David's lace is machine-made but I don't think it's Barmen. From looking at Pat Earnshaw's books about Lace Machines and Machine Laces I think it is Leavers Independent. The following is what I've already sent to David (minus the scan):
"The rather prominent ridges on the 'cloth stitch' areas near the footside first made me suspicious and when I looked further the trails, plaits, and picots didn't look quite right for hand-made Bedfordshire. I'm attaching a scan of part of a machine-made Bedfordshire lace from "How to recognise Machine Laces' by Pat Earnshaw (p. 47). The strong lines in the 'cloth stitch' area and the plait and picot headside look very similar to the handkerchief edging. There is a smaller illustration of a length of the same lace in 'Lace Machines and Machine Laces (Book 1)' also by Pat Earnshaw (p. 169). In this book it says it was made on a Leavers Independent Beam machine. It also says that the purls (picots) on the bars were supported by special threads which had to be later removed slowly and carefully by hand - something that would now make them too expensive to produce. The lace in the illustration isn't dated but I think it's most likely to be late 19th or early 20th century. You may be interested to know that one of the 'Beds' samples in Luton Museum's Lace Dealer's Pattern Book is also machine-made. It's not obvious from the photo pages but it shows up on the DVD of high-quality images which comes with the latest published edition." Jean in Glasgow where the sun is shining - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
