Wrist-ruffs such as these take up to 4 yards of material and many hours of fine needlework to create.
Once sewn they need full starching & setting, we do this using rice starch we manufacture ourselves. The setting is using reproduction 'poking sticks' - iron rods which are heated over a fire and then used to iron the curves of the ruff. Washing and setting such ruffs needs to be performed around once a week, when the ruff gets dirty. Once washed and starched, setting a collar and pair of wrist-ruffs can take around 2 hours.
These ruffs are small and so the starch is enough to keep them in place while the curves of larger ruffs are held in place by brass pins or small blob of beeswax.
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