Lace is an openwork fabric A textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw wool fibres, linen, cotton, or other material on a spinning wheel to produce long strands known as yarn. Textiles are formed by weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting, or pressing fibres, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric. Lace-making is an ancient craft. True lace was not made until the late 15th and early 16th centuries. A true lace is created when a thread is looped, twisted or braided to other threads independently from a backing fabric.

Originally linen Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather, silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from cocoons made by the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity . The shimmering appearance of silk is due to the triangular prism-like structure of the silk fiber which allows silk cloth to refract, gold, or silver threads were used. Now lace is often made with cotton Cotton is a soft, staple fiber that grows in a form known as a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant, a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, India and Africa. The fiber most often is spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile, which is the most widely used natural- thread. Manufactured lace may be made of synthetic fiber Synthetic fibers are the result of extensive research by scientists to improve upon naturally occurring animal and plant. In general, synthetic fibers are created by forcing, usually through extrusion, fiber forming materials through holes into the air, forming a thread. Before synthetic fibers were developed, artificially manufactured fibers were. A few modern artists make lace with a fine copper or silver wire instead of thread.

Types

There are many types of lace, defined by how they are made. These include:

• Needle lace Needle lace is a type of lace created using a needle and thread to stitch up hundreds of small stitches to form the lace itself; made using a needle and thread. This is the most flexible of the lace-making arts. While some types can be made more quickly than the finest of bobbin laces, others are very time-consuming. Some purists regard needle lace as the height of lace-making. The finest antique needle laces were [made] from a very fine thread that is not manufactured today.

• Cutwork Cutwork or cut work is a needlework technique in which portions of a textile are cut away and the resulting "hole" is reinforced and filled with embroidery or needle lace, or whitework Whitework embroidery refers to any embroidery technique in which the stitching is the same color as the foundation fabric; lace constructed by removing threads from a woven background, and the remaining threads wrapped or filled with embroidery.

• Bobbin Lace Bobbin lace is a lace textile made by braiding and twisting lengths of thread, which are wound on bobbins to manage them. As the work progresses, the weaving is held in place with pins set in a lace pillow, the placement of the pins usually determined by a pattern or pricking pinned on the pillow; as the name suggests, made with bobbins and a pillow. The bobbins, turned from wood, bone or plastic, hold threads which are woven together and held in place with pins stuck in the pattern on the pillow. The pillow contains straw, preferably oat The common oat is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other grains). While oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats, one of the most common uses is as livestock feed. Oats make up a large part of the diet of horses and are regularly fed to cattle as straw Straw is an agricultural by-product, the dry stalk of a cereal plant, after the grain or seed has been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. In times gone by, it was regarded as a useful by-product of the harvest, but with the advent of the combine harvester, straw has become or other materials such as sawdust, insulation styrofoam or ethafoam. Also known as Bone-lace. Chantilly lace Chantilly lace is a handmade bobbin lace named after the city of Chantilly, France, dating from the 17th century, though the most famous are silk laces introduced in the 18th century. Though called Chantilly lace, most of the lace bearing this name was actually made in Bayeux in France and Geraardsbergen, now in Belgium is a type of bobbin lace.

• Tape lace; makes the tape in the lace as it is worked, or uses a machine- or hand-made textile strip formed into a design, then joined and embellished with needle or bobbin lace.

• Knotted lace; including macramé Macramé or macramé is a form of textile-making using knotting rather than weaving or knitting. Its primary knots are the square knot and forms of hitching . It has been used by sailors, especially in elaborate or ornamental knotting forms to decorate anything from knife handles to bottles to parts of ships and tatting Tatting is a technique for handcrafting a particularly durable lace constructed by a series of knots and loops. Tatting can be used to make lace edging as well as doilies, collars, and other decorative pieces. The lace is formed by a pattern of rings and chains formed from a series of cow hitch, or half-hitch knots, called double stitches , over a. Tatted lace is made with a shuttle or a tatting needle.

• Crocheted lace Crochet lace is an application of the art of crochet. Generally it uses finer threads and more decorative styles of stitching - often with flowing lines or scalloped edges to give interest. Variation of the size of the holes also gives a piece a "lacy' look; including Irish crochet Irish crochet is a type of lace, which has its origin in the famine years of the 19th century in Ireland. Charity groups sought to revive the economy by teaching crochet lace technique at no charge to anyone willing to learn.[citation needed] This type of lace is characterized by separately crocheted motifs which were later assembled into a mesh, pineapple crochet, and filet crochet Filet crochet is a type of crocheted fabric. This type of crocheted lace is gridlike because it uses only two crochet stitches:.

• Knitted lace Lace knitting is a style of knitting characterized by stable "holes" in the fabric arranged with consideration of aesthetic value. Lace is sometimes considered the pinnacle of knitting, because of its complexity and because woven fabrics cannot easily be made to have holes. True knitted lace has pattern stitches on both the right and; including Shetland lace, such as the "wedding ring shawl", a lace shawl so fine that it can be pulled through a wedding ring.

• Machine-made; any style of lace created or replicated using mechanical means.

• Ecru lace; lace not bleached

History

Lace was used by clergy of the early Catholic Church as part of vestments in religious ceremonies, but did not come into widespread use until the 16th century.[1] The popularity of lace increased rapidly and the cottage industry of lace making spread throughout Europe to most European countries. Countries like Finland Finland /ˈfɪnlənd/ , officially the Republic of Finland ( Finnish: Suomi; Swedish: Finland (help·info)), is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland. The capital city is (city of Rauma), Slovenia Slovenia /sloʊˈviːniə/ , officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: Republika Slovenija, listen (help·info)), is a country in Central Europe bordering Italy to the west, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north. The capital of Slovenia is Ljubljana (city of Idrija Idrija is a small town and municipality in the Goriška region of Slovenia. It is known for its mercury mine (currently in the process of closure) and lace), Belgium The Kingdom of Belgium /ˈbɛldʒəm/ is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO. Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi) and has a population of about 10.7 million, Hungary Hungary ( /ˈhʌŋɡəri/ ; Hungarian: Magyarország, pronounced [ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡ] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Hungary (Magyar Köztársaság listen (help·info) "Hungarian Republic"), is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and, Ireland Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɪrlənd/ , locally [ˈaɾlənd]; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen); Ulster Scots: Airlann, Latin: Hibernia) is the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of, Malta Malta /ˈmɔːltə/ , officially the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta' Malta), is a densely populated developed European country in the European Union. The island nation comprises an archipelago of seven islands situated in the Southern European areas of the Mediterranean Sea, 93 km off the coast of Sicily (Italy), 288 km east of Tunisia, Russia Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ ; Russian: Россия, pronounced [rʌˈsʲijə]), officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation(Russian: Российская Федерация​ (help·info), Rossiyskaya Federatsiya), is a country in northern Eurasia (Europe and Asia together). It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83, Spain Spain /ˈspeɪn/ (Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), or the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north by France,, Turkey Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in western Asia and Thrace (Rumelia) in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the and others all have their own unique artistic heritage expressed through lace.

In North America in the 19th century, lace making was spread to the Native American The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples. They are often also referred to as Native Americans, First Nations, Amerigine, and by Christopher Columbus' geographical mistake Indians, modernly disambiguated as the American Indian tribes through missionaries A missionary is a member of a religion who works to convert those who do not share the missionary's faith; someone who proselytizes. The word "mission" is derived from the Latin missioninimus , meaning "act of sending" or mitto, mittere, literally meaning "to send" or "to dispatch",[citation needed] the. [2]

St. John Francis Regis helped many country girls stay away from the cities by establishing them in the lacemaking and embroidery Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins trade, which is why he became the Patron Saint A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, or person. Patron saints, because they have already transcended to the metaphysical, are able to intercede effectively for the needs of their special charges. Some consider it a special devotion to God by displaying of lace-making.^{[citation needed]}

Gallery

See also

• Needlework Needlework is a broad term for the handicrafts of decorative sewing and textile arts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework. The definition may expand to include related textile crafts such as a crochet hook or tatting shuttles
• Crochet Crochet is a process of creating fabric from yarn or thread using a crochet hook. The word is derived from the Middle French word croc or croche, meaning hook. Crocheting, similar to knitting, consists of pulling loops of yarn through other loops. Crochet differs from knitting in that only one loop is active at one time (the sole exception being
• Silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from cocoons made by the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity . The shimmering appearance of silk is due to the triangular prism-like structure of the silk fiber which allows silk cloth to refract
• Bobbin A bobbin is a spindle or cylinder, with or without flanges, on which wire, yarn, thread or film is wound. Bobbins are typically found in sewing machines, cameras, and within electronic equipment
• Ribbons A ribbon or riband is a thin band of flexible material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily for binding and tying. Cloth ribbons, which most commonly includes silk, are often used in connection with dress, but also applied for innumerable useful, ornamental and symbolic purposes; cultures around the world use this
• See-through clothing Mesh or sheer is a similar type of fabric or a web in that it has many connected or woven pieces. In clothing, a mesh is often defined as fabric that has a large number of closely-spaced holes, frequently used for modern sports jerseys

External links

• Virtual Museum of Textile Arts
• A Renascence of the Irish Art of Lace-making
• International Bobbin and Needle Lace Organisation
• International Old Lacers
• English lace organization
• Italian lace and embroidery organization
• Australian lace museum
• Antique Bobbin Lace
• Irish Lace
• The Craft of Bobbin Making
• Rauma bobbin lace

Categories: Lace | Net fabrics | History of the textile industry

See Also:

• Lace

What Links Here:

Most Popular Pages:

Related 'Lace' Searches: