MarGorsson Design David Collyer ~David’s Lace Gallery ~David’s Tønder Gallery ~ Miss Channer's Mat goes Chantilly

LACE & CRAFT WORK AMONG THE MALE MEMBERS OF THE

COLLYER FAMILY

by

David C. Collyer

It was David’s Grandfather, Archibald COLLYER (1883 - 1939) who first began the tradition of textile arts among the male members of our family. As he died 9 yearsbefore David was born, he of course never met him, but has interviewed elderly relatives extensively about this rather unique man.

Apparently, around the year 1914 when he was mining at Daylesford in Victoria, Archgot sick and tired of watching his wife crochet and reckoned he could do it just aswell. So she taught him. Imagine the rigorous scrubbing of those miner’s hands beforebeing allowed to touch thread! He did very quickly learn to crochet better than his wife, and, like the men who descend from him, seemed to have an innate ability to design and not to follow patterns blindly.

A number of his pieces survive including the baby’s bonnet which he crocheted for his son, Keith, in 1917, as well as a couple of delightful supper cloths in filet work. David his since copied the bonnet and written out the pattern.

The funniest story which reveals a lot about this man, stems from the time he saw his wife crochet one of those jug covers with the three-dimensional cup and saucer on the top. Arch reckoned this was the most useless dust-catcher he had ever seen and with that he retired to his front room - not to be disturbed at any cost! Once again this facet

of his personality has been handed down and many of his descendants have been known to sit for up to 20 hours working on some creation, not even thinking of food. About a week later Arch emerged and threw a supper cloth at his wife saying: “Here see if you can use that!” He had crocheted onto the cloth, a complete dinner set in 3-D

including cream jug and sugar bowl!

While his older son, Jim, showed no interest in things crafty, his younger son, Keith (David’s father) learned to love knitting at an early age. Keith never did crochet though. He too loved to knit away making it up as he went along, although he was quite capable of following a pattern should the need arise. He always allotted the tasks

of casting on, casting off, and bands to others though. Keith was often heard to remark: “I wonder how many women could knit if Patons ever burned down? You must learn to recognise what each stitch looks like and what it does. Then when you look at the row before, you will know what is expected in this row.”

Keith’s wife, Jean, did not know that she had married a knitter until after the first baby arrived in 1943. At that time Keith was stationed at Ravenshoe in North Queensland and in due course a beautiful layette arrived for his first daughter. From that time onwards Keith knitted baby clothes for all five of his children as well as making numerous soft felt toys for them. In his later years, he kept many of his bowling friends in beautiful white Arran jumpers. However, it was only after he was diagnosed as terminally ill with cancer, early in 1983, that Keith learned from his son, David, how to knit lace in fine cotton. This was both a blessing and a disaster - a blessing in that he was able to churn out cloths for his wife and all five children; a disaster in that it was the perfect excuse not to have to talk with anyone. How often he was heard tosay: “Not now. Can’t you see I’m counting!”

It was David, however, who developed the crafts of knitting and crochet and changed them into fine art forms, sometimes functional and sometimes purely aesthetic. He thinks he was about 8 years old when he was learning to knit. "I can remember learning to cast on . It was red wool and I ended up with about 300 stitches

but the knitting wouldn't come down. All I knew how to do was cast on."

David’s mother was a truly inspired teacher. Unlike many mothers, Jean realised that to knit a scarf was the most boring thing to attempt. Not only would it not get finished, but it could also succeed in discouraging a child from any further knitting. So she got her children to knit small items, like dolls’ clothes, which were much more interesting, quickly finished, and taught such techniques as casting on, casting off, rib, shaping, button holes, and ultimately Fairisle.

In order to teach children embroidery, Jean used to save the side of breakfast cerealboxes. Then the children would learn to surround any pictures with back stitch, fill them in with satin stitch and put a border of blanket or buttonhole stitch around the edge. The entire work would then be inspected to see if it was “show work” or not!

For someone who thought she was no good at maths, Jean certainly managed to teach an awful lot of it to her children. She used the 1950s book by Enid Gilchrist to make all their clothes, and would get the children also to draught the patterns in newspaper and then enlarge them accordingly. Or if they liked they could glue the miniature onestogether for their dolls. She did not discriminate and taught these skills to all herchildren, regardless of gender.

In 1991 David held an exhibition in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, of the work of the male members of his family, entitled: “Men Make It Too!” His exhibited works included his early clumsy attempts at knitting and crochet, the development of his tatting from coarse cotton following patterns to original designs using the finest of

threads; intricate counted thread work such as Hardanger, Danish pulled thread work, drawn thread work, cross stitch embroideries, reproductions of antique crocheted doilies and cloths, knitted lace using cottons finer than sewing machine thread, tape lace work, free form embroidery, patch work, applique, petite point, fine homespun

Shetland lace, original designs in jumpers, and his Tenerife lace work.

Pieces made by his Father and Grandfather were also on display, as well as the first creation of his then nine year old nephew, Lyndon COLLYER.

Late in 1995, David joined the Arachne Mail List for lacemakers on the Internet andafter some months exchanging discussion mainly centred around tatting, he became inspired to learn bobbin lace at last – in fact he was probably the first person in the world to learn Bobbin Lace via the Internet! Over the years he had acquired a few old bobbinsand a couple of antique Princess Pillows. After one attempt at a Bedfordshire edging using thickish thread (Coats Mercer #100), he cast that aside and went straight for the finer threads which he loved so much.

Since that time, he has mastered Torchon, Befordshire, Bucks Point (traditional and floral) , Chantilly, Toender, Point Du Lille, Milanese, Russian Tape Lace, Cluny, and Binche.

He organised the Arachne Lace Exhibition which was opened in Ballarat on January 14th 1998 by his cousin, the then Governor of Victoria, The Honourable Richard E. McGarvie, and ran until June. This included 162 pieces of lace from Arachne members all around the globe and was supplemented by some of David’s antiques.

Men n’ Lace David Collyer’s Lace Gallery David Collyer’s Tønder Gallery

Miss Channer’s Mat goes Chantilly Home Page

To see examples of David’s Lace visit his Lace Gallery. In his Tønder Gallery you can see an exquisite piece of Tønder Lace. David is now working on a lovely mat in Chantilly.