The week of July 18th, the Preservation Lab hosted textile conservator Howard Sutcliffe for a workshop. Howard owns and runs his own textile conservation private practice, River Region Costume and Textile Conservation, based out of Arley, Alabama, and Nashville, Tennessee. We spent four days with Howard learning the basics of textile conservation, with a heavy focus on mount making and sewing skills. This introduction of new methods was eye-opening for us, and many of us are already thinking about ways we can implement the new skills we learned with Howard.
To kick the workshop off, we spent the first half of the day learning about Howard and his practice and seeing the amazing work he’s done on costume pieces, tapestries, and even hats! After the morning lecture, we then went over different types of materials that Howard commonly uses for textile conservation, from silk organza, which we plucked threads from and used to sew delicate stitches, to nylon net and cotton broadcloth that is used for mending and stabilizing. We then learned some basic stitches that are used for mending tears in fabrics, and practiced on our own ‘objects,’ which were pieces of scrap fabric Howard created tears in.
As you can see from the finished product picture, four pins at North, South, East and West on our padded boards were threaded and connected to help us center the object onto the padded board. Typically, after your object is mounted you remove this thread. The padded boards were created by layering corrugated board, batting, and a neutral-colored fabric that we sewed our object onto. Miniscule zig zag stitches were used on the inner part of the object to hold it in place, then the border was sewn with long and short stitches to help reinforce it. While you can see most of the threads in my sample, when working on an object being conserved the thread would be color matched to the item, making the tiny stitches practically invisible.
The next three days were primarily dedicated to creating a mount out of a mannequin and batting for a nurse’s uniform we had from Winkler Center for the workshop. We first put the uniform on the mannequin to see where it needed more support, then the dress was removed and a base layer to sew onto was created using a pair of cotton tights.
From there, we built up the bust of the mannequin using batting and zig zag stitches. The dress fit the waist well, so we didn’t add anything to the waistline of the mannequin. We layered batting through the bust and the sides to fill out the shape, so it better supported the garment.
Once the bodice was sufficiently filled out with batting, we cut the tights at the top, folded them down and over the batting, and covered the bodice in cotton jersey to hold it all together. The sides of the jersey were stitched up using a channel stitch.
While the conservation technicians and specialists were working on the bodice of the mannequin, the conservators were working to patch some minor holes and slight damages to the nurse’s uniform using the stitching technique we learned on the first day. The dress had three significant holes, two at the top around the collar, and one in the skirt of the dress.
The final step for the mannequin was to create an underskirt to help support the skirt of the dress. This was created from felts sewn between two pieces of Tyvek, which was then sewn beneath the waist of the mannequin. We used zig zag stitches to hold it in place, then more zig zag stitches at the top of the felt to push it down and make the transition a little smoother between the bodice and the skirt.
After the skirt was attached, we worked on sewing the legs of the tight around the wooden arms of the mannequin and securing them in place with double-sided tape. Once the arms were complete, it was time to put the dress on! It took two people to get the garment onto the mannequin – one to support the shoulders, the other to lift the skirt over the top.
Another type of mount Howard taught us about was hat mounts. We have multiple hats in the lab, and were unsure of how to support them, so Howard showed us how we can sculpt ethafoam and cover the top with batting and wrap the whole thing in soft Tyvek to create a soft mount for hats to sit on.
Once the batting and Tyvek were secured onto the ethafoam, a base of mat board was covered in broadcloth, which was stitched on using a running stitch. A blind channel stitch is then used to attach the base to the Tyvek, securing the whole mount together.
Howard also taught us about adhesives and how to create heat set netting and silk, which can be applied without stitching and using only heat. He also worked with the conservators on dyeing netting and fabrics, and on how to wash textiles to remove stains.
Our time with Howard was extremely rewarding, and we learned plenty about textile conservation, which for me personally was a branch of the field I knew very little about. Bringing in experts from other parts of conservation helps us to expand our practice, and each of us walked away with a new technique to try that we previously hadn’t thought about using for paper conservation.
Nicole Browning – Library Conservation Specialist
Images by Nicole Browning, Jessica Ebert, Hyacinth Tucker, and Holly Prochaska