journey from being suspended to creating with my husband this revival of Antique art. It was breathtaking; even more so when I thought about the journey I took to arrive at this place from suspension to creation.

I continued on from that moment. I stepped forward from it with all the bravado of a 5 year old in a ballet recital but none of the wonderment. I knew what this craft called for and I was keen to embrace it further. I wanted to push myself hard and improve. This desire along with amazing consequences led to a commission making four intricate sheer panels for a prominent East Coast mansion and the potential for more. Though COVID has struck my business as it has for many I use the time to research and improve. Mr. A is on speed dial. We have moved past the awkward learning conversations to more lofty and intense discussions of thread and mechanics and I have come to cherish him and his keen knowledge. He pushes me by telling me "oh that's too hard" or "oh I would never take on a project like that." Most of the time he is right. On the times I venture out of his advice it leads me to even greater heights and more finely honed questions for his vast knowledge. And sometimes the sheepish phone calls regaling him with tales of woe; the client who drives me crazy, the problems trying to recreate lace of 150 years ago in modern times, the mechanical failures he talks me through. He is always a phone call away ready to pass on his secrets to this glorious craft and I am ready to learn.

Me, my machine and my little Fiskars.