Halloween lace

 

As we celebrate Halloween at the weekend, I thought Halloween lace would be a good theme for this week’s blog. Black lace is associated with the spooky and the gothic and I bought the gloves and mask for different Halloweens over the years. As you may realise I find the combination of black lace and the gothic hard to resist!

The gloves are made of machine lace in a very open weave pattern and depict spiders and their webs. They are almost elbow length and are quite delicate as they are mainly machine net. I do like them but I think if I were making Halloween gloves I would make them fingerless, as they could then be accessorised with long, blood red, varnished finger nails, and they would also be easier to make.

Although the mask is made of a very lacey pattern it is quite firm. It was made by embroidering the design on to special material using an embroidery machine. Once the embroidery was completed the material underwent a chemical process that removed the excess material leaving only the embroidered lace.

So far we have gloves and a mask, but Halloween is also the perfect time to wear a black lace veil. I made several black lace veils for an exhibition a couple of years ago. This one is called ‘Creeping dread’ and suggests the miasma of dread seeping through the gothic bride’s veil. It is made of black net and is embellished with silk paper and iridescent beads that sparkle purple, black and green in candlelight. The net is gathered onto a comb decorated with black ribbons and flowers to reference a bridal veil.

Another in the series is called ‘Gothic veil’. It is made in the same way as Creeping dread, but this time the embellishment around the edge is lace embedded in silk paper suggesting that the lace is decomposing and slowly seeping up the veil. Like all gothic veils It is best seen in candlelight so I have photographed it with a spooky light behind it so you can see it more clearly. 

Whatever you are doing and wearing at Halloween I hope you have a magical time.