Yes, definitely made by machine. I have lots of these as samples in my collection, they are made on the Barmen machine. This is a fascinating development of the early braid-making machines.
They can easily be mistaken for hand-made laces as the threads follow the plaiting patterns of hand bobbins. The machine is circular, with the upright bobbins placed around the edge in sets of pairs, these 'dance round' one another and the pattern is selected by a punch-card system. The finished 'braid' comes up from the centre of the machine. It is formed of a hollow tube, with the two outer edges joined by a temorary thread. When this thread is removed, the lace opens out flat. I have some samples still at the 'tube' stage. A working Barmen machine used to be in the Nottingham Lace Centre. Modern versions are made by Japanese manufacturers that work at high speed. BarmenLace is featured in Pat Earnshaw's 'Lace Machines and Machine Laces'. In the 1980's the 'Laura Ashley' dresses and night-wear were trimmed with this lace, and today it is found on similar garments and soft furnishing as it is a fairly heavy lace. Angela, snowed up for several days in the hills of Wocestershire, UK -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 5.9 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 3340 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]
