I too have spent time Googling for Chinese machine made lace - saw lots
of "crochet lace" that I'd call Barmen or Leavers, and even a little
bit of hand made crochet, but nothing resembling NL. Whilst I'm not an
expert needle lacer I have done enough to know how it is made.
Then I remembered my friend's lace that I'm trying to sell for her; she
too has a very similar Chinese NL mat, and it has (had!) damage to the
outer round of filling stitches, making it unsaleable, so, I bit the
bullet and unpicked a part of it. Everything I observed is consistent
with the lace being handmade.
1, There are lots of joins in the thread of the fillings - more
noticeable in Marta's piece than in mine but the joins are there
throughout all the fillings and cordonnet.
2, The angle of the filling stitches on the outer round of filling
gradually turned through 360 degrees as the work progressed. Where the
'end' met the 'beginning' there was a different row of filling
stitches. That is where I unpicked from.
3, The pale colour thread working the filling passed around a single
dark colour thread at each end of the rows - no cut ends so not
constructed from cut-out pieces of filling.
4, Two more dark colour cordonnet threads lie close to the first and
all three were buttonhole stitched over.
I am now sure that this piece of lace is hand made. Compared to most
(older) needle laces these mats are fairly coarse, the bars are all
very plain with no fancy picots and the patterns are very similar so as
to obtain the fastest results, but still *hand made*. I daresay
there's a production line with each worker specialising in a particular
part of the process and handing the work on to the next person to
complete her part of it.
Have a look at the evidence
http://paternoster.orpheusweb.co.uk/lace/chinese_needlelace.htm
or
http://tinyurl.com/7qpav
You'll also see that the resulting mat without it's outer round of
filling still looks to be a balanced design!
Brenda
On 3 Jan 2006, at 08:46, Alice Howell wrote:
I read the article Clay sent to me, and looked at the
picture in the article. I still do not believe a
machine can make buttonhole stitches. I tried to
search the web for info on such, and found nothing.
I'm not very good at searching the web, so maybe
someone else can turn up some information. Please let
me know if you do.
In the meanwhile, I believe that lace like in the
article, and like Robin has (and some I have) was made
in China. Experienced workers can produce a high
quality of work. The general style of needlelace out
of China does not have all the embellishments that can
be found in some European laces. It is made as
expediently as possible to get to market.
Simple/basic stitches, uncluttered pattern, and
sometimes a larger size thread will lead to a finished
product in as short a time as possible.
I would very much like to see the machine that can
produce an even row of buttonhole stitches with neat
connections from bar to bar, and between sections of
the pattern. Generally, the pieces of lace I've seen
(or have) are made up of many small sections. There
are few places where the condonnet goes over 10-15
inches. Not many extensions would need to be worked
in.
Brenda
http://paternoster.orpheusweb.co.uk/
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