Parchment prickings

 

The pricking is the pattern used for bobbin lace. However, before the use of cardboard they were made from parchment and were often known just as parchments. My sources say that old parchments were generally 12 to 14 inches long but the one I have is only 10 inches in length plus the cloth extensions at each end which are about 4 inches long and are used to attach the pattern to the lace pillow.

Thomas Wright in The romance of the lace pillow says that the lace designer not only drew the pattern but also pricked it. This was done by making holes in the pattern where the lacemaker would need to use pins to support the work, using a needle fixed in a holder. Wright names several lace designers from the East Midlands and praises their skilled work. He explains that the design was first pricked on cardboard and the position of the outlining, or gimp threads, drawn on to the pattern to produce a draught. Transparent parchment was then laid over the draught, which was used as a template to prick the pin holes through the parchment. The position of the gimp threads would then be inked on to the parchment. Subsequent patterns would probably have been pricked from a template by the person organising the lace trade or occasionally by the lacemaker herself. This copying would probably have been done by laying the original over a piece of fresh parchment and pricking through the holes in the original to make a new copy of the holes into the lower parchment, which would then be inked. My example here has rolled up with age and it is so well used that some of the holes have torn to leave a gap in the foot side, both of which are common problems with old parchments and is why many of them have not survived.