Page 380 - J. C. Turner - History and Science of Knots

A History of Lace 373

of a century a flourishing business was set up, employing around 400 workers
who came from a 20-mile radius. Coggeshall lace differs from other tamboured
work in that it makes use of the hexagonal mesh of the net in the patterning.
Good Queen Adelaide supported this lace craft too, ordering a robe in an
attempt to boost the sales. This craft withstood the Industrial Revolution
better than most of the other lace forms, being relatively quick to produce.
Nevertheless, despite'the introduction of little lace mats, lace trims to the
dressing-table and lace curtains and bedspreads, machine-made stuffs were so
much cheaper that the industry declined.
In Ireland, Limerick lace was developed when some Coggeshall lacemakers
were invited over in 1829 to teach tambouring on net. Where Coggleshall uses
cotton hexagonal mesh nets exclusively, Limerick was sometimes tamboured
on the square meshes of Nottingham machine-made `filet' nets. The Potato
Famine of 1845 resulted in the awareness of the Irish laces as a marketable
commodity, and Irish crochet suddenly became a fashion item. The Irish laces
are named by region: Carrick-ma-cross, which is muslin applied to net with
embroidered fillings; Limerick, a decorated net; Curragh point, a tape lace;
Youghal (pronounced `yawl'), a needlepoint lace in imitation of point plat;
and so on.
Tatting was often worked as part of lace-trims in Irish pieces, but had
little recognition. Crochet, however, was sufficiently distinctive to be given
pride of place nationally. The craft had been taught in convents for as much
as a century previously, with its main purpose being for church furnishings;
the characteristic method of working, and the patterning in imitation of the
heavy Venetian laces made the transition to secular purposes as easy as it was
successful. This was such a successful enterprise that other countries began to
encourage the making of (peasant) laces as cottage enterprises for the tourist
trade, giving us Madiera openwork, or Orvieto lace crochet, to name two of
the many available at the time.
In Europe, the production of very fine machine-spun cotton gave Brussels
lace a new popularity, for the Bruges flower lace designs could be made more
delicate still. The blonde laces remained popular, despite the competition of
Leavers and Raschel machine-produced laces. Although these machine pieces
made very fine imitations of the design characteristics, the draping qualities
were different, so that shawls of real blonde were more comfortable to wear.
The wealthy Austro-Hungarian Empire encouraged art-needlework by set-
ting up a lace school in Vienna. Design was taught side by side with technique,
and many of the crochet and knitting designs in existence today originated with
the work of students there. The knitted pieces from this region are often char-
acterised by their start from a central point, expanding into circles or squares
by carefully positioned increases; this had a strong influence on some of the
Victorian knitting patterns, especially those worked in cotton.