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Mrs Keijzer-Sarneel talking about Rijnland dress. TRC Sunday Textile Talk, 27 February 2022It's been a little while since initially working on the idea of a Sunday Textile Talk. All thanks to Covid many of our planned activities during the last two years had to be postponed. But since last Friday many of the masking and social distancing regulations were dropped here in the Netherlands, and the coming together of groups can now take place. What a relief. So last Sunday we finally had the first Sunday Textile Talk! 

These talks will take place on the last Sunday of every month. There will be formal lectures, as well as informal talks. The aim is to show the diversity of textiles. It will also give people the chance to see any pop-up and larger exhibitions on display at the TRC.

It's been quite a week! The Amsel Collection arrived on Sunday from Paris and the TRC Gallery became ‘home’ to a group of TRC volunteers who have been sorting, tagging, cataloguing and slowly getting the items photographed. The first batch is now online. Some of the Romanian items will appear in a forthcoming volume of Selvedge, the London based textile group. We will be working even closer with Selvedge in the future, sharing links, articles and blogs.

TRC volunteer processing the large Amsel collection. In the background part of the small pop-up exhibition of Rijnland lace caps.

I was talking with someone from the Dutch embroidery group Merkwaardig as part of a follow-up after an online lecture I gave for them called ‘What is Embroidery?” She had been looking at the TRC website and the TRC blogs and was very surprised by the diversity of subjects covered. For her it was bizarre, but fantastic.

Japanese kimono with Mickey Mouse prints, 2021 (TRC 2022.0229).

Mrs Bettie Stijnman showing the two reconstructions that she made of the 's Gravenmoer lace flounce on the Rijnland cap (TRC 2021.2446).A little while ago we published a TRC blog about a small, Dutch lace cap (TRC 2021.2446) from the Rijnland region of the Netherlands. More specifically, the cap was decorated with a flounce made from handmade bobbin lace that is now in a bad condition.

As noted in the blog, this type of lace is the only form of bobbin lace traditionally made in the Netherlands. It was worked in the village of 's-Gravenmoer in the province of Noord-Brabant, north of the Belgian port of Antwerp.

Madeleine Fugate holds up a panel of the Covid Memorial Quilt, which will be displayed in museums, hospitals, churches, schools and traveling exhibitions (WNV/Lisa Smith)The TRC has a fascinating collection of American quilts. Among the many different kinds there is one category called commemorative quilts, which are made to commemorate a particular event or person.

A schoolgirl from California (US) is creating one such quilt, to remember those who have died of COVID-19. “I was watching the news and they kept saying ‘the numbers’ are going up and I said, ‘They aren’t numbers, they’re people.’ My mom worked on the AIDS Memorial Quilt in the 1980s, so I said, ‘Let’s make a Covid Memorial Quilt to honour the people who died and help our country heal’,” Madeleine Fugate explained. She began the quilt in April 2020, when she was 13 years old. It was part of a school community action project called “Young Change-Makers in a COVID-19 World.

Romanian man's shirt with hand embroidered decoration, late 20th century (TRC 2022.0197).

As many readers will know we have been given a large collection of mainly Hungarian textiles and garments that is currently in Paris. The transport of the collection was delayed slightly, but it is now scheduled for the 20th February. In the meantime, Augusta de Gunzbourg, who is looking after the organization, transportation and cataloguing of the collection, has recently been to Paris to discuss the collection, its background, and indeed its future. See also a previous TRC blog of 25 November 2021: Citizen culture at work: The textiles are coming to Leiden.

Cardboard box that contained the early 19th century bridal treasure (TRC 2014.1060e).The TRC Collection houses many fascinating and historic objects with a real human interest, and some of these items become even more intriguing when they are linked to specific people.

Recently we had another look at a small cardboard box (TRC 2014.1060e), 16 x 11 x 7.5 cm in size, and made in the shape of a Classical sarcophagus (typical for the late 18th - early 19th century).

Its lid is covered with ivory-coloured satin cloth that is decorated with fine, chiffon flowers and seeds, and with embroidered leaves and stems in chenille thread and floss silk. The box and its contents were briefly described in a TRC blog of 11 November 2014, ‘Little treasure box’.

Lid of cardboard box that contained the bridal treasure, photographed from above (TRC 2014.1060e).

A little while ago I saw an Indian photograph of some Sikh soldiers wearing what appeared, at first glance, to be face masks on their chins. Then came the thought, of course, they are not face masks but beard bags.

After trying, on several occasions, to leave the idea of beard bags to one side it soon became apparent that the concept was stubbornly going to refuse to go away and over the last few days I searched on the internet and in the TRC Library for beard bags.

I must confess: A new world opened up to me! And here I apologise to our (male) readers who have beards and know about beard care, but I had no idea that the maintenance of a beard was so complex. I strongly suspect that a significant number of the TRC Blog and Facebook readers will have also be similarly ignorant. There are many comments by men about the time spent by women on their hair, but it is very clear that some men are equally attentive to their beards! Their beard bags are an essential part of their dress and identity, and as such of great interest to the TRC. We realised that examples should be included in the TRC Collection!

Cotton, combined face mask (corona) and beard bag with elasticated ear loops and a design of skulls. Spain (TRC 2022.0208).