Lacemaker's Mailing List FAQ

Often as we discuss subjects on Arachne, they are quite specialized, and not every one knows what the items talked about look like. Such is the case with a diverse group such as we are, who are interested in making or collecting laces made by a wide variety of methods. People who tat may have had no exposure to bobbins or bobbin lace (or vice-versa); and while needles are common household items, just what does lace come out looking like when it's made with just a needle and a backing?

Using pictures already in existence in other sites on the internet, I'll attempt to answer "So just what does _____ look like, anyway?"

Laces

• Bobbin Laces
  • Cluny (by Liz Stokes) This is a great picture to illustrate Cluny, or even bobbin laces in general. Starting at the left, you can see
    • Braids usually require 4 pairs of bobbins - forming the triangles at the top (there is a thicker braid requiring more bobbins in the middle connecting the circles)
    • Picots are the loops decorating the edge braids (3 on each one)
    • Cloth stitch (CTC) in the trail inside the braided edging and along the foot edge (right-hand in this picture)
    • Leaves
    • Spider (yes, that is a spider in the middle of the first flower, it just has leaves and braids for legs)
  • Torchon edging by Donna Hrynkiw, and a large mat by Christine England.
  • Bedfordshire ("Beds", or "Beds-Maltese") handkerchief by Lisa McClure, or view a piece in progress on Eitel Dunaway's pillow. In addition, Steph Peters has other pictures and a history of Beds at her site.
  • Maltese Lace is shown in plenty on Lori (Sewdoll's) page. Her pieces are antique, and she shows the main characteristics for identifying Maltese from other bobbin laces.
  • Buckinghamshire ("Bucks Point") Shirlee Hill has several nice pieces of Bucks Point on her site, as does Steph Peters.
  • Renaissance laces. Pat Lapointe has pictures of bobbin lace and one in needlelace too!. The masthead for Liz Stokes' page is from Le Pompe.
  • Slovenianwith the flowing cloth-stitch tapes which characterize it. Can you pick out the braids, picots, and leaves in this one?
  • Milanese sampler motif by Pat LaPointe. In Milanese, you make tapes and then fill in - all with bobbins. Here's a Milanese butterfly by Julie Hendrick.
  • Tønder handkerchief by Sally Schoenberger. Tønder is a Danish lace with much in common with Bucks Point. What distinguishes it from Bucks for me are the Copenhagen Holes (eight or more points rather than the familiar 6 of honeycomb).
  • Honiton a lace of very fine threads in motifs. These two butterflies were made by Julie Hendrick. Here is another motif by Christine England. You may also wish to visit the site of the Allhallows Museum of Honiton, England, which specializes in lace.
  • Schneeberger is an East German lace which is characterized by trails of double stitch CTCT rather than being completely cloth stitch. The effect is more open. The designs are usually quite modern and pleasing and supplemented by leaves. Worked by Shirlee Hill. Click here for a short history of the lace school. Click here for a piece worked by Julie Hendrick.
  • Withof Duchesse - at the top of the page.
  • Flanders made by Steph Peters.
  • Wanted: pictures of other bobbin laces, such as Val, Chantilly, and so on...
• Tatting- page down to see Jana's doily
• Knitted Lace
• Needle Laces
  • Filé Lace This page is filled with lace made from embroidery on net. These were made in Brazil, and some are very colorful! Sheila Thompson, the author, tells me that the men make the net, and the ladies do the embroidery. In addition, since the net is made square, the ladies cut it into triangles before embroidering when making shawls. The Renaissance laces you see on this page are also needle-made.
  • Pag Needle Lace Croatian Island of Pag in the Adriatic has a distinctive needle lace.
  • Puncetto Needle Lace click on " Artigianato" and, next, on "Il Puncetto" to find the pictures. All in Italian for now.
  • Kenmare Lace, a needle lace made in Ireland.
  • Romanian Point Laces are fine handmade crochet which has been combined with needlepoint and needle weaving to make a modern day needlelace.
  • Margaretenspitze a knotted lace from Germany.
  • Teneriffe lace exhibit at the St. Bernard Parrish Los Islenos Festival 1999. The picture is from a distance, so you cannot see the lace in detail. However, you can make out in many pieces the fact that they are made from smaller medallions joined together.
  • Wanted: other samples of needle laces... maybe even some that aren't Italian :-)

  You can also see many items of antique laces at Legacy of Lace where Joeanna Smith has collected many spectacular laces.

Tools for Bobbin Lace

• Bobbins
  • Continental Here is a nice close-up of Continental bobbins, which are characterized by having slender shanks which widen out into a bulb for weighting. The weight is required to keep the threads coming straight away from the pattern. This pillow from the Moline IL page has other continentals with bulbs that are more rounded.
  • Midlands Eitel's pillow has a nice variety of midlands-style (spangled) bobbins in wood, bone, and glass. The spangle is the beaded part at the end, which has been added for weight.
  • Honiton In the top picture of the 4 bobbins, the two in the middle are classic honiton bobbins - thin and light, coming to a point at the bottom (no spangles). The other two are unspangled midlands.
  • Czech bobbins which were given to Dale Pomeroy on a trip in Prague (belonged to the wife of a bus driver he met). Also called "hooded" bobbins due to the hood which slides down over the next of the bobbin (where the thread is wound) to protect the thread.
  • Wanted: Pictures of Tønder bobbins, Scandinavian Bobbins, and any other types I've missed.
• Lacemaking Pillows
  • Bolster. The Slovenians evidently use theirs held side-to side (as we see in pictures of English lacemakers).
  • Roller
  • Cookie
  • Spanish (a bit difficult to see how it is different from a bolster pillow from the picture - read the text)
  • Honiton style
  • The Princess Lace Loom, a relic of a turn-of-the-century effort by the Torchon Lace Company to revive bobbin lacemaking as an industry.
  • Wanted: picture of a swiss pillow
• Prickings The pricking is the lacemaker's road-map of the pattern, with holes for the pins, and lines drawing in major design areas. This picture from Shirlee Hill.

Other Lacemaking Tools

• Tatting Shuttles
  • Wood with an elongated point just page down about half-way. The point is helpful for drawing thread through picots when joining.
  • Silver and without hooks
  • Shuttle with crochet hook Yes, some come with sewing bobbins you can remove, wind the thread on, and replace it in the shuttle. Here's the same shuttle from the side. These 2 pictures are courtesy of Monica, MonTatter@aol.com.
  • Lady Hoare Shuttle (as sold by The Victorian Emporium usual disclaimers apply, just thought you'd want to know where the picture came from!)
• Tatting Pattern This page has both the longhand method of recording patterns and also the graphical way of drawing patterns. Which do you like better? :-)
• Lucet (not for lace, but we have been known to discuss them occasionally)

General Forms of Bobbin Laces (others too!)

• Motif of a bird, or another of an angel
• Mat, can be square as this one, or round, or oval, or any other shape - as long as it's all bobbin lace (we will sometimes mention "Miss Channer's Mat" which is an oval Bucks Point piece, wouldn't that be nice to see on the www). Doily (at the bottom of the page; this one is tatted) is a synonym really, but I haven't seen it applied to bobbin lace very much lately.
• Edging - Straight lace intended to go on the edge of a piece of cloth. One side (the footside, where it will be attached) will usually be straight, but not always, as you can see with the edging on top. The headside (opposite the foot, of course!) is often scalloped or decorated with picots, braids, or winkie pin edge.
• Corner by Julie Hendrick. Now worked flat, in "olden times" a straight lace was gathered around corners of the items on which it was mounted. Lisa McClure has several on her page too.
• Insertion - where both sides are straight and is normally used "inserted" between two pieces of cloth.

If y'all spot any more good illustrations of laces, please send me mail! This is a scavenger hunt of the best kind!

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This page written by Mimi Dillman - send comments and corrections to me at ntrop@ix.netcom.com

This page last updated 11 May 1999