On Feb 14, 2010, at 13:09, Nancy Neff wrote:
I didn't think the 17th century lace had leaves??
Yes it did. Leaves -- and other woven shapes, like triangles --
appear even earlier than 17c, at least in Genoese lace. By early 17c
they were fairly common. I'm pretty sure that the Parasole pattern
book, on the Arizona U website, has some patterns with leaves.
But, although some were made the same way we make them now, quite
often, they were constructed a bit differently.
We now make leaves with just two pairs/4 *threads* -- one thread weaves
over and under the remaining 3. Many of the early laces used 4 *pairs*
in the construction of a leaf, with one pair whole-stitching through
the remaining 3 (or more, if more pairs needed to travel somewhere
else), with the shape determined by the number of twists on the weaver
(between the edge and the central pairs).
Janet Arnold's book -- Patterns of Fashion 4 -- has a photo of lace (in
possession of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC), dated c1575-1600,
which has leaves made in a manner similar to ours, with one thread
weaving around others. The difference is that the weaver -- coloured
(purple or gold) is added and removed as needed and it weaves around
the 4 (rather than 3) basic colour threads, making realy nice, fat,
pumpkin seed tallies. (p 55. plate 72A)
Rosemary Shepherd's book -- An Early Lace Workbook -- shows both types
of tallies. A probably second half of 16th c piece, on p56, uses two
pairs, with one thread as weaver. Two more pieces, also second half of
the 16th c, have both 2-pair leaves and 4-pair triangles (pp 71-74).
So far as I can tell, *the only* progress we have made (technique-wise)
since the earliest laces, is in the area of half-stitch; I haven't seen
any motifs made using it (never mind grounds, which are later). But,
given that we seem to have forgotten, since that time, some other --
equally clever -- tricks, the honours are at least even :)
--
Tamara P Duvallhttp://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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