Hello Lorraine and all Arachneans, Last May, I participated in a course of this lace, being the teacher Mariña Regueiro. She is a real expert on this subject. She has been investigating a lot on this lace, which was almost lost not many years ago. In fact, not many Spanish lacers know it.
I can tell you a few things that I learnt in the course, although Carolina de la Guardia (also on Arachne) has given us a few times some information. The origin of the lace is in Seville. There is not much information on how it arrived here, perhaps a nurse from Brugge taught some lace from there... Carolina knows more about this. (In Spain Brugge and witch have the same name. Perhaps this is a reason for calling this lace as Wirh stitch. In Hinojosa the don't call it this way, but Encaje de Hinojosa or Encaje Extremeño). And why the same lace was also made in Hinojosa (Badajoz), which is a small village on the west of Spain... A noble woman bought a large piece of land in Hinojosa. She used to live in Seville and had learnt to make lace there. And seing the poverty of the people in Hinojosa, she taught the girls of the village what she had learnt in Seville with her teacher Cándida. So the patterns used in Hinojosa where from Seville, precisely from Cándida. This was 1929. They kept making lace for earning their living and sold it in Barcelona, Bilbao and Madrid. But in the 60's nobody bought it, and they gave up making lace! At the same time, in Barcelona they also made this lace, because immigrants from Seville or from Hinojosa took it there. But as I said before, it has been very unknown until very recently. Carolina is the only one who has designed patterns based on this type of lace. Her patterns resemble very much the original laces. And they are the only ones you can buy... the people who own original pickings from Cándida and her pupils don't give them away at the moment! Mariña has made a very important study and is trying to make this lace known in the world. And that's all as far as I know. I have just finished making a piece of lace with about 18 different stitches of this lace. The curves are really difficult! Bye bye Greetings from Antje, in Guadalajara, Spain http://es.geocities.com/antjeglezherrero - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
