Belgian war lace tablecloth

 

This needlelace image of St George fighting the dragon is part of a tablecloth made for Queen Elisabeth of Belgium as part of the Belgian war lace initiative. The project was set up in 1914, at the start of the First World War, to provide aid for the Belgian population. As a result of the German invasion and occupation of Belgium, the British had established a naval blockade to cut off German supply routes, but this also led to a shortage of food imports. In response, the Commission for the Relief of Belgium (CRB) was set up. This body, with the help of thousands of volunteers, organised the importation of food aid and provided a basic meal of soup and bread for millions of people over the four years of the war.

As part of the relief work, lace committees were set up to buy lace from local lacemakers but, by 1915, a shortage of thread from Ireland and Britain was limiting the amount of lace that could be made. It was then that the CRB rules were amended to allow the importation of a certain weight of thread and the export of the same weight of lace to France, Britain and the USA for sale. This provided the thread the lacemakers needed and opened up new  markets for the sale of the lace. The Brussels Lace Committee (BLC) oversaw the entire lace project and employed about 45,000 lacemakers as well as professional designers.

The tablecloth was designed by the well known Belgian artist Isidore de Rudder and incorporates images of four saints. St George and St Elisabeth of Hungary represent the Belgian King and Queen and St Gudula and St Michael are the patron saints of Brussels. There are also references to battles in which the King took part and the coats of arms of 16 Belgian cities particularly affected by the fighting.

The borders include ferns and wildflowers referencing the forests and fields of Belgium. As well as seaweed to remember the breaching of the dykes at the River Yser in 1914 which had halted the German advance. The outer border of the tablecloth includes medallions of flowers and mushrooms symbolising qualities such as rebirth, humility and immortality. The tablecloth was made at the convent lace school in Erenbodeghem and presented to Queen Elisabeth by the BLC, at the end of the war, on her return to Belgium from exile. It is now held in the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels.  

Wedding veils that conceal and reveal

 

These wedding veils are part of a series that conceal hidden thoughts and reveal them only to those who can see the clues. The one in the image above is called ‘Paper trail’ and was inspired by Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbevilles. It references the note that Tess wrote to Angel Clare on the evening before their marriage and slipped under his door, telling him about her past, in case that knowledge would cause him to change his mind. Unfortunately he did not find the note, but Tess was relieved because she thought he knew about her past and still wanted to marry her. It is only after they are married that she realises her mistake and, sadly, when she confesses her chequered past to him he rejects her.

The disintegrating paper in the veil represents the overlooked note and the hidden secrets it contained as well as reflecting on the fragility of her marriage. Although the veil appears to be delicate and beautiful, like Tess herself, it hides within its folds intimations of decay and the unravelling of the marriage and her life. The confusion caused by this scrap of paper initiates a paper trail that ends in Tess’s trial and sad end.

This lace veil entitled ‘Fragmented memories’ is inspired by a nineteenth century author rather than a particular novel. It is a veil for Charlotte Bronte, the author of Jane Eyre. At the age of 38 she married Arthur Nicholls, who had worked with her father as a curate. However, before that she had had an intense crush on Constantin Heger, a schoolmaster in Brussels, where she went to study for a while. When she returned to England, she wrote to him obsessively, much to his embarrassment, and the displeasure of his wife, and he had to ask her to stop writing to him. Constantin tore up all of the letters Charlotte wrote to him, but his wife collected the pieces and sewed them together so she could read them.

The veil references that time in Charlette’s life, by including torn pieces of a letter on to the lace edging of the veil. They are linked by a line of stitching to record the way they were stitched back together and to suggest that they remained part of Charlotte’s past life as fragmented memories.

Lace doilies with attitude

I like to give a voice to lace that is generally overlooked and ignored and these three doilies are part of a series of mats with attitude that speak their minds. The inspiration was gothic literature from the 19th century in which the ideal heroines are outwardly quiet, well behaved and often seated at their embroidery frame and unable to voice their opinions. In some respects the doilies are embodiments of those women. Doilies are also anachronistic furnishings. Whereas they were once ubiquitous in family homes they now languish in the charity shop or under a pile of old tablecloths in a cupboard; unwanted and unused.

Get off me, seemed to reflect the fact that they are essentially table mats, constantly being pinned down by vases, glasses or plates and that they might like to throw off this burden occasionally and experience freedom. I designed this one in Bedfordshire style lace with the hint of a ninepin edging and leaves breaking the inner circle of the mat suggesting the promise of escape.

#MeToo was made as a response to the 2017 social movement and campaign to raise awareness of sexual abuse and harassment. It encouraged women to share their experiences of sexual harassment, particularly that in the workplace, and to emphasise the widespread prevalence of the problem. This doily was designed by combining a Bedfordshire style central panel and an outer ring of Russian style tape lace.  

F**k off was chosen as the text for the third panel as that is the common response from young women today to those who harass or annoy them. It is a universally understood slang phrase which gains more effect by being quoted on a dainty, old fashioned doily where a platitude about the home would be more likely to appear. This design also has a central panel of text, leaves and plaits, surrounded by a tape lace outer circle. The lace doilies form a group of traditional furnishings with attitude that aren’t afraid to speak their minds. 

Handmade or machine-made lace?

 

The first question most people ask about a piece of lace is ‘Is it made by hand or machine?’ With most types of lace it is fairly easy to tell, but with Chantilly lace it is always difficult to decide because the machine-made versions were such clever copies. This type of bobbin lace was first made in the northern French town of Chantilly in about 1840 and was popular for shawls, lappets, parasols and flounces until the end of the 19th century. It is a very fine lace that is time-consuming to make, so separate strips of the lace were made by different workers and then sewn together using an almost invisible stitch called point de raccroc. This forms a weak point in the lace and sometimes this stitching unravels revealing the join between the sections. Finding these gaps indicates that the lace was handmade because machine-made pieces do not have these joins.

Another way to decide if the lace is handmade is to follow some of the thread paths. In handmade lace you can follow the threads from one section of the work to another, for example in this piece the threads form a continuous line from the floral shapes into the ground net. In handmade lace the thicker outlining gimp threads are also incorporated into the stitches on the edges of the floral design elements. The threads that make up the picots along the edge of the lace should also come from the body of the lace rather than being a separate addition and form loops rather than just thread ends. Handmade lace often feels softer than machine-made lace, which can feel hard to the touch and may drape less well.

People generally value handmade over machine-made lace, probably because they understand the skill that would be required to make the lace and realise how difficult it would be. However we should not dismiss the skill of those who produced machines to make lace and the designers, draughtsmen and twist hands who made the machine lace. We tend to think that machine-made things are worth less because they are plentiful and cheap. However, machine-made lace allowed more people to own and wear beautiful lace at an affordable price.