Gothic Redux

Here are some more shots from our "Great Expectations" shoot of last week. I had a wonderfultime running around Hills House in Amherst, MA with photographer Huong Phan:

Hill House Gothic

I spent yesterday in Hill House, a massive Second Empire dwelling in Amherst, MA, with my friend and photographer Huong Phan. We were taking pictures of the new Gothic Panel with a sort of "Great Expectations" theme. The photos are amazing (we've got 350 to choose from), but I wanted to share this one with you, as I'm so smitten by it.

Great Gothic

Yes, it's the moment you've all been waiting for: the release of Cooper Lace's newest lace pattern, The Gothic Panel! From the moment I saw the archival photograph from Arcalus Design of Portland, OR, I knew I had to have this unique Gothic lace curtain design woven. It features all of the distinctive Gothic embellishments including Lancet arches, tracery, crockets, and diamond-paned glass, all combined and woven into a three-dimensional trompe-l'oeil effect and presented as a conservatory window with a potted fern on a tiled floor. Woven from 100% cotton, this lace curtain is perfect for owners of Gothic, Edwardian and Tudor Revival houses and anyone who seeks a unique enhancement to their home. Suitable not only as a window treatment, but also intended to be a striking wall-hanging, tapestry or bed-hanging. This curtain is 58" wide and 10' high; we will custom shorten it for you to your desired length (it can be 8' high without infringing on the finials). We're offering it in three colors: Ivory, Ebony on Frost, and Ebony on Slate. The panels are currently being woven and they will be available April1, 2012.

Too Big For a Cottage

As of March 1st, 2012, Cooper’s Cottage Lace, LLC will be known as Cooper Lace. After five years of rapid growth, “Cottage” was beginning to sound a bit quaint; we started with six Arts and Crafts lace patterns, all of which focused on the 1890-1910 period, and now we have fourteen patterns appropriate for houses dating from 1790 to the present! Our unique approach to selecting distinctive patterns quickly separated us from all of the other lace retailers and won us rave reviews for our quality and beautiful patterns, to say nothing of our consistently providing the best and most personalized customer service. Our patterns are available in more lengths, and more importantly, more widths than any other company. We’ve expanded from a tiny newcomer to the leading provider of the finest 100% Scottish Cotton lace panels, and our products now enhance countless homes, museums and film sets. I’m very proud of our success, and so very grateful to all of you who have supported us over the past five years. Our new website will go online very shortly, and, to celebrate, my next blog entry shall introduce our newest pattern, which I promise you is the most spectacular lace curtain design created in the past century! Its sneak preview at a trade show last week actually stopped attendees in their tracks; in 21 years of selling and designing lace curtains, I've never seen a response like this to a lace curtain panel!

A Primer On Lace Design

Old House Interiors magazine has just published a piece of mine on how to design with and measure for lace. Although brief, I hope it's informative...

A Designer’s Guide to Lace Curtains

Helpful advice on pattern, choice, care, and hanging.
By Dan Cooper

Cooper’s Pine Cone pattern is at home in rustic, cottage-style, and Arts & Crafts houses.

My days are often spent on the telephone, guiding clients who I know are standing near a window, atop a ladder (or kitchen chair) with a clacking tape measure in hand. As a designer and merchant of period-inspired lace curtains, I can offer them—and you—help in selecting appropriate window treatments. From 20 years of advice:

Which Pattern?

Many people mistakenly assume that lace curtains are Victorian. Not true: Lace was used at the windows long before Queen Victoria ascended the throne, and lace curtains are still common today, especially in the United Kingdom and Europe.

Although machine-made lace wasn’t available until after the mid-19th century, earlier historical patterns (previously hand-woven) are being reproduced today, suitable for Colonial, Federal, and Greek Revival homes. Down the timeline, Arts & Crafts-era, Art Deco, Elizabethan, and Colonial Revival patterns are being made. Because interior styles evolved, you can choose to coordinate the lace pattern with your furnishings rather than the house.

Shades of Lace

Most lace curtains today are finished in white, natural white (a.k.a. ivory), or ecru. White is bleached, like a new cotton T-shirt. Natural white is unbleached; I tell clients that it looks white until you place it side-by-side with bleached white. Ecru is a darker, almost tan color. All of these, as long as they are cotton, easily can be tea-stained or dyed to a darker shade. Consider that some people find ecru too “yellowy” against white-painted woodwork, while others find white too stark against dark trim.

Which Weave?

Most of your choices have been woven on Madras or Nottingham looms. Richly textured Madras lace is made by an appliqué process wherein a 100-percent cotton scrim is woven, and then the loom passes over it and a pattern is affixed. Finally, the panel is sheared, creating a crisp design. Nottingham is a type of machine-woven lace developed in the 1840s; it’s available in several point sizes that determine the fineness or coarseness of the pattern. Nottingham lace is produced in cotton/polyester blends ranging from 95-percent cotton to all polyester.

Shirred lace panels hung below transom windows lend privacy while admitting plenty of light. (Photo: Carolyn Bates)

Length and Width

There’s no exact formula; still, conventions exist that differ according to era. For Federal, Greek Revival, romantic (i.e., early to mid) Victorian, and some Colonial Revival styles, window treatments were “fuller” and more gathered. Typically, the ratio of lace was 1½ to two times the width of the window opening—say, 54″ to 72″ of lace (flat width) for a 36″-wide window. Lace panels often hung well below the windowsill, sometimes even pooling onto the floor.

For bungalows and most Colonial Revival houses, and for the styles of the 20th century—Craftsman, Deco, mid-century modern—window treatments were hung “flatter” with less gathering. The cloth to window ratio is not more than 1½ times; for many patterns, the preference is one to 1¼ times, or 36″ to 45″ of lace for a 36″ window. By now curtains were shorter, stopping at or near the windowsill or apron. I offer custom shortening, as do some other vendors; the panels can be shortened from the top to preserve an ornamental bottom border.

Cleaning and Care

Unless you have some special (dirty or dusty) circumstance, once a year is more than enough. In the interim, you might shake the curtains out or gently vacuum them (using the soft brush attachment). Manufacturers recommend dry-cleaning, although my clients have found that washing their panels in cold water with a mild detergent, by hand or on the machine’s delicate cycle, works well. High-efficiency washers will deliver the clean curtains to you barely damp. Never put cotton lace curtains in the dryer! Simply hang them up, barely damp, back on their rods. Don’t hang lace by clothespins, and don’t drape it over a clothesline, because, as the rope sags, the lace may become distorted. Straighten them while they are hanging by lightly spritzing them with water, then gently tugging and smoothing the fabric by hand. Cotton lace will shrink slightly after washing. (Damp-ironing may mitigate shrinkage.) You can lower the rod or hang the curtain through the header hem instead of the lower rod pocket.

In a Victorian vignette, lace panels hang to the floor, tied back over a fancy roller shade. (Photo: Paul Rocheleau)

Hanging Curtains

The simplest way to hang a lace curtain is with an adjustable spring-tension rod, readily available at hardware stores. To mount the curtains on the face of the woodwork, you can find inside- or outside-mount café rods in a variety of finishes. Sash rods that fit close to the glass are preferred for door and sidelight curtains, where you might want a bottom rod pocket sewn into the curtains.

That's A Wrap!

We've just placed the last (for the time being) of our rush Christmas and Hanukkah orders on the loading dock. It's been frantic, and our seamstress, Ana, has been truly heroic in finishing the dozens of custom requests we've received in the past weeks. Now it's time for year-end inventory and a week of planning for what promises to be our best year yet.

Not that I can complain about the last year; folks, you've been wonderful, and I am humbled and flattered by your patronage.

The big news is that shortly, we shall be unveiling our newest lace curtain pattern, and I promise you that it will be the most spectacular lace panel to be woven in the past century!

I make this claim with no reticence or qualifiers. No other lace curtain pattern in production comes even close to it; It's of a style that has been ignored by so many for so long, and will be unique in its field. I've shown it to a select few, and I've never seen such a response in my tenure. And there are other surprises that shall accompany it! So watch this space, and be amazed.

Finally, I wish you all the happiest of holidays, and thank you again for making 2011 such a great year for us.

Yours,

Dan Cooper, President
Cooper's Cottage Lace, LLC

Above and Beyond

This post started out as a promotional piece mentioning that Cooper's Cottage Lace had just sold lace curtains to the set of the television show Pan Am on ABC. But overnight, it turned into an example of how far we're willing to go for a customer in need.

The first order of our new Regency Panels had arrived on the set in Brooklyn, NY, last Monday, as requested. The next day, I happened to be in Manhattan visiting clients and meeting with the photographers of my next book to discuss layout and content. A call came in the afternoon; the set decorators needed more lace, but it had to be on set in Brooklyn by 8:00 am the next day.

Mind you, the lace was in the warehouse in Amherst, MA, 175 miles north of New York City. And it was too late to get it on Fedex. The shoot was scheduled for 9:00 am...panic ensued. So, I trained home, arriving around midnight, set my alarm for 3:30 am, and drove the lace down to Brooklyn, arriving at 7:03 at the gates of Steiner Studios. (I had left an hour to spare, in case traffic got ugly). I turned around, and returned to Amherst at 11am, in time to complete the day's work, content in the knowledge that the show would go on...

Watch for the episode "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" on December 4th; I'm told that's the air date!