LACE-MAKING: A Dainty Art for Amateurs

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 21, 23 November 1907, Page 57

LACE-MAKING: A Dainty Art for Amateurs

a NEEDLE, though it be but small and slender, yet it is both a maker and a mender,’’ and as such, a seventeenth century poet extolled it in lines of lavish praise. Was it not to that little feminine implement alone that he owed the lace which adorned the ruffles at his neck and wrists ? And, though modern machinery has contrived to provide most admirable counterfeits of that ’ needlework sublime,” not all the wonderful ingenuity of the present can produce a laee which can aspire to eclipse or even compare favourably with the point and pillow laces of the past. Florence, France, Flanders, to which country does the connoisseur consider that he owes his most cherished specimen'? There is a line —“For lace, let Flanders bear away the ville”—but surely the Alencon, the Argentine of the “Golden Age of France,” surpass the laces of the Netherlands in delicacy of design; and for antiquity the needlepoint of Italv holds a position which is quite untouchable. To weave lace upon a pillow is very rarely the ambition of the amateur. Even if she be unusually enterprising she shies a little at the prospect of manipulating numerous bobbins so that they skilfully entwine fine threads and form a solid pattern and the meshes of a flimsy net, but many pillow laces can be imitated with machine-made braid and net, a point lace, which is entirely needlework, is in no way beyond the capacity of the artistic amateur. A very little list comprises all the materials which the lace-maker requires. A selection of lace-braids, obtainable in twenty different widths, a few skeins of linen thread, a parchment pattern, tinted either blue or green, and, for applique lace, a piece of fine white net, and the workbasket provides the only implements which are necessary, a pair of sharp scissors, a thimble, and a needle. No novice will venture to reproduce a piece of the beautiful raised Venetian point which has been most appropriately termed “sculpture in needlework.” because of its thick cordonnet (the cord which outlines its designs) gives it the

appearance of a bas-relief, neither will the Rosepoint, so called because the conventional roses and rosettes which recur repeatedly in the construction of its sweeping leaf-like patterns, recommend itself as suitable for her unskilled hand. In both laces the toile (that is, the non transparent portions) is composed entirely of close button-hole stitching, and the bars and brides (the twisted threads which connect the toile and hold it in position) are covered with the same stitch and profusely decorated with tinv loops (technically termed picots). As a preliminary effort, the beginner will be wise to imitate a coarser lace, a guipure, originally invented by Genoese peasant women as a substitute for the finer Vene tian point which was far beyond their means. In design it was bolder and more continuous, and the bars and brides were considerably fewer and looser. The toile was not needlework at all, but made with braid or tape woven separately upon a pillow; but the machine-made braid already alluded to replaces this most effectually, and, if carefully tacked over all the lines of the design, and. when cut, the ends are sewn together and pressed down very firmly on the wrong side, it leaves nothing to be desired. Printed designs, either for strips of lace, or for collars or cuffs or squares, can be purchased, or it is quite possible for the lace-maker herself to trace a design from the original and draw it in ink upon a piece of parchment, and this should always be backed with a piece of calico to increase its firmness and prevent it from tearing or creasing while the work is in progress, and to preserve it for use upon some future occasion. The method for making Genoese guipure is very simple. Tack the braid over the lines of the design, fitting it as neatly as possible over the rounded corners. Connect the braided pattern with bars and brides. Tor these take a needleful of linen thread, make a small knot in it. and insert the needle in the centre of the braid and run a stitch or two to the edge, so as to get a firm notch. Pass the thread

from left to right, and cover it with but-ton-hole stitching. Fill in the intervening spaces in the pattern with various fancy stitches, twisted and knotted, as nearly imitating the stitches, of real guipure as possible, and finish the lace with a straight edge of braid on either side, decorated here and there with tiny picots, or with the pointed tabs which appear so repeatedly in Vandyke portraiture. Insert a knife or pair of scissors between the lace and the parchment beneath it, and cut the tackings. and the piece of laee can be lifted off quite easily. The same simple rules apply in every respect to the making of Point Duchesse, but. being a finer laee, the braid used

for its construction must be much narrower, and the bars and brides and intervening stitches must be far closer and far more numerous, and they must be worked with finer thread. The designs upon which Duchesse Point is made are smaller and more continuous than those used in making Genoese guipure, and they are very frequently outlined with a fine eordonnet (a coarse linent thread) stitched on somewhat loosely. Rea!

Point Duchesse is a pillow-made lace entirely, both toile and brides and bars being woven together upon a pillow, and though it has always held a prominent place amongst the laces of thi» country, undoubtedly it was Originally a develop ment of the coarser guipure of Maly invented by the skilful lace weavers of the Netherlands. Brussels and Honiton applique are yet further improvements upon the old guipures. In both laces the brides and bars which connect the patterns become so extremely fine that they formed a ground of meshes, a net in faet. eventuallv called a reseau. The earliest specimens of Brussels lace

are made of delicate tlax, spun for the purpose in dark cellars, and woven in one piece upon a pillow. But in 1720, encouraged by the industry of the lacemakers of Alencon who had learned thenart in Venice, and made their toile like that old Venetian point, and grounded it with a reseau of needlework, the Flemish weavers followed their example, and for a while needlework superseded the pillow weaving. But the movement was short-

lived. The price of so much labour was almost prohibitive, and, to increase the sale of their merchandise, though they continued to make the toile of needlepoint, the Flemish workers returned to their original method of weaving the reseau, and, except when engaged in executing very especial orders they made their lace, and still make it with needle-

point designs appliqued upon a tine net, which is pillow-woven. Brussels point applique is a lace which recommends it self particularly to the attention of the amateur. Machine-made net is a most satisfactory substitute for the pillow-woven reseau, and the designs can be bought complete and appliqued on to it. or they can be made by the lacemaker herself with fine lace braid. When this is the case, the square or strip of net to be ornamented must be tacked across a parchment pattern. ami the braid tacked over it following the lines of the design below (usually’ a scroll-like effect for the border with small floral or conventional devices springing upwards from it), and sewn down very neatly on either side. The outside edge of the border must be decorated with numerous tiny pivots, and the spaces between the braids must be filled in with fine fancy stitches worked with linen thread. Honiton applique differs only in the construction of its patterns, which aie larger ami more continuous and conventional. and Mechlin lace and Point d’An gleterre (which, by the way, can neither claim to be a point laee —that is, a lace, at any rate, partially made with a needle or a lace of English origin as its name implies) are quite easily imitated by the amateur, if she follows the simple rules she has learned while making her Brussels point applique, adding io them two amendments—the cutting away of the net from behind the braided patterns. and filling in all the little open spaces with fine brides and bars, and fancy stitches.