The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
and the free maids that weave their threads with bone ....
William Shakespeare
By Marie Minnich
Garbo, Dietrich, Harlow. And now you. All sensational in vintage
satin, silk and lace. Lace has always been used in the most romantic,
meticulously tailored garments, from times when beauty and glamour were
synonomous with fine craftsmanship. Lace has been used to display the
ecclesiastical grandeur of the church - embellishing altars, vestments, and
chalice covers, and to adorn the households of royalty and nobility. The
17th Century Letter's of a Lady's Travels in Spain describes the
Princess of Monteleon as having a bed of "gold and damask, line with
silver brocade, and trimmed with point de Spain", and a carriage with
lace-trimmed curtains. The history of European Lace begins during the
1400's in Venice. Many of the earliest lacemakers were nuns, who developed
their techniques by sharing pattern books. Eventually, the craft spread from
Vemetian palazzos to the whitewashed cottages of Ireland, with stops along
tahe way in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and England. Lace is an
openwork fabric most commonly made from threads plaited, looped, knotted,
and twisted by hand: tools include a needle, bobbins, bones and pins. Before
the 19th century, when cotton was introduced, lace was made predominately of
flax, from which a linen thread was spun. Sometimes, thtese fibers were
combined with gold, silver, silk or aloe. Handmade lace falls into
essentially two categories. Point lace, the earlier kind, is akin to
needlepoint, often with a geometric pattern of embroidery stitches made by a
single needle and thread. The taechnique is know by various names, including
punto in aria (stitch in the air) and involves drawing a cartoon on
parchment or paper, completing the stitches, then cutting the cartoon away. Bobbin
lace, or pillow lace, on the other hand, is made from multiple threads wound
around wooden bobbins that variously twist and braid the stramds together to
produce a groundwork, or mesh. ("Bone Lace" refers to a cousin
whose threads are wound around thin bone or ivory reels instead instead of
wooden bobbins). The lacemaker draws a ground pattern, pricks it with holes
for pins, spreads it over a stiff pillow held in her lap, and winds the
thread around the pins stuck in the hole of the pattern, a complex task
requiring dexterity and patience. She stitches the resulting groundwork with
a thicker thread, or gimp, to create floral, animal, or architectural
motifs. The English pioneered the production of machine made lace. By
1809, John Heathcoat of Tiverton had patented a machine that actually wound
threads around bobbins and twisted the strands, making lace, previously
considered an extravagance, much more affordable. Factories were soon
turning out vast quantities of tablecloths and runners, napkins, curtains,
sheets, and coverlets for a market of worthy burghers.
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