Machine lace edging

This is an imitation of a Torchon bobbin lace edging, but various parts are made in a different way, which shows that this is machine lace.

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This lace came from my aunt Margaret Packe (nee Drake). She said that the older pieces came from her grandmother, Ellen Buchanan (nee Barwise) born 1868.

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This looks a bit like a densely woven bit of cloth stich, but is made in a completely different way. The passives are strongly vertical, often a clue to machine made lace. But even worse, if you look closely at the middle passives, you will see that there are three threads twisted at the top, which never happens in bobbin lace!

There are threads travelling diagonally, which in bobbin lace are a sign of half stitch. But if you look at the actual threads, you can see that one thread goes over two threads, or under two threads. Again, this never happens in bobbin lace (except for gimps, which are something completely different).

This is presumably trying to replicate the effect of a half stitch fan. There are diagonal threads, but there are vertical threads rather than horizontal ones. The diagonal threads twist round the vertical threds too much, as well.

This footside is constructed in a quite different way. There are two thick threads as passives. Various thin threads wrap round these threads, or enter or leave the rest of the lace. At one point, the edge pair and the workers seem to cross over between the passives rather than at the edge!