Ground stitches in bobbin lace

 

Ground stitches are the ones that fill in the background of lace designs and join the main elements of the pattern together. The most common is a simple net stitch which is used in many types of fine lace and can be seen in the central area of this collar. It is made up of a series of stitches consisting of a cross and three twists on each pair of threads. A pin is placed between the two pairs but no further stitch is made to close, or cover, the pin. Today most lace patterns include prickings for the net ground stitches, indicating where each pin should be placed to make the net, but many older patterns do not include these pin holes at all, as the lacemakers worked the net without using pins. This made the work quicker and provided the lacemaker worked diagonal rows and maintained good tension the effect was the same. This lace collar also includes honeycomb stitch, another common ground stitch, which can be seen on the left of the piece. This is worked with a cross and two twists with each pair, then a pin is placed between them and the cross and two twists repeated, so this time the pin is enclosed, or covered.

Kat stitch is another ground stitch that was often used to make black silk lace. It has strong vertical and diagonal lines and gave a more open appearance to black lace than simple net would have done. The three ground stitches we have looked at are all made as one piece with the main design so the threads from the ground enter and leave the main motifs as the lace is worked.

However, this piece of lace has a ground that is separate from the main lace. The floral design was worked as a separate piece in bobbin lace and then included in this pattern by linking it to the other elements of the design. This can be done using bobbin lace but in this case needlelace has been used to join the designs together. This method of working allowed several people to work on the lace at the same time, some making the bobbin lace others sewing the net and some making the needlelace couronne rings to embellish the net.

Some types of lace do not use ground stitches to join the elements of the design but instead use plaits and their variations. These can be made as part of the main lace, as they are here, or can be used to join separate motifs together in the same way as the fine floral piece above. As you can see ground stitches have an important role to play in lace designs. They must hold the elements of the design in place without overpowering the main patterns or breaking up the flow of the lace. They must also be appropriate for the style of lace, for example the plaits are quite coarse so only work well on lace with large solid motifs, while fine net complements the daintier designs.

 

Joseph Castle hanging bobbin

 

Lacemakers celebrated many different life events on their lace bobbins but hanging bobbins were made to record the executions of murderers. These murders, trials and executions were rare events and obviously sparked a lot of interest in the local population. Six hangings are recorded on lace bobbins and this information about the case of Joseph Castle comes from a facsimile of a poster produced by a printer in Bedford soon after his execution.

Joseph was convicted of the murder of his wife Jane Whitcroft on 9 August 1859. Joseph came from Ware in Hertfordshire and that is where the couple lived. They had married two years previously and Joseph seemed ‘strongly attached and dotingly fond’ of his new wife. However, ‘his wayward disposition and irritable temper, before long rendered them unhappy, and they frequently quarrelled’. He was also prone to ‘unfounded fits of jealousy’ which caused more arguing. Jane decided to leave him on 8 August and walked the long journey back to her parents’ home in Luton. The next day Joseph followed her and persuaded her to return with him. Unfortunately on the way back he killed her by cutting her throat and stabbing her. Jane also had cuts to her hands suggesting that she put up a fight. Joseph then left her body in a ditch with her bonnet and shawl beside her. The crime was soon discovered as there was ‘a great quantity of blood on the road’ and the police were called. On the way home Joseph stopped in Welwyn at the home of a policeman he knew where he confessed to having ‘had a row with my wife’ and having ‘struck her’.

The case was heard at Bedford assizes on 14 March 1860. The evidence was so overwhelming that the jury took only 15 minutes to return a verdict of guilty. Joseph remained ‘passive, silent and reserved’ throughout the trial. He ‘expressed himself satisfied with his counsel and attorney; and of the verdict of the jury and the sentence of the judge he has made no complaint’. In the time after his conviction he had interviews with one of Jane’s sisters and his father-in-law but there is no record of what they said. The hanging took place in Bedford on 31 March 1860 at noon before a large crowd. However, the area ‘was unusually boarded in front and at the ends, which obstructed the view and disappointed the spectators’. Why were lacemakers so interested in this hanging? Ware was not a traditional lacemaking area so it is unlikely that lacemakers in Bedfordshire knew the couple personally. However, because the case was heard at the Bedford assizes, and that is where the hanging took place, it would probably have been of great interest in the local lacemaking area. The case was also very shocking and murders were not common, and we know from our own times how interested people are in ‘true crimes’ that they have no personal link to. Thomas Wright in his history of the Midlands lacemaking areas records ‘that “on the night of Castle’s public execution the friends of his deceased wife held a ball” and every guest on departing was presented with a bobbin as a memento of the occasion’. This seems unlikely to me, as I don’t think Jane’s family had the means to organise a ball or any links to the lacemaking world. However, Wright includes the text in speech marks indicating that he was told this by someone he interviewed during his research, albeit 50 years after the event. There are certainly lace bobbins commemorating the occasion, but hanging bobbins were sold by bobbin makers as souvenirs and were more likely to be bought by lacemakers who were present in the crowd at the hanging, to show they were there on the day.

Making Nottingham lace curtains

 This lovely design was made using the Nottingham lace curtain machine which despite its name was used to make a range of lace furnishings, including tablecloths and bedspreads, and was not only used in Nottingham, as these machines were exported round the world.

The Nottingham lace curtain machine works in a different way to other lace machines. The warp threads remain vertical while the weft thread moves across from one warp to the next one. Each time it moves adjacent to a warp thread it is linked to the warp by a separate bobbin thread which twists, or pillars, around the warp and the weft threads thus joining them together. This produces the characteristic square mesh of curtain lace which you can see in the image above. You can also see that the mesh can be varied by using two different weft threads of different thicknesses or by altering the spacing between the movements of the weft threads leaving wider gaps between the pillaring.

Other decorative ground patterns can also be made by using combination effects, for example where two or more pillars (the warp and weft from the spool threads) are joined together by the bobbin thread to make larger holes.

From its invention in 1846, the lace curtain machine made use of the jacquard system for producing patterned lace and one machine was able to produce a pair of curtains 4 yards (3.6 m) long in 2 hours. By 1851 there were about 100 curtain machines making lace in the Nottingham area and some beautiful lace curtains were displayed at the Great Exhibition in London in that year. The industry benefitted from the surge in house building at the time and the popularity of large windows which showed off the designs on the curtains to great advantage. It was not until the early twentieth century that the industry faced competition from the USA and fashions began to move away from ornate curtains to a simpler style.

Lace making in Nottingham in 1884

 

This blog is based on an article written by a reporter called Bernard H Becker for The English Illustrated Magazine in 1884. It is not, therefore, an accurate description of lace, lacemaking, lace machines, or even Nottingham, but gives a flavour of how people at the time celebrated the lace industry. Describing the history of the machine lace industry, Becker notes that in 1810 Nottingham was known for the production of machine-made net and tens of thousands of people in the town and the neighbouring counties were employed in needle running and tambouring net. The girls employed in this industry used needles or tambour hooks and thread to embroider patterns on to the net, which was held taught in a frame to make the work easier. He then quotes a story about John Heathcoat being inspired to develop his lace machine after a young woman told him her cousin had been employed in London by a man named Dawson who had made a fortune by making lace using machinery.

Becker was obviously visiting the Birkin works at Kimberley (shown in the image above) gathering material for his article as he notes that ‘it is a pleasant little run by rail to Kimberley from Nottingham and gives an excellent idea of the great recent extension of Nottingham and the surrounding townlets’. He also contrasts the conditions of Lancashire cotton workers with the lacemakers of Nottingham. He notes that the Lancashire mills are huge and the workmen’s homes are small and poor ‘suggesting the wide gulf which separates capital from labour and master from man’. In Nottingham, by contrast, ‘the transition from one condition to another is more gradual’ and workmen can hire machines and set up their own smaller manufacturers and ‘have opportunities of development, and with skill, ingenuity and conduct often succeed’ in bettering their life styles.

Although there are many small enterprises involved in the lace industry. Becker focuses on the ‘great mill at Kimberley’ owned by the Birkin family where he sees lace curtains being made. He comments that many children are employed in the works and the girls in particular are neat, quiet and of a modest demeanour. One of their main jobs is to wind the cotton thread from the spools on to the thin, round bobbins used in the lace machines and you can see a girl and a woman operating the bobbin threading machine in the image above. The work of setting up and running the lace machines is done by men and Becker praises their skilled work. The lace curtains are also designed by men who are trained at the Nottingham School of Art and Design in the studio on the top floor of the factory. The draughtsmen who translate the designs into the instructions for the lace machines are also trained at the Art School and Becker commends the school for the improvements in design it has encouraged. He also praises the conversion of Nottingham Castle into a museum, with help from the South Kensington Museum, which he says has ‘given new impetus to the arts of design’.

Once the lace has been removed from the machine, women are employed to check for holes and broken threads, which are repaired by hand. This drawing by A Morrow shows women mending the lace curtains, while the image at the top of the blog shows them checking the curtains. The lace then requires finishing, which involves starching, bleaching and gassing to remove the fluff from the cotton thread. Overall, Becker seems to have been impressed with the skill and dexterity of all the workers involved in the lace industry and pleasantly surprised by the working conditions and the way the industry had developed in Nottingham.   

Torchon bobbin lace

 

This image shows a typical example of Torchon lace, based on geometric shapes, including blocks of cloth and half stitch interspersed with spiders and rose ground, all surrounded with a fan edging. Torchon is often the first type of lace you are taught when starting bobbin lace making because it is based on grids and it is therefore easy to see which pinhole needs to be worked next. Also the patterns require no extra threads to be added or removed as the work progresses so the thread patterns are easy to follow. The filling stitches are generally variations on honeycomb stitch or rose ground. Two versions of rose ground are shown in this pattern, forming the blocks of small open squares. It also features two variations of spiders, with and without central holes and with 12 legs!

Torchon lace developed from the peasant laces of continental Europe, where it was often made and used in the home as a decoration for domestic linen. Santina Levey notes that Torchon means ‘dishcloth’ in French. In the first half of the nineteenth century Torchon lace was being made in France, Germany and Italy, but in the second half of the century it was taken up by the English lacemakers of the East Midlands and by 1900 Mrs Penderel Moody reports that it was also being made in Belgium, Russia, Bavaria, China, India and some African countries. Part of its appeal for domestic use is that if it is made of good quality linen thread it is easy to launder and lasts for many years.

Although Torchon lace is designed on grids or graph paper this does not mean the patterns are limited to squares, triangles and diamond shapes. Various types of graph paper are available including circular and sectional grids. The lace mat in the image above was worked from a design by Jane Atkinson using a circular grid and inspired by a motif on a Pueblo Indian pot.

I designed this three dimensional piece, inspired by modern architecture, using an irregular grid and leaving spaces between the main elements to allow it to be manipulated to form a sculptural shape. As you can see, Torchon lace has outgrown its reputation as a simple peasant lace and is now being used to design interesting contemporary lace works.  

Doily designs inspired by gothic architecture

 

I found these designs for doilies inspired by gothic architecture in a small leaflet produced by Coats Sewing Group in 1964. The introduction explains that ‘in this book the designer has turned to gothic architecture with a fresh eye and discovered, in the soaring pointed arches and the delicate stone tracery, a wonderful inspiration for crochet’. Unfortunately the designer is not named but the booklet suggests that one person designed all ten designs.

This doily with the pointed edges was inspired by the ceiling of Henry VII’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey. You can see from the detail above that it features the portcullis and Tudor rose. These were both images used by Henry VII to validate his tenuous claim to the English throne, which he had achieved by conquest.

The portcullis was the emblem of his mother’s family, the Beauforts, through which he was related to royalty, and the Tudor rose was a symbol of his union with Elizabeth of York whose family had a stronger claim to the throne. The fleur de lis emblem you can see in the photograph of the ceiling was part of the Elizabeth’s coat of arms, but I think the crochet designer probably decided it was too difficult to reproduce in crochet and did not include it.

The Church of San Michele in Florence was the inspiration for another doily. In particular the star design at the top of the elaborately carved marble tabernacle. In the same way as before, the designer has not reproduced it exactly but has taken inspiration from it to produce a six-sided doily reflecting the six-pointed star.

The instructions for the patterns suggest that the correct tension is important in order to reproduce each design accurately and suggests altering the size of the crochet hook if adjustments are required. Detailed instructions for laundering and pinning out the crochet are also given. These include, accurately drawing the shape of the finished doily in pencil on to plain paper, using a ruler and set squares for squares and rectangles and compasses for circles. Then using rustless pins to pin out the lace, making sure that all scallops are the same size and all flower petals are pulled into the correct position. This all sounds a lot of work, but these gothic designs do rely on the shapes being accurate and reflecting the original architecture. In fact the leaflet does suggest how to starch them if you wanted them to be slightly stiffened to retain their shape.

Shaping sixteenth-century lace ruffs

 

Shaping lace ruffs was a skilled profession in the sixteenth century. It is said that Queen Elizabeth of England had her ruffs starched, shaped and set by the Dutch wife of one of her coachmen. Starch, which provided the stiffening for ruffs, had been introduced to England from Flanders in 1564. The shaping was achieved by using setting sticks, poking sticks and struts, which were held in the hand or in a holder, so they stuck out horizontally, and the frills of the ruffs were formed over them.

Ruffs were made from long lengths of fine fabric, generally lawn or cambric, sewn together to make a long piece and then gathered to form cartridge pleats and attached to a neckband. Without the addition of starch or shaping the folds of the ruff were soft and merely formed a frill around the neck. However, a skilled laundress could transform the ruff into a three-dimensional form, with the aid of starch and poking sticks. She could also make different shaped frills from the same basic form so that one ruff could look quite different each time she shaped it.

This image of monkeys ‘aping’ the fashion for ruffs shows the processes required to set a ruff. It was first washed, then covered in starch, taking care not to clog the holes of the lace with the liquid starch, and then dried. The starch was generally made from grains such as wheat or bran or from roots and could be coloured using plant dyes. Once the laundress was ready to set the ruff it was lightly dampened and ironed flat. It was then shaped using the poking sticks ensuring that the frills were all of the same size and the amount of fabric was divided equally between the sets. Once the shape had been achieved the ruff was ironed to fix the frills by pushing heated poking sticks into each set. To produce a ruff with a figure of eight appearance was more complicated and required the use of small pins to link adjacent sections together.

As you can see from the engraving of the monkeys starching ruffs, the fashion attracted much satire. It was a very impractical fashion, for example Queen Margot at the French court needed a spoon over 60 cm long to eat her soup because her ruff was so large. How she managed to eat soup using such a long spoon and negotiating a wide ruff I have no idea – I think I would have chosen something else to eat! However, fashion is often extravagant, fabulous and over the top and no fashions were more so than lace ruffs.