Brussels lace

 

This lovely little piece of lace is made up of both bobbin and needle lace so I’ve described it as Brussels for want of a better description. The flower motifs inside each scallop are made of a pieced lace, like Honiton, where each spray or series of leaves is made separately on a lace pillow and then combined when the finished article is made up. Alternating scallop edges are also made using this pieced lace technique. However every alternate scallop and the inner edge of each one is made of needle lace and the bobbin lace motifs are joined together, and to the scallop, with a needle lace net ground. Needle lace has also been used to decorate the centre of some of the bobbin lace flowers and to make circular couronnes within the net ground. 

The work is so fine - just look at the tiny picot edgings - it would have been extremely time consuming and different lacemakers would have been responsible for separate parts of the work. The needle lace and bobbin lace motifs would have been assembled and then joined together on a needle lace pillow when the net ground stitches and the filling stitches would have been used to link them all together in the final design.