I suspect it's an example of the plaited/guipure-type laces made in most of the
lacemaking centres in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, called
Beds Maltese if English, Cluny/ Mirecourt if French, Saxony Guipure, if someone
had used Mincoff and Marriage's book, etc etc. Ilske is being too kind in
assuming it couldn't be Beds because it's too coarse. I have seen a bedspread
made out of Beds squares, very effective, but very coarse. Equally, some of
the patterns in Valerie Harris's "The Lavendon Collection of Bobbin Lace
Patterns" are coarse, and again, effective. It wasn't all Thomas Lester!
Bedford's count and Cecil Higgins museums have some examples, which would not
really be worth importing, and even more so Luton, as well as the marvels. We
just keep quiet about it!
Based on my usual mixture of ignorance and prejudice, I think the indicators of
English make are a) leaves without the starting and finishing cloth stitch, so
just tallies scrunched up at the ends (why did it take us so long to work out
what to do?!) and b) a profusion of picots and, where applicable, fillings
worked closely. This last is a feature which I think can distinguish Honiton
from Duchesse - it seems to be part of our aesthetic, as it's there even in
third-rate work.
I do find this last interesting, as it does seem to be a genuine difference,
still persisting. In her Floral Bedfordshire book, Yvonne Scheele-Kerkhof has,
as noted in Margaret Tite's introduction, introduced some features of
continental origin, and I think thinning out the grounds and cutting down on
the picots is one of them. This is especially clear in the Finale, her version
of BML-9(1), when compared with the original, and with the version re-drafted
and re-grounded by Angela Brown in her folder of "Angela's Patterns" - this
keeps more of the original, though it has no corners, but the style and density
of the ground gives it the liveliness of the original Thomas Lester works, and
paradoxically, to me throws the leaves and flowers of the design into sharper
contrast, giving the lace the 3-D effect so admired.
Apart from all that, does anyone else have any tell-tale signs to distinguish
one centre's products of this sort from another? I find the only other one I'm
happy being dogmatic about is the original Maltese, which I don't think
anywhere else managed to equal.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] in London, but sorting himself out for the trip to Holland on
Sunday
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:42:06 +0200
From: Ilske Thomsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [lace] Lace ID
Sorry but I don't think so
> Handmade English Bedfordshire bobbin lace.
where are the tallies? And it is not fine enough for Bedfordshire, I
think.
Ilske
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