Kathleen wrote: Some years ago I visited a village in southern Belgium which had specialised in making black Chantilly lace. Itâs name escapes me. The lace we saw was fantastic, but we were told that there was little of it left, because the black dye used to colour the thread, (or maybe the process used) rotted the thread over time. I wonder if anyone else has heard this, and also, what dye was used?
The town in southern Belgium is Geraadsbergen. There they make or made black Chantilly lace. The silk was dyed with iron oxide to make it black. This rotted the silk, so very few old black Chantilly laces of other old black laces are left. There are also metallic laces in which the metal thread was originally wound up with black silk. Now the black silk is rotten away and only the metallic lace is left. Happy lacing Gon Homburg, in a wet Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where finally spring arrives. - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
