Roller blind lace

 

These strips of lace are advertised in the 1904 Peach lace catalogue as roller blind lace. They are quite wide (about 12 cm) and were designed to be sewn to the ends of roller blinds to make a neat and attractive ending to the fabric. (Interestingly the catalogue refers to this lower lace edging as a valance, which I had always thought referred to the upper part of a window dressing - clearly a research question for another day!) These lace trims are all numbered and priced so I assume the householder could order the length she wanted and make up her own roller blinds, however the company also offers a making-up service. They offer three types of roller blinds: plain linen, holland and union. The styles of blind all seem to be simple rolls of fabric, the only difference being the type of fabric used. Plain linen is self explanatory. Holland is generally a better quality linen cloth, although by 1887 it also referred to cotton fabric, which was usually glazed and sized to make it stronger and less affected by dust. Union is a mixture of cotton and other yarns, usually linen but also wool or jute, it was considered inferior to plain linen. It was glazed and often used for blinds, but had a reputation for not wearing well and the advice was to replace union blinds rather than attempting to wash them when they got dirty. 

The householder could buy plain fabric blinds or have them made up with one of the lace trims. They could also buy blinds with both a trim of lace and an insertion of a strip of lace a few inches above the trim in a matching style of lace, you can see an example of this combination in the image above. The insertion lace in this image (the piece with the straight edges) is about 6 cm wide and the trim 9 cm, but prices are also given for wider laces. The prices in the catalogue show that the linen blinds were the most expensive, followed by the union ones and the holland type were the cheapest, suggesting that the holland used was cotton and not linen. Many late nineteenth century influencers, were opposed to roller blinds because they blocked sunlight and impeded the flow of air, but the number on sale in this catalogue show that they were obviously popular with householders.