Bobbins of Belgium: A book of Belgian lace, lace-workers, lace-schools and lace-villagesKellogg, Charlotte
History
Bobbins of Belgium: A book of Belgian lace, lace-workers, lace-schools and lace-villages
Kellogg, Charlotte
Brussels lace committee; Lace and lace making -- Belgium
Point d’Angleterre, so named because of its great popularity in
England, reached its height in beauty and in favor during the
seventeenth century, when it occupied the talent and energy of all the
lace-workers of Brussels. It differs from Needle Point, in which both
flowers and mesh are made with the needle. It is one of the loveliest
of all laces, combining in rare beauty, rich bouquets and arabesques
and birds of finest bobbin work, with a frail transparent needle mesh,
the flowers themselves becoming frequently more light and delicate
through the introduction of charmingly varied needle-worked open
spaces. Certain workers make the flowers, and others the connecting
mesh. If one can imagine the softness of a kind of sublimated or
diaphanous velvet, added to the fragility of an airy and cobwebby lace,
one may have some idea of the effect of good Point d’Angleterre. And
if one would possess a collar or a flounce, one should buy it quickly,
for Point d’Angleterre is going the way of the other difficult and
exquisite points. Such villages as Kerxken, Liedekerke, Destelbergen
(near Ghent), and those of the Alost region still make occasional
pieces.
[Illustration: BOBBIN LACES
(1) Malines (2) Application, flowers sewn on tulle (3) Duchesse, with
needle-point insertions]
[Illustration: APPLICATION DETAILS TO BE SEWED ON TULLE
Upper flower shows open spaces left by bobbin worker for needle worker;
lower flower shows both bobbin and needle work completed]
The more ordinary Point de Flandres, or Flanders, so generally produced
to-day, has the same composition as Point d’Angleterre, since in it
bobbin-work flowers are joined by a needle-mesh. And even tho coarser
and less complicated than Point d’Angleterre, Point de Flandres
is also difficult to make, and should be much better paid. There are
innumerable differences in quality, and many ways in which this lace
may be employed. The Committee has used it chiefly in elegant table
centers and cloths, in lamp-shades and in various articles to embellish
a drawing-or dining-room. And this summer of 1919 it is being used
with much success by important French houses as trimming for dainty
_ninon_ underclothing. Nineteenth century Point de Flandres, then, is
little more than a commercial name for a very coarse kind of Point
d’Angleterre.
This Point de Flandres must not be confused with Old Flanders or Antik,
the ancient bobbin-lace experiencing a happy revival at present. Old
Flanders is, like Cluny, made entirely with bobbins and with uncut
threads; in other words, in single lengths, and not in separate or cut
details.
Liedekerke, then, first made Point d’Angleterre for which, after a
certain time, it substituted Application, changing again about two
years before the war to Rosaline, suddenly become a popular lace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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