The projects which we hope to add to the website in the future, would have been undertaken in Karen Finch’s studios in Acton and Ealing. As mentioned by Karen in some of her articles, the Ealing studio was inundated with so many commissions that at one point a halt was called to working on any more until the establishment of a national centre for textile conservation had been agreed to. As a result, many of those commissions were transferred to Hampton Court Palace when the Textile Conservation Centre finally opened in 1975.

There are many sensitive issues surrounding the publishing of material relating to the conservation of these important textiles. Nonetheless we believe that the new methods and approaches which Karen developed in those years between 1959-1975 are important to the history of textile conservation in the UK, and should be properly recorded.

One of Karen’s driving principles in conservation was that full documentation should be done for each object conserved in her studios. This included a detailed written account of the condition of the object when it reached the studio, the work that was done to it, and its condition at the end of the process, along with “before and after” photos or slides.