A very early lace pattern book called Le Pompe was published in Italy in 1569. It had patterns based on simple plaits. Click here to see it.
Another very early lace pattern book is called called Nuw Modelbuch was published in Zurich in 1561. Click here to download a pdf.
An attempt to reproduce the lace from Allori's Annunciation:
A pattern based on Reticella (needlepoint)
Here are my attempts to reproduce old lace. These are not necessarily ancient patterns, just something from the past.
These are patterns that I designed to try to reproduce lace in local museums or from old patterns.
Lace from St Ives Cambridgeshire
Second version, St Ives Cambridgeshire
More lace from St Ives Cambridgeshire
Lace in Museum of Cambridge (folk museum)
Lace in Museum of Cambridge (folk museum)
Pattern in Museum of Cambridge (folk museum)
Second pattern in Museum of Cambridge (folk museum)
Lace design from an old pattern
Second version from an old pattern
Third version from an old pattern
There are lots of 17C Dutch pictures of lacemakers, Vermeer's Lacemaker being the most famous. I did some research into Dutch lace.
A lacemaker told me about the Gravenmoer diamond, a Dutch technique.
Gravenmoer and half stitch diamonds
Valenciennes lace was famous. It used a very large number of bobbins. A poem by Kipling mentions it. Click on that link for a picture of real Valenciennes. The pattern below is inspired by Valenciennes (and does not use a very large number of bobbins!)
My sister-in-law bought me some lace in France. I think one piece is Mechlin. Here are my attempts (not very good!) to reproduce it:
Binche lace is worked on a a hexagonal grid, like Bucks Point. It has different grounds, including point de Paris (Kat stitch) and snowflakes. The following patterns are not a Binche pattern. I used them to practise different types of snowflakes.
Hexagons surrounding snowflakes
There are various simple grounds which help to identify different styles of lace, such as Mechlin or Brussels. Here is a pattern comparing them.
Old portraits often show people wearing lace collars or cuffs. Some of this lace is needlepoint, a style called punto in aria, which means 'stitches in the air'. Needlepoint is a type of lace which is completely different from bobbin lace. The pattern is laid out in threads, which are then sewn over with buttonhole stitch, so it uses a needle rather than bobbins to create the lace. Punto in aria was so popular that bobbin lace tried to copy the style. Now, I only do bobbin lace, not needlepoint, and I don't pretend that this design is a genuine old design. But I have looked at some of the old paintings, and this is my attempt to produce a simple design in a similar style. One thing that strikes me about the old lace was that bits stick out to one side, either as pointed bits or semi-circles. Of course, this is hard to do with bobbin lace, which tends to produce a constant width. You can avoid this if you make motifs and join them together, or make tape lace. But I wanted to see if I could produce a strip of lace to do this. The following are some attempts!
© Jo Edkins 2016 - return to lace index
