Me and Grace decided to volunteer to help out at Touching Stitches handling session where we would be overseeing archival pieces as people looked at them, and tell them a bit more information on them!
When I’m not doing embroidery, I work part-time in the beautiful vintage store, Herman Brown! Inspired by my recent trip to the Centre for Textiles Conservation at Glasgow University, learning about the various ways that are gone about to protect historical garments and textile samples reminded me of things that my job has taught me. Working in vintage, I have learned the importance of dusting as well as careful cleaning to keep the clothes protected. These are all things that were very relevant to how the textiles were stored at Centre for Textiles Conservation.
I am very grateful that I got to ask Anna, the owner of the shop and my boss, what her top tips would be for storing my embroidery and textiles samples. As she has been in the vintage business for many years, (Herman Brown has been open since 1983!) I knew she would have good advice on how I could protect my own work. Here are her four top tips:
This is going to be a long post! Documenting what I learned while on our fieldwork trip to Glasgow University, or more specifically, what the heading of this post says!