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Saturday 22 March 2025
Bath & County Club, Queen's Parade, Queen Square, Bath BA1 2NJ
With
Pat Poppy - Seventeenth Century Lace ‘a pretty toy now greatly in request’
Sophie Ploeg - Painting the Intricacies of Early Lace and
Europa Chia-Ching Dawson - Lace & Laces
Sophie Ploeg's talk is entitled Painting the Intricacies of Early Lace
Sophie is an art historian and artist specialised in lace in 16th and 17th century portraiture. She will talk about her love of early lace and how it was depicted in the rich and colourful portraits from the Tudor and Jacobean era such as in the works of Hilliard, Larkin and Van Dyck. She won the BP Travel Award from the National Portrait Gallery in 2013 and used the award to research early lace and its painted depictions extensively. She was subsequently inspired to create new paintings which were exhibited at the Portrait Gallery. Painting the intricacies of lace is a wonderful challenge now as much as it was 400 years ago. www.sophieploeg.com
Pat Poppy's talk is entitled Seventeenth Century Lace: “a pretty toy now greatly in request”
What is meant by lace in the seventeenth century? The talk will look at the different types of lace that were available, from what today would be called braids, through needle laces to bobbin laces. It will examine how and where it was made, who sold it, and who made it. Looking at images of surviving lace it will discuss how fashionable it was, who wore it and what garments they wore it on. It will look at the status implications of wearing lace. How much did people pay for lace, and could they afford it.
Europa Chia-Ching Dawson's talk will be about Laces & Lace, the first being the different sorts of tapes & cords used for fastening clothing before buttons were manufactured, and the second being about the decorative edgings made with bobbins or needle that evolved during the 16th & 17th centuries. She will bring a few easy samples half-made so that members can see what could be done at home & what may have been done professionally, together with a set of samples of the cords & tapes that would have been carried by peddlers. [And, inevitably, there'll be a couple of quotations from Shakespeare.]
The era covered in this study day is of particular interest to Europa as the Huguenots came to England towards the end of the 16th century, bringing their lacemaking skills with them, and she has been involved cataloguing items of lace for Saffron Walden Museum including pieces used for 18th & 19th century Chinese costume. During this time, she also learned a lot about how to search for information and will be referencing these methods during her talk.
Europa was born in China, and arrived in Britain in 1951, her early life involved much travelling with her parents, attending six secondary schools in four languages and eventually studying for a degree in mathematics. As soon as she was able to Europa worked towards the C&G diplomas in Embroidery & Lacemaking funding herself through two 4-year, courses (part-time).
Her primary interests are in textiles, dabbling in spinning, weaving, knotting, embroidery & lacemaking. Europa currently runs a Bobbin-lacemaking club-with-tutor in Keynsham Library on Thursday afternoons (mid Feb - mid Oct).
Europa’s work has featured at the Bath Fashion Museum exhibition of 'Lace in Fashion', where she created a piece of lace on an antique pillow with antique bobbins, demonstrating a 19th century edging that would have been made by someone in the Bedfordshire lacemaking cottage-industry. She has also assisted with an installation at the Arnolfini Gallery a few years ago, making a net with another member of the West Country Knotters.
Europa is a member of: The Lace Guild; The Ring of Tatters (tatting is a form of knotted lace) and OIDFA (the international body which has recognition from UNESCO as preserving the intangible cultural heritage of lace), where she is currently serving as one of three UK administrative council members. She is also a member of the Braid Society, teaching and demonstrating braiding & knotting, and involved with the International Guild of Knot Tyers, the West Country Knotters (the local branch of IGKT and IGKT France (where she demonstrates and teaches beginners lacemaking one weekend most years).Included: Tea/coffee.
Booking closes at midnight tomorrow.
Lunch booking closes at .