Margaret Hamer's Lace, Part 2 Margaret's lace collection has only a few items that would be found in the Lace Salesrooms. It is the collection of a lady who loved lace, who taught lace and wrote about it. The pieces reflect these interests and have been added to provide examples of a particular lace, or technique or simply because Margaret liked them.
Margaret was a superb needlewoman and loved needlelaces as well as bobbin-lace. One of her favourites was Branscombe Point lace which came from the Devonshire area of England. There are several examples of this 19th -20th century tape-lace with its rich variety of needlepoint fillings. One of the distinctive features of Branscombe Point is the little nibs or picots that decorate the buttonhole bars or brides that link the tape together. These round nibs are themselves formed of tiny buttonhole stitches. The other feature is the buttonhole stitched shell-edge that forms a border round the outer tape of any item.It may be worked all round, or just along the top edge as in a tiny Modesty-vest that filled the gap in a V-necked dress. Branscombe Point is rich in needle-point lace filling stitiches. Some items, like the Modesty-vest, include only a few, a circular doiley mat has several filling stitches and flower-circles of tape are filled with woven wheels. An oval mat is is particularly rich in filling stitches, although the nibbs are very small. A single large cuff, shaped with a deep point at the front and a shallow back at the sleeve join, has tape motifs in a Roccoco design, all linked inside with various filling stitches while the bars and little nibs decorate the guipure ground. Pauline chose a Bertha type collar with lovely fillings, but I was happy with the three smaller items, plus a strange piece of border or cuff, which included the nibs and a variety of fillings, but had obviously been cut from some larger item with new edge borders added. Kathleen chose to keep Margaret's best piece of Branscombe Point lace in memory of her sister. Angela Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED]
