Lace comes in all shapes and colours, embellishes our clothes and home textiles, and since the 1900s a perspective at lace as art has prompted a number of provocative lace art installations in museums worldwide. Yet, for such a ubiquitous and versatile item, there is so little that is publicly known about lace and how it comes to life.
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Lacemaking is the manipulation of threads into an intended design for a wide variety of purposes. Some of the defining clues that you are looking at lace are the presence of dense and open areas, of lines and spaces.
Starting as a utilitarian and practical occupation (the first ‘lacemakers’ are thought to be ancient fishermen knotting their fishing nets out of twisted fibers), lacemaking has evolved through the centuries as a wide range of advanced techniques in creating fine, elegant pieces of textile.
Lace Techniques
There are three general types of lace, based on the thread manipulation technique used, according to Mrs. Elizabeth Kurella, a world-renowned collector, lacemaker, dealer and author of numerous books on the study of vintage lace. During a recent lecture at The Lace Museum in California, USA, Mrs Kurella categorised lace techniques into three overarching categories: those that are based on 1) weaving, 2) knotting, or 3) needling of threads. Each lacemaking technique would fall into at least one of these three general types of lacemaking, while the more sophisticated pieces of lace would be completed using a couple or all three of them.
Drawnwork
It is thought that almost immediately after humankind started weaving fabrics, it took to experimenting with different ways of pulling and combining threads from them to make them unique and enhance the final look. This technique is called ‘drawnwork.’ In recent centuries, whenever an ambitious lace project has needed an awe-inspiring canvas, that has been accomplished through drawnwork.
Drawnwork (sometimes called single or cut open-work) starts with a piece of fabric. The artisan draws out threads from the fabric or pulls them together using different types of stitches. When the threads are drawn or pulled, a hole is created that is later designed – filled or decorated on top of the remaining fabric – with different types of other thread manipulations. Some lacemakers have accomplished such fine details and ornamentation with drawnwork techniques that those pieces themselves have been regarded as lace.
Needle Lace
One of the very first kinds of sophisticated fine lace is needle lace, dated back to the 1500s. Needle lace is based on buttonhole stitches – twisting, spacing, doubling over them, working them over other threads to get them raised. The world in the 1500s was much different from our own today – hardly anyone in the general population was literate. There are remaining pieces of continuous needle lace that have such level of sophistication in the objects depicted that they actually tell stories in unfolding episodes from one end of the lace strip to the other. Telling stories through pictures, on church or secular lace, marks the start of the evolution of the significance of lace beyond its purely material and practical use. Nowadays, such ornate and detailed stories don’t need to be told through lace, but handcrafted lace would still contain heritage ornaments that carry the message of its creator.
Filet Lace
Filet lace is ubiquitous, although we may not recognise it by its name. Filet lace is lace which has a knotted grid as a foundation, and then uses a thread manipulation that is best described as ‘needle weaving.’ The grid makes it possible for a strong and lengthy continuous piece to be developed, later on embellished through other types of thread manipulations, such as embroidery. Filet lace is durable and is a type of lace that can be currently mass-produced by lace machines. The grid is uniform and repetitively embroidered or needle-woven patterns in it wouldn’t compromise the final look.
Crocheted Lace
A type of technique that used to be widespread and practiced by communities spanning all corners of the world is crochet. Because crocheted lace is made through thread manipulations using a hook and a ball of string only, it has been an affordable and a relatively quick-to-learn lacemaking technique. A significant uplift in crochet lacemaking came from the Irish when in the 1800s local artisans gave it a creative spin that improved the beauty of the possible designs but also introduced more advanced techniques to make them possible.
Handcrafting doilies, tablecloths, various textile inserts using the crochet technique, has remained as a downtime hobby for generations of women, practiced in the comfort of their homes. A heartwarming technique, used and continuously developed by so many of our ancestors, crochet is what we use in many of the ODAYA Home artisanal bed linen and table linen collections. Our experience working with crochet artisans in different countries across Europe is that while there are distinctive ornaments and details in the drawing out of the threads using a hook, most crochet lacemakers can quickly pick up a new technique within the crochet family.
Bobbin Lace
Bobbin lace is a thread manipulation technique based on a form of weaving. Braided or twisted threads wound on bobbins (the weight of which keeps the thread easier to manipulate and keep clean) are interlaced in patterns that are drawn on paper and attached to a cylinder (or a ‘pillow’). The level of complexity of the woven pattern would determine the number of threads (hence bobbins) to be used at the same time, ranging from 8 to more than 1000. Bobbin lace has been demanded for clothing from the 16th century onwards and its main variations – Brussels and Milanese – are alive today, handcrafted for the most exquisite garments and home textile. Brussels bobbin lace is also the parent of our local Bulgaria bobbin lace technique – the Kalofer Bobbin Lace.
Lacemaking could easily be one of the oldest professions, although it may not have been regarded as such until the emergence of the first lacemaking schools in Italy and France in the Middle Ages. At ODAYA Home we are confident that lace carries significance beyond the material and that handcrafted lace is an exquisite finish to home textiles adding an intimate expression of heritage and craftsmanship passed on by the skilled hands of generations of artisans.
Many of the designs we have recovered come from private collections which silently keep the spirit of the homes and communities that brought them to life, but also carry insight into the local thread manipulation techniques that were used at the time. We would encourage everyone to safeguard their family textile heirlooms and if in doubt over the details or value of a certain piece, we would be happy to provide assistance. It is our common purpose to preserve and build on lacemaking as a practice of great diversity and rich cultural heritage.
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