Assembling Lace Fan

Attaching lace to fan sticks as described by Jean in Cleveland U.K

Ann Collier has another method and since she has made 100 fans.
I find it more satisfactory. She uses glue, a wood glue which you paint
onto the sticks,both  cover and inside ones. Leave the glue to dry, (go off,
I think is the technical term) then use an iron to press the lace onto the
sticks. Do not fold the fan before you start and do not try to fold it until
the heat has gone out of the glue. When you do try to fold, it will fall
into natural folds. It is easy to reposition the lace if you need to, it
just sort of peals off. If you like you can reinforce the glue by sewing
onto the sticks as well.

         Assembling fanby Penny Boston, Niwot, Colorado
To attach sticks together at the pivot hole, I usually use plated
wire, brass or silvered whichever looks best with the particular fan. I
sometimes use a small wooden dowel for really big fans. it is important
that the wire or dowel be the correct size for the holes in the sticks.
if they are too small for the holes, no amount of tightening will make the
fan secure, it will always be "sleazy" and slide around.

If the sticks are made of bone, then I use superglue to glue tiny bone beads
onto the ends of the wire after they are trimmed. For wooden fans I use wood
glue to glue the beads on. I don't like suspending loops so I usually don’t
bother with them unless I’m restoring.

For some fans, the smaller ones particularly, I have several
options. Either use a large pin complete with head and glue a small bead
on the other end after trimming the pin, or buy the eye pins from jewelry
findings supply places. The latter can be either curled into an eye on
the trimmed side or finished off with a crimp bead and crimper (jewelry makers
know what these are).

For the ultra-miniature laser-cut brass sticks of dollhouse scale, I have
used my brass Honiton pins to hold the sticks together with a size 13 or
14 seed bead glued on to the non-head side after trimming. (Talk about the
last word in "fiddly"!)

Having restored two mangled antique fans very recently for friends in the
RMLG, I of course, use what I can of the original hardware. The
suspending loops on the end are something of a pain if one is mounting a fan, but on
restored fans I usually use the old ones if they are intact.

AN IMPORTANT TRICK that I believe I have "invented" is to use sequins
(flat, not cupped obviously) as spacers between sticks. I resorted to
this first because of the thickening on sticks that I was repairing. Often,
the bone ones are so crumbly that a thin wooden support stick in the back is
necessary to glue the fragments onto. However, I found that the sequins
provide a sort of lubrication to the movement of the sticks and provide
additional space to accommodate laces of varying thickness. This has
allowed me to actually close some fans with rather bulky leaves, like
Beds, that I would have left permanently open otherwise. In fact, I took apart
one of the lovely sticks sets that I bought from Ann Keller (Ireland) and
added the sequin spacers. Her stick-maker uses dowels, btw, on some of the
sticks, with a little wooden cap over the dowel ends.

Sources of Fansticks


Lace Fan Books

  • Bobbin Lace Fans by Louise Colgan
  • Designing and Mounting Lace Fans by Christine  Springett
  • The Book of Fans,  by  Nancy Armstrong
  • Charm of French Fans, A (pattern booklet) ~ Glaisdale Lacemakers
  • The Fan and Lace , by Beryl Melville,
  • Ornaments; lace, fans, gloves, walking-sticks, parasols,... by Mav von Boehn,
  • Bedfordshire Fans and Parasol Lace Patterns -by Ann Margaret Keller

    •  
    Patterns
  • Princess Lace Fan on pg. 111 of  Technique of Tape Lace by Ineke van den Kieboom
  • Bruges Flower Lace Fan on pg. 87 of Modern Lace Designs by Veronica Sorenson
  • Bucks Fans (2) on pgs. 62-70 of New Designs in Bobbin Lace by Ann Collier
  • Torchon Fan pg. 42 of 50 New Bobbin Lace Patterns by Clair Burkhard
  • Carrickmacross Miniature Fans (2) pgs.24 & 25 in Carrickmacross Lace Workbook 2 by Mary Shields
  • Bruges Flower Lace Miniature Fan- pg83-85 in Designing for Bruges Flower Lace by Edna Sutton
    •  
     

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