Simon Lucas Baize Bridge Cloths and How They’re Made

How I Make the Petersham Border Baize Bridge Cloth

Hi, I’m Simon Lucas and I’ve been sitting behind this sewing machine making bridge cloths for nearly 25 years. Today I’m going to tell you about our baize Bridge cloths and how they’re made Petersham border bridge cloth with embroidered suit symbols, which is a gaming cloth made from traditional green baize. It has a red and green Petersham braid edging with gold detailing and the cloth is decorated with embroidered suit symbols, one in each corner.

The cloths that I produce are made from top-quality British wool baize, woven by a company that holds the Royal Warrant and has been producing this fabric in a traditional way in their textile mill since 1783. They are one of the oldest companies in the United Kingdom.

I have never had a baize cloth returned as faulty in over 24 years of production and I think this is due to the way that I make the cloths.

Firstly I unroll the fabric and inspect it carefully for blemishes, before chalking out and cutting the cloth by hand.

Next, the braid. The Petersham ribbon braid is proudly made by another British company who also hold a Royal Warrant and it is produced exclusively for us using traditional methods. I unroll the braid and meticulously inspect both sides of it for blemishes, discarding any I find.

Then it’s time to sew. Each cloth is hemmed with a single line of stitching then the braid is attached to the cloth with a further two lines of stitching. This is where my experience and First Class Honours degree in Fashion and Textiles comes in handy: even though it’s hidden on the reverse side while I’m sewing, I aim for one line of the braid stitching to lie exactly over the hem line so that only two rows of stitching are visible on the finished cloth. If you own a Simon Lucas cloth, check the back!  Can you see the hem line?  See if you can spot it in the photograph.

When the cloth has been embroidered it’s ironed, folded and packed, ready to be sent to its new owner.

As all the baize cloths are made by hand to order, a large part of the business is producing custom-made cloths to fit specific sizes and shapes of tables. For a televised Poker tournament, I even produced huge gaming cloths to fit over the benches in the pods of the London Eye!

I hope you get as much pleasure out of using your Simon Lucas baize bridge cloth as I have had in making it.

To see some all of the bridge cloths produced by Simon, please visit our website Simon Lucas Bridge Supplies.