This is a close up of the outer edge of the latest doily in my subversive doily series. I like working this Eastern-European style lace as it only requires a few pairs of bobbins at any one time. Most of it is a simple half stitch braid that forms a trail around the mat. The downside is that every time the trail connects with a previous section of the lace you have to join the worker pair to the previous work by making a sewing. I was taught how to make sewings when I learnt Honiton lace, which also requires them, but was never very good at them. However, I am improving with all the practice I’m getting! Also, this thread is quite coarse so the pin holes are fairly large and I can use a fine crochet hook rather than a pin to pull the loops through, which makes it all easier. Another interesting aspect to this lace is the placing of the pin holes. I designed the pattern myself, including where I thought the pin holes should be placed for the half stitch trail to flow nicely, but I find that as I actually work the pattern I’m having to change some of them. In some cases I need an extra pin hole to keep the half stitch level otherwise the angle becomes too steep and the trail looks as if it’s been pulled out of shape. In others I need more (or fewer pin holes) to negotiate a loop in the pattern more successfully. It has made me appreciate the skill of those lace designers who can produce a lace pattern that works efficiently every time. I’m making mine work by adapting as I go along, so I just have to console myself by thinking that mine will be unique, even though it is not ideal.
Thursday 24 October 2024
Wednesday 16 October 2024
Early twentieth century lace scarves
These lace scarves were all advertised in the 1904 catalogue produced by Samuel Peach, a well-known lace manufacturing company based in Nottingham. They are interesting because despite being machine made they all copy different styles of handmade lace. The black lace scarf in the top image is an imitation of a fine Chantilly-style lace, popular at the time, especially for evening and mourning wear. The scarf is 82 inches long (slightly over 2 metres) and 11 inches wide (28 cm) and cost 8 shillings and 6 pence.
The second
scarf ends in a very bold pattern, similar to crochet lace, although it is
actually chemical lace. This is made by machine embroidering onto a sacrificial
background, which is removed by chemical or heat treatment, leaving the
embroidered lace behind. This scarf is narrower and shorter than the black one
(63 x 6 inches; 160 x 15 cm) and costs 3 shillings and 6 pence.
This scarf
imitates fine point lace, such as Buckinghamshire lace, and incorporates
several motifs that are common in the handmade version of this lace. This one
is much cheaper than the previous two scarves and only costs 9 pence. This
seems quite a bargain as it is 52 x 4 inches (132 x 10 cm) in size.
The final
scarf is also machine embroidered but this time the embroidery is worked
directly on the net background. This technique imitates handmade tambour lace,
which is made with a fine hook that the lacemaker uses to work a type of chain
stitch through the holes in the net. This scarf is also quite narrow (66 x 6
inches; 168 x 15 cm) and only costs 7 pence, probably reflecting the small
amount of lace it includes. Unfortunately there are no illustrations showing
how the scarves were worn, but the catalogue does give us a snapshot of what was available at the time.
Thursday 10 October 2024
Dumps and thumpers
Dumps and thumpers are wooden bobbins from the south Buckinghamshire area of England that, unusually for that area, do not have a spangle of beads to weight them, and resemble the bobbins used in some areas of continental Europe. Dumps are smaller and thinner than thumpers so I think that the top three bobbins are dumps and the lower five are thumpers, but they were probably used interchangeably. Confusingly, some of them do have bead spangles, but these were added long after the bobbins were made and originally used and you can see that the beads are modern additions rather than the traditional square-cut beads generally used for spangles. Dumps, also known as bob-tailed bobbins, and thumpers were used to make fine Bucks point lace. The thread for which was so fine that the addition of a spangle to the bobbin would have broken the thread. The reason that many of them have been drilled to add spangles is that lace fashions changed and fine thread was no longer available.
Many of them are quite plain but some are decorated, for example with indented lines and the addition of rings of either pewter or wood, known as jingles. The bobbin with the inlaid spots of different coloured wood is a ‘plum pudding’ while the bobbin next to it with very small indentations resembles the type of decoration sometimes used on Honiton bobbins. The two bobbins at the top are intriguing because they are made from two different coloured woods. Some of these types of bobbins can be pulled apart to reveal a tiny bobbin hidden inside. Sadly I have opened both of them and they are not ‘jack in the box’ bobbins.
Thursday 3 October 2024
Lace in Turkey
I’ve just returned from an amazing textile tour of Turkey where they have their own distinctive style of lace, which is mainly used as an edging for scarves and clothing. There are two main techniques, one using a fine crochet hook and the other a knotting technique using needle and thread.
We were lucky
to be shown both styles of making on our tour and the skilful women who
demonstrated for us were all able to use both techniques. The edging of the
blue scarf in the main image is fine crochet work. The photo shows both sides
of the work so you can see how the scarf is hemmed as an integral part of the
lace, a clever way of saving time so the scarf does not have to be hemmed
before the lace work begins.
The knotting
and looping technique is shown round the edge of this beautiful dark blue scarf.
The needle is inserted under the main thread then the remaining thread is
twisted round the needle to form the loop. The skill lies in controlling the
size of the loops to make a pleasing gradation to represent flowers and leaves.
As well as
lace attached to fabric, strings of flowers and leaves are also made using a
crochet technique which can be used as necklaces. Beads and ribbons can also be
incorporated into the lace to add highlights to the work. We were lucky to be
shown how the lace is made at several places and were pleased to see contemporary
and vintage lace being sold in various outlets throughout our tour.
Wednesday 4 September 2024
The lace curtain as silent witness
The lace curtain lies in the liminal space of the window, where it may act as a sieve, trapping the whispers, memories and secrets of the home. This curtain entitled Whispering has a conventional bobbin lace trim, but part way across the curtain it begins to unravel as the threads degenerate and record a series of phrases that the curtain has heard within the home.
Read as a group these whispers form an
unsettling narrative. Confidences such as ‘Keep out it’s not your business’, ‘Have
you heard what she did?’and ‘He says she’s not herself today’ suggest a troubled
household. While ‘He frightens the life out of me’ implies that something more
sinister may be taking place. The disintegration of the lace, revealing the hidden
whispers and cries for help, may be reflecting the disintegration of the
household.
Wednesday 28 August 2024
Rainbow lace curtains
I love the idea of these rainbow lace curtains, which I found in a facsimile of a Harrod’s store catalogue from 1895. Rainbow is perhaps a rather over optimistic description as they are basically only three colours: gold, terra, and eau de nil, rather than the seven we usually associate with the rainbow, but definitely a change from the more usual white or ecru curtains. Unfortunately there is no colour illustration so we have to imagine what they actually looked like. I think gold would have been a rich, dark yellow rather than a shiny gold fabric. The Italian term terracotta means baked earth and terra usually describes an earthy brown colour, although it can range from dark brown, to a pinky brown, taking in orange and burnt umber on the way. Eau de nil (water of the Nile) is a light greenish blue with an interesting history. The description was coined at the end of the nineteenth century just as European, and especially French, interest in Egypt was at its height. It is supposed to reflect the shifting colours of the River Nile. This type of subdued yellowy greeny blue became associated with Modernist interiors so would have seemed very new to readers of this catalogue. The curtains are quite large with a width of 60 inches and a length of 126 inches so would have provided a dramatic and unusual window covering for an upper class home with wide, tall windows.
Wednesday 21 August 2024
Waves on a lace curtain
The sea seems an appropriate topic for a summer blog post so I thought you’d like to see a detail of this lace curtain which depicts a sunrise/sunset and its reflection on the sea. This piece is interesting because the colour effect is not achieved by using different coloured threads in the machine, but by printing or painting coloured dye on to the fabric after the curtain was made. It has been done very skilfully but you can see where two of the yellow and blue waves meet there is a slight green area where the colours have overlapped.
The colouring
could have been done with a paintbrush or with small blocks dipped in dye in
the same way as block printing, but the subtlety suggests it was done using a
paintbrush. The curtain does incorporate different threads because a floss
thread has been used to depict the foam on the waves and parts of the sun. So
it would have been possible to use different coloured threads as well, but it
was probably quicker just to print the colour on afterwards. The curtain is
made from a rayon thread, which gives a lovely warm glossy appearance to the
scene, and sunlight coming through the curtain would have made the colours appear
to glow.
Wednesday 24 July 2024
Lace curtain draught
This is the pattern, or draught, for a lace curtain made on the Nottingham lace curtain machine and it contains all the information required to make one pattern repeat of the curtain. This one has a stamp on it indicating that it was made by Edwards and Richardson, designers and draughtsmen, of 7 Carlton Street Nottingham.
Designing and
draughting are just two of the stages required in the process of making a lace
curtain. First, the designer has to design the lace, then a draughtsman
converts the design into a draught. The draught would then have been passed to
another company where a card puncher would have followed the instructions it
contained to make the jacquard cards that programme the lace machine. Those
cards would then have been used in a lace factory to make the lace. Some large lace
factories had in-house designers, draughtsmen and card punchers but many
smaller companies relied on outside companies for their designing and
draughting work.
The draught
is made up of hand-painted rectangles indicating different operations for the
lace machine. There is no standardised colour code, but in general red
indicates back spool ties, green indicates Swiss ties and blue represents
combination ties. The draught also has hand written instructions around the
side describing the type of lace (filet combination in this case), the width of
the repeat and the fineness of the lace. Unfortunately there is no date on the
draught but the design has a 1930s feel to it so it may be from that time.
Wednesday 17 July 2024
Needlelace stitches
I’m always amazed at what beautiful lace can be made with just a some thread and a sewing needle. This lace mat is a simple design of leaves and flowers worked on a large scale and clearly shows the variety of needlelace stitches that can be used to provide different textures and densities. The lacemaker would have begun with an outline of the main parts of the design couched onto a backing fabric and would then have worked filling stitches into the open areas. After that she would have made the bars that link all the parts of the design together. And finally she would have worked blanket stitch around all the outlines, possibly over a couched thread to raise the outlines slightly, to add definition to the design. The finished lace would then have been detached from the backing fabric.
The filling
stitches are all variations of blanket stitch, which can be worked across the
area to be filled, either close together to form a dense area or wide apart to
form an open one. A line of thread can be taken across the area and the
stitches worked over that to add density. The blanket stitches can also be
worked in pairs or groups to give a more brick-like appearance and these can
also be worked over a line of thread as a variation. The image above shows two types
of double net stitch (where two blanket stitches are worked in pairs across the
area to be filled) and one example of double net stitch worked over a line of
thread, showing a few of the possible variations.
This photo
shows a small sample of double net stitch, showing how it is worked across the
area to be filled by making blanket stitches into the loop left between the
stitches of the previous row. If a line of thread is taken across the work it
is incorporated into the line of stitching. As you can imagine any number of
stitches can be grouped together to vary the density and appearance of the lace
– the possibilities are endless.
Thursday 11 July 2024
Fashionable veiling for hats in the early 20th century
Veiling for hats was fashionable in the early 20th century according to the February 1918 issue of The lace and embroidery review, an American magazine for lace buyers. Reporting on the items that were selling well in department stores, the magazine notes that veiling material was selling better than ready made veils, suggesting that women were buying netting by the yard and making up their own veils. The advertisements in the magazine suggest that there were two main styles of veiling, either a fairly long veil with a border design or shorter veils with embellishment across the face. The model in the main image above wears a hat with a deep, loose veil of hexagonal mesh with chenille dots in various sizes. The model in the image below shows the alternative style with a short hexagonal veil closely fitted around her face, embellished with a floral, scrolling design.
The article records
that filet or square mesh was becoming popular but hexagon, diamond and fancy
weaves were still selling well. It suggests that filet is better as a ground
for angular designs, such as butterflies and leaves, while floral patterns are
more effective on hexagonal meshes. It notes that all-over scrolls and chenille
dots are fashionable, which is borne out by the illustrations. However, although
velvet circles along the border of a veil are also popular, they do not wear
well, because instead of being worked in chain stitch into the net they are cut
out and stuck on to the veil and can come loose and fall off. I assumed all
these veils and nets would be black but the article reports that purple, taupe
and reddish brown shades were also selling well.
Wednesday 3 July 2024
The artfulness of filet lace curtains
I’m always impressed by the beautiful designs that can be worked in filet lace. Working on a square grid would seem to be very limiting but in skilled hands quite naturalistic images can be formed, as you can see with the cherubs and flowers in this image.
To work filet lace the lacemaker first has to make the net background. This is generally done by starting at a corner of the work, which is secured to a fixed point. The net is then made by looping thread round a spacer (rather like a lolly stick) to ensure the squares of the net are the same size and securing them to the stitch above with a knot. The lacemaker continues making a line of net stitches, gradually increasing stitches on each side of the work, until the required size is reached. It sounds complicated and is difficult to start with, until you get into a rhythm and learn how to manipulate the various loops of the thread as well as the netting needle and the spacer. In her book The technique of filet lace, Pauline Knight includes some images of how to make the net, which are helpful if you are learning netting. However, today you can cheat and use readymade machine net for filet work if you find that easier.
Once the net is made, or bought, the design has to be darned into it. Again this is not as simple as just filling the area with solid stitching. The threads are worked over and under each other in a regular pattern, so that, for linen stitch, two horizontal and two vertical threads pass through each open square. Therefore the lacemaker has to work out the thread paths before starting work. Margaret Swain in her book The needlework of Mary Queen of Scots notes that Mary and her companions were keen needlewomen and particularly enjoyed puzzling out how to work filet lace designs ‘in an age that enjoyed mazes, anagrams and emblems’. So not only are these lace curtains beautiful they are also works of art and artfulness.
Thursday 27 June 2024
Nottingham lace bedspreads
This
bedspread was advertised in a Samuel Peach catalogue of 1904 as being 82 inches
wide and 108 inches long and the price is given as 7 shillings and 6 pence
(7/6). The Peach catalogue also has some smaller bedspreads, approximately 80
by 90 inches and these are all lined with satinette. This extends their size
and presumably makes them more hard wearing. These lined bedspreads cost from
8/6 up to 14/9 and if the customer wants a 10 inch frilled edge added, they
have to pay 7/6 extra. The catalogue notes that when lined these bedspreads
give an exceedingly pretty effect to any room.
Wednesday 19 June 2024
Honiton lace bobbins
The characteristics of Honiton lace – its fine thread and the need for sewings – determine the type of lace bobbins required for the work. Honiton lace is a pieced lace, which means that the lacemaker makes individual motifs that are later combined with others to form the finished design and are generally applied to net. The work is fine so the bobbins do not need to be very heavy to maintain tension in the threads. Also, because Honiton lace is not a continuous straight lace but is made up of separate areas of work, the lacemaker is continually joining parts of the lace to other parts. For example, in the lace in the image, the zigzag lines are added once the two semicircles have been made, so the threads have to be joined to each side of the work in turn. They are joined with a ‘sewing’, which involves looping one thread from the worker pair through a loop in the edge of the main piece of lace and then passing the other bobbin and thread through the loop, then pulling them up tight to form a join. Therefore the bobbins have to be thin and pointed to make sewings easier. Because the thread is fine they don’t require a spangle of beads at the end to provide added weight like East Midlands English bobbins and the beads would also be a hindrance when making sewings. The simplicity of Honiton bobbins also extends to their head, which does not have to be the bulbous shape of the East Midlands bobbins because the Honiton thread is finer. In general, Honiton bobbins are not decorated in the same way as spangled bobbins either with names, dates and mottoes although some of them are decorated with nautical images, but we’ll look at those in another blog.
Wednesday 12 June 2024
Raised work in Bedfordshire bobbin lace
There are several methods of producing raised work in lace, but here I’m just looking at those used in Bedfordshire bobbin lace. This type of lace is made face upwards (unlike Honiton lace which is made face downwards) so any raised areas have to be worked above the main pattern rather than worked underneath and then covered by the main design. The first step in making the solid, thin, raised leaves that lie above the open, wider, half-stitch leaf in the image above is to lift two pairs from the main half-stitch area and set them aside. The half-stitch leaf is then continued until the length required for the stalk for the raised motif has been reached. The stalk is then worked by plaiting above the main lace and the bobbins used to make it then rejoin the main work. In the next row, four pairs of bobbins are put aside to work the pair of leaves. The half-stitch base is continued and the leaves are made and then the bobbins rejoin the main work, and so on, until the motif is complete. The stalks and leaves will be loose above the main work, but attached at both ends so they are secured.
Another
method of producing raised areas is by working raised tallies, which are the 'blobs' seen on the leaf in the image above. Tallies are woven areas that are usually
square in shape (tallies pointed at both ends are known as leaves). To make a raised
tally, the two pairs needed for the work are lifted from the main design and are
then woven to make a long tally. This strip is then looped over a horizontal
pin to keep it raised and the bobbins returned to work the underlying cloth
stitch. A pin is often used in the middle of the work to keep the tally tightly
looped until enough rows have been worked beneath it to keep it in place.
A different
way of introducing raised work into Bedfordshire bobbin lace is to make a completely
separate area of lace and attach it to the main work later. In this image you
can see that the four petals on the top right hand flower are raised like a
flap over the flower beneath. They were worked separately using the pricking
for the larger piece of lace and then sewn in place once the main piece of lace had
been completed.
The raised
areas can be any part of the pattern, worked separately, and later sewn in
place. While those raised areas made as the work progresses can be leaves,
tallies or simple plaiting worked over cloth or half stitch. Why do lacemakers
raise areas of the work anyway? Probably because it gives the lace a slightly
three dimensional appearance and depth that is not seen with flat pieces, and
just adds a bit of interesting detail.
Wednesday 5 June 2024
Crochet lace
There are many types of crochet lace, including Irish crochet lace and hairpin crochet, but today I’m looking at the type of crochet lace patterns that were popular homemade crafts in the 19th and 20th centuries. The instructions for many of these designs were easily available in women’s magazines, needlework books and craft leaflets, many of them produced by the thread manufacturers. The equipment was a simple hook and thread and the work was portable and easy to pick up and put down if the housewife had a few moments of leisure between household tasks. The majority of these crochet items were made at home for use in the home.
Mats and
doilies, like the one in the main image, were popular, but crochet was also
used to make lace trimmings for clothing and household linen, such as this
example from Therese de Dilmont’s encyclopaedia of needlework, which mimics needlemade
reticella lace.
Another
reason why crochet was such a versatile craft for the homemaker is that items
could be made from a collection of smaller squares or medallions, which were
easier to work than one large piece of lace, and could be assembled to form the
finished larger item once enough squares had been made. An example is this chair
back, which is also illustrated with instructions in de Dilmont’s encyclopaedia.
It is no
longer fashionable to incorporate so much lace in interior design, but many families
have heirloom pieces of crochet lace made by their forebears and although we do
not use them in our daily lives we should acknowledge their beauty and not
dismiss the level of skill involved in their construction.
Wednesday 22 May 2024
Plauen lace collars
These lovely lace collars are advertised in a 1904 catalogue from the Peach lace company and are both labelled as Plauen lace, a town in Saxony known for its embroidered lace. The lace was embroidered in a type of lock stitch, using a Schiffli embroidery machine, onto a net background or other backing material which was then removed leaving only the stitched lace behind. Between 1881 and 1905 various patents were taken out describing types of backing fabrics and methods for removing them. In Britain the general term for lace produced in this way was chemical lace and most was imported from Switzerland and Saxony.
The lace was
popular at the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. It
produced a good imitation of handmade lace and was reasonably priced for middle-class
customers. The collar at the top was 8.5 inches deep and cost 3/9 while the
lower collar was 7.75 inches deep and cost 2/9. It was also hard wearing and
easy to launder so would have been easy to keep clean, and was therefore a
practical as well as a beautiful lace.
Wednesday 15 May 2024
Nottingham lace curtains
I’m delighted that my article on ‘Early twentieth century Nottingham lace curtains: an ideal window furnishing’ has just been published online by Textile History. It started with some research into three collections of machine lace curtains from the archive of Nottingham City Museums and Galleries and I used them as the basis for further research into the types of curtains that were for sale in the early twentieth century, both in the UK market and for export. I also looked at sales catalogues, retail advertising and advice manuals to see how different curtains were promoted to different social groups. This was done by suggesting certain curtains for different rooms in the house and for different budgets. The years after the first world war brought great cultural changes to life and homes in many countries and these were reflected in curtain designs and sales. The paper also includes information on the workings of the Nottingham lace curtain machine and the training of lace curtain designers. As you can see, the article covers many aspects of the lace curtain trade as well as some social history so I hope you will find it interesting. If you are interested in reading it, the publishers have kindly provided 50 free copies on a first come first served basis via this link https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/UGGP82D3BMHQFZBMGTHS/full?target=10.1080/00404969.2024.2318661
Wednesday 8 May 2024
Lace songs and chants
Singing songs, or chanting, while making lace seems to have been a common occurrence and Shakespeare even refers to it in Twelfth Night. It was particularly encouraged in the lace schools of the English East Midlands where songs were sung to keep the children focused on their work and encourage them to work more quickly. Many of the songs, or tells, are linked to counting rhymes, so the children could count the number of pins they put up in a certain time or count the number of pins they had worked along the edge, or footside, of the work. Thomas Wright recounts how charming it was to hear 30 or so children singing while they worked at their pillows. As well as encouraging a good work rate the lacemakers also reported that singing cheered them up in dull weather and some tells are designed to keep the children alert, rather than acting as counting aids, for example, in one tell, each child calls out the name of someone in their village until everyone has been named. Interestingly, John Yallop has found no record of lacemakers singing lace tells in Honiton or elsewhere in Devon. This may be because of the different types of lace made in the two areas. In Devon separate motifs are made while in the East Midlands the lace is generally made in continuous strips which lends itself to counting rows and pins more easily. Many of the tells involved repetitive and complicated stories of lacemakers and their lives and different counties also had different styles of tell. Those in Bedfordshire and Northampton tended to be romantic tales while the tells of Buckinghamshire often involved gruesome murders with appropriate cries and dramatic effects designed to keep the children alert.
Friday 3 May 2024
Attitudes to bobbin lacemaking in the nineteenth century
I spent an interesting day at Luton Museum last week researching the decline and revival of the handmade lace industry in the nineteenth century. I was interested to read about Catherine Channer’s interviews with lacemakers at the end of that century and the differing attitudes they had to making Bucks point lace. She found that the older women, aged over seventy, had fond memories of making lace. Many of them told her how they loved making lace and would happily sit all day at their pillows. They told her it was nice, clean work and reasonably paid. One old lady told her she loved her pillow and said “When I was a girl I spent all my pocket money on my pillow; I loved to have it nice. I had some beautiful bobbins, bone ones with beads on them and names, and my pins had different coloured heads”. However talking to middle-aged women Miss Channer got a completely different response. Many of them said they hated lacemaking because it was badly paid and they wouldn’t want their children to do it. One reported that she hated it so much she burned all her bobbins. Another said “It’s an awful trade lacemaking” which is confirmed by another woman saying “If you go lacemaking you’ll never have salt to your porridge”. Why was there such a difference in attitudes? Mainly because the older women had been working at a time when handmade lace was valued and the patterns had been beautiful to work. The middle-aged ones only remembered an industry in decline, when they had poor patterns and thread and had to work hours under pressure for little reward. Today we are fortunate that lacemaking is a leisure or artistic activity, and we are not working with cheap materials under time pressure for a few pence, so like the older lacemakers we can enjoy our pillows and lacemaking.
Wednesday 17 April 2024
‘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.
Friday 12 April 2024
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.
Wednesday 3 April 2024
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.
Wednesday 27 March 2024
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.
Wednesday 20 March 2024
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.
Wednesday 13 March 2024
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.