I have tried to find information in the books I have, but have not been
able to find anything that gave a date for the appearance of corners in
lace. I did find a statement by Geraldine Stott that "in the old days,
lace was always made straight and then gathered round the corners".
(The Bobbin Lace Manual) I assume that she is talking about the English
laces.
I looked in Santina Levy's book and found an old piece with corners, but
it was hard to tell if the corner was part of the design, or if the lace
was sewn together to make a smooth turn around the corner (I never can
remember what the term is for that). In any event, it was made of gold
(?) and made in Europe. Remember the East Midland lace industry was a
cottage industry where time was everything, so the extra work involved
in making lace the exact size needed so that a corner could be part of
the finished piece (or 4 corners...) would have taken more time and most
likely been a special order. I read in "Romance of the Lace Pillow"
that the Bedfordshire laces became the favorite lace of the lacemakers
(nearly putting an end to Bucks Point....I cannot imagine!!) because it
could be made in less time (more yards equaled more money), and was
easier to hide mistakes. How wonderful to be able to make lace in these
times when we can choose from many different styles and take our time to
finish...even taking the leisure to store lace in progress on our
pillows for months(?)!! It's easy to forget the conditions people had
to make lace in before us!
The beautiful laces by Thomas Lester were designed and made at the
beginning of the 1900's, a date that matches the lace in the Ebay group.
Debbie in Florida
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