Lace making

Lace making

Appliqué net lace production involves the gluing or stitching down of pre-made motifs (slips) onto a background made of net. It became popular in the eighteenth century. Early examples of appliqué net lace are made with handmade net, while later ones tend to use machine made net.

Bobbin lace, also known as pillow lace, is the product of a modified weaving process that takes its name from the way it is made, namely using a series of bobbins on a lacemaking pillow. The warp threads on a loom are represented by the threads that hang straight down, weighed by the ‘passive’ bobbins. The weft threads on the loom are represented by the ‘worker’ or ‘weaver’ bobbins that go over and under the passive bobbins, so creating a piece of woven cloth.

Branscombe lace, or Branscombe tape lace, is a type of Renaissance lace, named after the village of Branscombe in East Devon (England). Branscombe lace started to be made in the mid-nineteenth century using machine made tapes (Honiton braid). By the end of the nineteenth century, Branscombe lace had become very elaborate and the fillings became more detailed. 

Buratto embroidery is named after buratto cloth, which in its turn is named after buratto, an Italian word for a sieve or sifter. Buratto embroidery is worked on an open, even-weave cloth (buratto cloth) with a single warp and a double weft. The ground has a square mesh (see lacis). Designs are worked in running stitch and may be counted or drawn directly onto the net. Buratto embroidery can be classed as an embroidered lace.

Chantilly lace is a form of handmade bobbin lace that originated in the seventeenth century in Chantilly, France. It was copied in the nineteenth century in Bayeux, also in France, and in Geraardsbergen, Belgium, but also elsewhere, such as in Gent and Brussels.

Crochet is a form of lace worked with a hook and a continuous thread. The English word comes from the French crochet for a small hook. Crochet consists of a series of individual loops comparable to a chain stitch, which are combined in a number of different ways to produce various lacy effects.

Cutwork lace is a form of cutwork and is also classed as a form of embroidered lace. Cutwork is a type of decorative needlework that consists of deliberately cutting out small spaces or holes from a ground material. There are different forms of cutwork (cutwork lace and cutwork embroidery), depending on whether the ground or the holes form the dominant element in the design.

Embroidered lace is a general term for a needle lace that is made with a needle and thread on a woven ground, rather than on a (knotted) net ground, which would result in what is classed as embroidered net lace. Extant pieces of embroidered lace represent the earliest examples of European lace and date back to the fourteenth century. The four main forms of embroidered lace are: 

Embroidered net lace is a needle lace form, which developed in Europe from about the fourteenth century onwards. There are two main forms of embroidered net lace, depending on the type of net being used, namely a hand knotted net ground (filet), or a machine made net ground (tulle or bobbinet), both with a stitched design.

In the USA, filet lace is a general term for two types of embroidered net lace, with a knotted mesh, as in filet 'proper', or with a woven structure.

Hainault lace is named after the Belgian province of Hainault (Henegouwen). Hainaught lace was produced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and resembles coarse forms of Bedfordshire lace, itself a development of Genoese and Maltese lace forms. It is characterised by the so-called wheatears.

Hair lace is a form of bobbin and needlepoint lace made from human hair. This type of work is sometimes called point tresse. Hair lace was particularly popular in Europe during the seventeenth century. Because of the smoothness and springiness of human hair, however, it can be difficult to work.

Hamilton lace is a form of net lace or a loosely worked torchon lace (a form of bobbin lace), from Scotland, popular in the late eighteenth century, and allegedly introduced to Scotland by Lady Hamilton, born Elizabeth Gunning (c. 1733-1790).

Honiton braid is a brand name for a form of machine made tape lace. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, this type of tape was used in Britain for making Branscombe (tape) lace. Branscombe is a village ten miles south of Honiton, hence the name for the braid that was used for the lace.

Honiton lace is a type of appliqué net lace that uses bobbin lace slips that are applied to a net slip. It is named after a town in East Devon, England, that has been an important lace making centre since the seventeenth century.

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