Queen Mary’s lace court train

 

Queen Mary was an avid collector of art and artefacts and her lace collection was the subject of an article in The Connoisseur magazine of June 1928. Pride of place in the collection went to the court train of Irish needlepoint lace that was made for her to wear at the Coronation Durbar in Delhi in 1911. The train was commissioned by a group of influential ladies from Belfast, including the lady mayoress, who set up a committee and raised funds for the work. There was little time between the King’s accession and the Durbar so the train had to be made in 6 months. The Presentation Convent of Youghal in County Cork was given the task, and it is reported that 60 skilled lacemakers work in relays through the day and night to make the lace on time. It was estimated that one lacemaker would have taken about 30 years to complete the task alone.

The pattern includes scrolls and flowers, including the may flower as a reference to the Queen who was known as Princess May before her coronation. The lace is made with a needle and thread and the work is basically made up of blanket stitches and their various combinations to form intricate patterns.

 This type of needlelace is suited to collaborative work because the individual motifs are made separately by the lacemakers and then assembled and joined together with more fine needlelace. Each worker has her own specialism, such a drawing out the patterns, laying down the outlining cord, working the stitches or assembling the motifs and joining them with net stitches. It is a huge achievement to have completed a work of such intricacy, accuracy and beauty in 6 months and we should marvel at the skill of the Irish lacemakers involved in the task.

Leaves and tallies in bobbin lace

 

Leaves and tallies in bobbin lace are very similar in construction but vary in shape. Tallies, leaves and lead-work are all made by plaiting small blocks of lace, usually with two pairs of bobbins. Tallies are square or rectangular, leaves are pointed at both ends, and lead-works generally join two trails and are rectangular in shape, but wider than they are long. To make a leaf the two pairs are worked together with a cloth stitch and then the second thread from the right is woven over and under the other three threads, back and forth, until the leaf is the required length. The secret to a good shape is to hold the passive threads wide apart as the weaving progresses, until the centre of the leaf is reached, and then gradually bring them close together again. To finish the leaf a pin is put up between the two pairs of thread and a final cloth stitch is worked.

Both leaves and tallies can be raised, which means they lie above the base layer, as seen here with the leaves above the half stitch diamonds This is done by keeping two pairs to the side, away from the main work, until the base layer has been worked. Then making the leaf or tally above the base and joining the pairs back into the main work at the point where the end of the leaf joins the base layer.

Raised tallies can also be rolled, which makes them into a small tight cylinder that looks like a small roll or bead on the top of the work. This can be done by making a tally with the central pairs in a piece of lace, then either raising it into a loop over a pin laid across the work, or winding it round the pin. The pairs used to make the tally are then placed back in their original position and the rest of the lace continues. As you can see from this contemporary lace, tallies can also be twisted, laid over each other or moved from one area of the work to another. They are great for adding interest, little points of colour and relief to a piece of work.

Early twentieth century lace cape

 

I saw this lovely lace cape in the Lace Gallery at Nottingham Castle. It dates from about 1900 and is made of silk gauze and machine-made lace, embellished with cords and soutache. Soutache is a narrow, flat, decorative silk braid which was often used to embellish dresses, mantles and smoking caps. It was also known as Russia braid and was sold in skeins in haberdashers for domestic embroidery projects.

Bold lace patterns, such as those made with Maltese lace or Irish crochet, were fashionable in 1900 and manufacturers made machine-made version in this style to compete with the handmade laces. However, a report from The Times newspaper in 1904 notes that the London store, Dickens and Jones, reported that their buyers were finding it difficult to source good quality handmade Maltese lace. This provided a gap in the market that the machine lace manufacturers were very happy to fill.

As you can see from this 1901 fashion plate, the S shaped figure was fashionable at the turn of the century. This was achieved by corsetry that pushed the bust forward, accentuated a tiny waist and pushed the bottom out. It resulted in a top heavy silhouette, so this cape would have covered the top half of the figure revealing the tiny waist and small hips below. The combination of lingerie materials and lace was also popular at this time for dresses, coats, hats and parasols, therefore this cape would have been the height of fashion.