The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-22
ENGLISH SOCIAL AFFAIRS
BY LADY MARY MANwAR1NG

London, January 21-(SpeciaL)-Th vel is to be of is woven by hand in the old Suffolk borough of Sudbury where the few remaining hand loom weavers in England work.
 The weavers are seated when at their looms, their feet working pedals resem- bling those of an organ. There are two sets of threads, the visible one form other the pile, each of these being dei- icately threaded through vertical threads known as the harness. The weaver passes the shuttle backwards and forwards, and each warp and weft is pressed home by q swinging wooden frame. A cutter which runs across the loom on a wire cuts the threads to make the pile. The process of manufacture is slow and tedious The time is occupied not so much in the weaving as in the cleaning. At each foot or so made the weaver uses curious knife like a spokeshave and slaves the surface of the velvet to clean 1t. There are now not more than 30 hand loom weavers left in Sudbury.
 Doubtless your American ladies will be interested in a description of the Queen 8 dress when she is crowned.
 There is reason to believe that Queen Mary will wear the train worn by Queen Alexandra In 1902, as the King will wear the cornation robe worn by King Ed ward VII. Queen Alexandra's train is a glorious ruby red velvet affair, cov- cred with mass of gold embroidery, the effect being heightened by the alternate use of glitterng and dull gold. Crowns, roses and missiles are on 1t, and no chld's dream of royal robe was ever more worthy of Queen. Queen Mary has been inspired by artistic feeling in her choice of various state dresses, for they are all to be simple in line, cut princess shape, and, for the most part. with draped bodices..
 The train which will probably be worn by the Queen is IS feet in length and about five feet in width, lined through out with miniver. It has cape from the shoulders about IS inches. deep of the same fur and Is bordered all round with an edging of ermine three inches wide. It is powdered or seme with imperial
 
 plate gold and partly in Chinese gold, the crosses and feurs-de-lis in what is known as purl, the balls along the arches of the crowns being made of gold studs and the bases of sparkling silver threads These crowns are set IS inches apart. ev- eryway, and are 30 in number. !, The whole train Is surrounded by very rich golden border divided into three parts, between the first part of which and the ermne border is a strip of the velvet showing and making fine con- trast to the fur and the gold. The first part is of cloth of gold with a running pattern of bright pale gold on rich mellow tint and on this are applied" hundreds of the English rose, in very thick embroidery. The next part Is of the velvet and on 1t is wrought pattern formed of branches of oak leaves and acorns held together alternately by the crosses and fleurs-de-ls of the imperial crown. This border is so finely worked as to have the appearance of being a golden jewel; the leaves are of bullion gold. the stems of Chinese, the acorns of thick bullion, their cups of gold beads sewed closely together and the feurs-de- lis and crosses of many different sorts of gold, the latter set off with jewels of gold
 The third part of the border Is of cloth of gold woven on ruby purple ground and is of oak leaves among stems sup porting alternate English roses and feurs- de-lis, embroidered as in the former in stances. The whole border is 15 inches wide. At the end of the train Is very rich piece of embroidery a yard and a half in length, filling up the whole sweep of the train. This is meant to represent the growth of the British Kingdom, by oe x,tr- k,-o1 through the crown of the ancient Kings Of England and spreading upwards into strong branches of silver petals and leaves armed with stout thorns.