An answer!
So, I wrote to the author of the WSJ article, letting her know that some
lacemakers were having a lively discussion about what the other three lace
collections were and here's what she wrote:
Dear Arlene,
According to the pamphlet I received from the curators who organized "Threads
of
Thanks, Nancy & Anne. That’s what I thought, plus that the early machines
spun cotton and wool, is that correct? And yes, I am not close to my library
either, but Pat Earnshaw’s thread book is subtitled ‘From Source to
Sink’ if I remember correctly? I also had understood that early flax
produced
Yes most definitely the thread for lace was hand spun. The early needle laces
were made using hand spun linens which have long fibres.
Anna from a windy Sydney who has just learnt to spin wool
Sent from my iPad
> On 1 Nov 2022, at 9:57 pm, Vicki Bradford wrote:
>
> Hi Devon & all,
> I’m not
Hi Vicki et al.,
The very fine thread in the late 17th and early 18th C was all handspun
linen, made from flax from cultivars that produced very fine and long
fibers. These cultivars were completely destroyed during the French
revolution, so very fine thread could not be produced again until fine
Hi Devon & all,
I’m not sure if this will make it to the list because I’m one of those
hangers-on still using AOL, but on a somewhat off-topic point, I was taken by
Devon’s comments about how fine some lace threads were. While visiting the
V some years ago, the same thoughts occurred to me. As a
Dear Nancy, Arlene and fellow Arachnids,
I was also puzzled by the claim that there are four great lace collections and
wondered what they were. I had it in mind to contact the Wall Street Journal
writer and ask her to tell me. However, I imagine this was information
contained in a press packet
