‘Modern’ point lace

 

My 1882 edition of the Dictionary of needlework describes how to work this type of needlelace which was a popular pastime in the late nineteenth century. It describes point lace as any needlelace, except cut and drawn work, which is worked in buttonhole stitches on a parchment pattern. It goes on to explain that this modern type of point lace has been made since 1855, particularly in France where it is known as dentelle renaissance. The materials required are tracing cloth on which to draw the design, Toile Cire (which seems to be oil cloth) ‘to give firmness to the lace while in progress’ so I assume it is used as a backing cloth for the work, needles, linen braids and linen thread. A variety of linen braids were obviously available at the time but the book notes you could also make your own in bobbin lace if you preferred. It recommends using a fine thread such as Haythorne’s linen thread (I assume this is a brand name).

The first step is to draw the outline of the lace onto the tracing cloth and this is the suggested starting pattern. Then tack the braid loosely to the cloth. After that overcast all the edges of the braid, drawing up the thread at the inner edges of the curves so they sit flat. Then join the separate parts of the design with bars as shown by passing a thread across a space three times, buttonholing over the threads to the centre of the bar, where a picot is formed, and then continuing by buttonholing the other half of the bar. The centre of the braid shapes can then be filled with needlelace filling stitches. For beginners they suggest using point de Bruxelles as the filling stitch, which is a series of interlocked rows of loose buttonhole stitches. This seems quite a difficult stitch for beginners, as it is hard to maintain a good tension, but of course Victorian women all knew how to stitch and most were quite adept at something as well-known as buttonhole stitch.

A series of draughts for the Nottingham lace curtain machine

 

This set of four lace machine draughts are all variations on a theme of roses. They all have the same heading and a similar pattern along the base, while the main parts of the design are all variations on a series of roses, four-petalled flowers and leaves. I have previously seen a variety of designs produced this way and thought they were variations produced by the designer for the manufacturer to choose which one they preferred. I didn’t realise that manufacturers produced a variety of fairly similar designs for sale and therefore the designers were probably producing a suite of designs that complemented each other to make a range for that season.

These draughts were painted by hand by a draughtsman based on the designers original drawing. They are basically instructions converting the design into a pattern that can be made on the Nottingham lace curtain machine. Each draught contains the information for one pattern repeat and the places where the repeat begins and ends are marked. The red and green rectangles indicate different operations for the lace machine – generally red indicates back spool ties and green means Swiss ties. The draughts also provide other information such as the fineness or point size of the lace, its width and depth and whether the edging is overlocked or a picot edging. Following this stage, the draughts would have been sent to the card puncher who would have converted the information into a set of punched Jacquard cards which would have been ‘read’ by the machine to make the lace. A stamp on the draughts says ‘Lace textile designers draughtsmen 40 Upper Parliament Street, Nottingham’ which suggests that the people making these draughts were a specialist company of designer draughtsmen and not part of a larger manufacturing company, as was often the case. They probably produced a range of designs for several lace manufacturers.

Lacemaking at the Great Exhibition 1851

Bucks point lace made from this draught won a gold medal at the Great Exhibition in 1851. According to Thomas Wright, Miss Elizabeth Clayson from Olney demonstrated lacemaking at the exhibition and was working on this pattern when Queen Victoria visited the show. The Queen asked the usual question ‘Are the different coloured bobbins a guide to which thread you turn over?’ and was told this was not the case. Whether she highlighted its similarity to tatting is not recorded! (These are the two observations everyone makes at lace demonstrations!)

The pattern was designed by John Millward from Olney, a well-known Buckinghamshire lace-making town, for the lace manufacturers Messrs. Copestake and Co. The Jury report of the exhibition suggests that the medal was awarded to the company, not the designer or lacemaker, and was for their complete range including Bucks point, Honiton and tambour lace as well as embroidered muslin. Particular mention is made of ‘very wide Buckinghamshire lace of fine quality’ which presumably refers to this pattern. The lace was made in three widths and we are not told which one Miss Clayson was working on when she met the Queen, I do hope it was a smaller, more manageable, version and not the very wide one.

Spring bobbin lace panels

It’s spring in the UK and the lovely colours in the garden have inspired me to produce a group of small lace panels. I’ve made some frames out of stiffened fabric, the sort used for interfacing when you’re making garments. I’ve already coloured them and am now filling the central openings with random bobbin lace in colours to complement the frames. As you can see I’ve finished one and am just about to begin on the second. I’m not quite sure how to mount them. I want to maintain the see-through quality of the lace but they are so small they would be overlooked hanging on a wall. Therefore I’m going to mount them on a white backing, so they are slightly raised from it and don’t lie flat. My dilemma is whether to mount them inside a box-type frame with glass in front of them or to have them on a block-type frame that stands out from the wall. They would be safer behind the glass but would probably make more interesting shadows if they stood out from the frame. I think I will have to experiment once they are all made and see what works best.

Honiton lace and Flemish refugees

 

There is a tradition, repeated in Mrs Bury Palliser’s authoritative History of lace, that Honiton lace was introduced to Devon by Flemish refugees escaping persecution from the Duke of Alva in 1570. However, there is no primary evidence for such an influx of lacemakers and Palliser based her assertions on the appearance of Flemish sounding surnames in parish registers. H J Yallop in his doctoral thesis on the History of the Honiton lace industry questions whether these surnames actually had Flemish origins. He also notes that they were first introduced into England centuries before the invention of lacemaking and most are first found in Honiton registers in the seventeenth century. Yallop found no evidence for an influx of Flemish refugees in the late sixteenth century.

He also argues that the obvious place for Flemish refugees to land in England would have been London, Essex and East Kent, and there is evidence of refugees settling in these areas. To travel along the English south coast as far as Devon, passing several ports on the way, to land on an open beach in Devon seems complete folly. Interestingly, Yallop notes that the first mention of refugee lacemakers arriving in Honiton to start the lace industry in the sixteenth century dates from a book on Devonshire history published in 1822, based on some confused information received from a local Honiton lace manufacturer. In fact, by the sixteenth century the Devon cloth industry was well established and the area was home to many weavers, fullers, tuckers and dyers as well as pointmakers. The latter made points, which were narrow braids or laces used for tying parts of garments together, using a technique similar to bobbin lace making. It therefore seems much more likely that the Honiton lace industry was a natural development from the local weaving industry.

Bobbin lace lappets

This beautiful bobbin lace lappet was made in Belgium in the eighteenth century. I found the image in an interesting old book entitled Old handmade lace by Mrs F Nevill Jackson, which was published in 1900. Lappets were long strips of lace or embroidery that were attached to women’s caps, hats or bonnets and then allowed to fall onto the shoulders, although there was a period when it was fashionable to pin the lappets to the top of the cap and another when they were tied under the chin. They were fashionable during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries but despite that I could find few images of women wearing them.

The cap and lappets on the model above were displayed in the V&A Museum in London. They show round ended lappets attached to the sides of a fine fabric cap falling down the back. Alternatively side lappets could fall either side of the face or lappets could be attached to the back of the headwear and hang down the back of the gown. They varied in width, length and type of lace but always came in pairs. Both the lappets in the images have round ends but square ended lappets were also made. There are also examples of caps and lappets made entirely of lace (see an image in my blog post of 5 October 2022). Many lappets survive in museums and lace collections, probably because they were made to be closely examined and admired and are therefore exquisitely worked and so the owners found them too beautiful to dispose of. Also, once they were no longer fashionable, they were easy to detach from the headwear and small enough to keep in a drawer.

Celebrating mothers on lace bobbins

 

As it’s Mothers’ day in the UK on Sunday I thought I’d write about lace bobbins celebrating mothers this week. The bobbin with the blue spangle is inscribed Dear mother and the other one says Sarah Ions my D mother. It looks as if the bobbin maker was running out of space so he just squeezed D on at the end of the line to represent dear. Or perhaps Sarah’s daughter forgot to ask him to include dear and wanted him to fit it in later. Both bobbins were made by the person called the Blunt end man by the Springetts in their research on bobbin makers and their techniques. He seems to have links to Bedford and was definitely making bobbins between 1860 and 1874, so these two bobbins are about 150 years old. The Blunt end man used simple lettering in straight lines, rather than the spiral inscriptions other bobbin makers favoured. He produced a large quantity of bobbins including many personal ones like Sarah’s but also had a good stock of simple inscriptions such as Dear mother, as well as those for other relations such as father, sister, brother, aunt and uncle. What a lovely gift it would have been to receive one of these lovely bobbins on Mothers’ day.

Prickings

Prickings are the patterns of dotted holes that lacemakers follow to make bobbin lace. Technically the pricking shown in the image is only half complete as I am pricking the holes for the pins as I work the lace. Traditionally, the pattern would have been pricked in its entirety before the actual lacemaking began. Most prickings were made from an existing pricking or a copy of the pricking. Copies were made by placing a piece of thin paper over the reverse side of the pricking then rubbing over it with something like heel ball to leave an impression of the dotted pattern on the paper; in the same way as brass rubbings are produced. The reverse of the pricking was used because pushing pins through card or vellum leaves the top feeling smooth but causes a rough surface on the underside where the pins have displaced the card.

Copies were made by placing the original pricking (or the rubbing) over a new piece of card on a cork base, then pushing a pin through the existing holes of the pattern or the marks on the copy to produce a new pricking underneath the original. This was done using a pin permanently fixed into a holder, like a bobbin shaft, or using a pin vice (shown here) which holds the pin firmly in place. Using a pin on its own would be extremely fiddly and probably hurt your fingers as pricking lace patterns requires firm, precise, pressure. This image also shows how a pricking for a length of lace can be cut so the two pieces interlock and a continuous length of lace can therefore be made by alternating them.

Sadly the phrase “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes” has nothing to do with lace prickings. It is said by one of the witches in Macbeth and is used to describe an ominous premonition, so it’s a creepy feeling rather than an overuse of lacemaking equipment!

Bungalow lace curtains

 

I discovered these ‘bungalow’ lace curtains in a Lace furnishings catalogue for 1933-34. What unique features they have that makes them suitable for bungalow windows I do not know, but the period between the two world wars was a peak time for bungalow construction in the UK, which would correspond with the publication of this catalogue, so perhaps the manufacturers were just trying to tap into a new market.

There are six designs and they are all floral, with side borders that tend to take up about a quarter of the curtain each, and a bottom border of the same width. They range in size from 35 inches wide to 40 inches and are all 2.5 yards long and are sold as a pair. However, four of them are also available as fabric bought by the yard, presumably so the homeowner could make up curtains to their own specifications. The other designs in the catalogue seem very similar but they tend to be wider and longer than the bungalow curtains. Unfortunately no prices are given for any of the curtains.

Miss Channer’s lace mat

 

Catherine Channer was actively involved in the revival of the East Midlands handmade lace industry in Britain in the early twentieth century. She was a lacemaker, teacher and researcher and I’ve written about some of her work in this blog before. Today I’m looking at Miss Channer’s mat which she designed in the early 1920s using the technique for pricking the ground that she had developed following research into old lace patterns and their origins (see this blog of 24 October 2023). An image of the mat was published in her book Practical lacemaking published in 1928 which was one of the few textbooks for students and gave instructions and patterns for Bucks point lace. 

The mat in the book had been worked by Mrs Dixon of Clapham, Bedfordshire in about 1926 and is now in the collection of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery in Bedford. The mat became famous as a challenge for skilled lacemakers in 1991 when Ruth Bean published Anne Buck’s book about Miss Channer entitled In the cause of English lace. A supplement was published at the same time comprising an image of the mat and a full sized pricking of it, which had been adapted by Patricia Bury from an earlier version in her collection. Since then many lacemakers have worked it and their handiwork can be seen by searching for ‘Miss Channers mat’ on the internet. No instructions were given for the original mat or for the version published in 1991 so it is also interesting to see how it has been worked by different lacemakers and the varying number of pairs of bobbins they used to complete it. I have never made Miss Channer’s mat but I do admire the skill and patience of those who have.

Admiral Nelson inscribed lace bobbin

This lace bobbin is inscribed 'Nelson' in a spiral reading from the base to the top and is a patriotic inscription celebrating the famous admiral. Nelson was born in 1758 and died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. He commanded the British fleet against the French during the Napoleonic wars and after winning several victories, including the Battle of Trafalgar, he was shot by a French sniper and died on his flagship HMS Victory. His body was returned to England and he was given a state funeral and buried in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Several years later it was suggested that a memorial to him, funded by public subscription, should be erected in Trafalgar Square in central London. The competition for the monument was won by Willian Railton and work on his column and the statue of Nelson (made by E H Baily) began in 1840. The column was completed and the statue raised on to it in 1843.

I think this lace bobbin was made by James Compton because the style of lettering is unmistakably his and the dark red and blue colours are also typical of his work. I assumed that the bobbin had been made to commemorate the death of Nelson, but James Compton lived from 1824 to 1889 so he could not have been making bobbins in 1805. Having done some research into the redevelopment of Trafalgar Square and the competition to produce a memorial to Nelson I now think that the bobbin was probably made during the early 1840s when Nelson’s column was installed. This would have been of national interest and there would have been images of it in newspapers and magazines. Also, at that time, James Compton would have been in his late teens and well established, helping his father as a bobbin maker.

Renaissance lace on Elizabethan dress

 

This lovely lace on the edge of a ruff is depicted on the Rainbow portrait of Queen Elizabeth, which was painted in about 1600, probably by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger although there is a possibility that the painter may have been Isaac Oliver; it can be seen at Hatfield House.

Early needle lace developed from cutwork, in which fabric was cut away from a background, leaving a pattern of threads that were then oversewn. Eventually the background fabric was dispensed with and the pattern was laid out in threads which were then joined by stitching. The lace on the edge of her ruff shows a combination of these two types of needle lace, with cutwork on the lower part of the lace and a free edging around the outer part of the lace where the stitches were worked on free loops of thread. Early bobbin lace developed from the plaiting of cords, using thread wound on bobbins, to become a more open design and the figure of eight edging round the bodice may be a plaited cord. Patterns for both types of lace were available in pattern books that circulated widely in western Europe.

This pattern comes from Frederic Vinciolo’s pattern book for needle made laces, first published in France in 1587 and dedicated to his patroness, the Dowager Queen of France, Catherine de Medici, who had brought her knowledge of lace from her native Italy. It is similar to the edging on the Queen Elizabeth’s ruff with two layers of lace patterning and a more freely worked picot edging. This type of work was also known as ‘punto in aria’ (stitches in air) and as the book does not include instructions we must admire the lacemaker who could conjure such wonderful lace seemingly out of the air.  

Filet lace dress decoration

 

Filet lace was popular for dress decoration at the beginning of the twentieth century, as these images show, and many were made by the home dressmaker. A special issue of the magazine Needlecraft, dedicated to filet lace, notes that stock collars (high neck collars as shown in these illustrations) ‘give an air of distinction to the simplest dress’. The magazine gives detailed instructions for making these collars, including the types of thread required, how to make the foundation net, and a variety of patterns, from the simple to the intricate.

As well as stock collars, both of the blouses shown here also have a filet trim running from the neck to the waist. One is based on an antique border pattern and the other is composed of square animal motifs. The magazine suggests that longer matching lengths of filet lace could also be made to trim a ‘dainty skirt’. It estimates that about 3 or 4 yards of lace would be required and should be placed 8 inches above the hem. If that doesn’t sound enough work, it also suggests that tucks above and below the lace would form a neat frame for the lace and that the material behind the lace should be cut away so the filet lace ‘shows transparent’. It does not suggest this cutting away of fabric for the lace on the blouse – in fact it explains that the animal motifs are worked in white thread and backed by pale pink material. It also advises that the animal motifs are separated by floral or geometric patterns because ‘too many quaint animal patterns together have a tendency towards the comic, which is most undesirable’.  

Needle-run lace

 

Needle-run lace is essentially embroidery on net, which combines the beauty of stitching with the lightness of lace. It can be used to make quite large pieces of lace far more quickly than can be done using traditional handmade bobbin and needle-lace techniques. Needle-run lace was very popular in the early nineteenth century when lace machines could only produce net, but not patterned lace, so lace ‘runners’ were employed to embroider the net to make veils, stoles and collars.

To work needle-run lace the net background has to be stretched in a frame to keep the work taught. The pattern can be drawn in water-soluble ink on to the net or drawn on paper and tacked underneath it.

The design is then worked using a blunt-tipped needle and thread, first by outlining the design in a running stitch and then adding decorative stitches to produce shading. I enjoy making needle-run lace because it allows me to produce quite large pieces of lace with bold designs fairly quickly. For example, I used this technique in the series of mats that make up the body of work in Marriage bond, my research into Amy Atkin, the first female Nottingham machine lace designer who had to give up work on marriage; and you can see an image of one of the mats at the head of this blog.

Harry Cross: Nottingham machine lace designer

 

I’ve been interested in the work of Harry Cross ever since I was commissioned to produce a response to his famous Battle of Britain commemorative lace panel and was introduced to the beautiful paintings he made of his designs for that iconic lace. I have written several articles about the Battle of Britain lace panel, but Harry Cross also left an archive of many other machine lace designs for curtains, tablecloths and bedspreads, as well as some beautiful sketch books, and I felt these should be more widely known about, hence my recent article in Text, the magazine of The Textile Society. The image above is a page from that article showing the completed Battle of Britain lace panel and two preparatory designs for it, one of the bombed Guildhall and the other of the lower section of the panel.

However, the focus of the article is not the Battle of Britain panel but rather how Harry Cross went about designing his work. It considers his art school training, and  how he learnt to develop pattern repeats and used his sketchbooks to play with designs and jot down ideas. It then looks at specific examples of his designs for lace fabric, tablecloths and curtains to explore his working practice, showing how he built up designs, how they developed from ideas in his sketchbook and how he presented the options to possible buyers. The final section about the Battle of Britain panel shows how Harry Cross developed his designs for the side columns from photographs of bombed London scenes and how he amended the words from  Winston Churchill’s famous speech about ‘the few’. It was particularly interesting to see how designs were produced before computers were available both for research and for designing.

My thanks to Barbara Cross (the granddaughter of Harry Cross) and the Lace Archive at Nottingham Trent University for access to the archive and The Textile Society for publishing the article.