FALSE VALENCIENNES.--(a) Lace resembling Valenciennes in surface and in
pattern, but without the true Valenciennes net ground, (b) A term for
Valenciennes lace made in Belgium.
FLAT POINT.--Lace made without any raised-work or work in relief from
raised points.
FLEMISH POINT.--A needle-point guipure lace made in Flanders.
FOOTING.--A narrow lace which is used to keep the stitches of the {40}
ground firm and to sew the lace to the garment upon which it is to be worn.
Sometimes the footing is worked with the rest of the design. It is used
also in making lace handkerchiefs and for quilling effects.
GENOA.--A name originally given to the gold and silver laces for which
Genoa was famed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but now applied
to lace made from the fiber of the aloe plant, and also to Macrame lace.
GOLD.--Lace made of warp threads or cords of silk, or silk and cotton
combined, with thin gold or silver gilt bands passing around it. It was
anciently made of gold or silver gilt wire. It is now used chiefly to
decorate uniforms, liveries and some church costumes, and occasionally for
millinery. The metal is drawn through a wire, and, after being flattened
between steel rollers, several strands of the flattened wire are passed
around the silk simultaneously by means of a complex machine having a wheel
and iron bobbins. The history of gold lace is interesting, as illustrating
the oldest form of the lacemaker's art. From the days of Egypt and Rome
down to medieval Venice, Italy and Spain, gold and silver gilt wire were
used in making this kind of lace. The Jews in Spain were accomplished
workers in this art, and in Sweden and Russia gold lace was the first lace
made. In France gold lacemaking was a prosperous manufacture at Aurrillac
and Arras, at which latter place it flourished up to the end of the
eighteenth century. Gold lace was imported into England at an early date,
and King James I established a monopoly in it. Its importation was
prohibited by Queen Anne, on account of the extravagant uses of
ornamentation to which it was put, and it was also prohibited in the reign
of George II, to correct the prevalent taste for the foreign manufactured
lace. The attempt was unsuccessful, for we are told that smuggling greatly
increased. It became a "war to the knife between the revenue officer and
society at large, all classes combined, town ladies of high degree, with
waiting-maids, and the common sailor, to avoid the obnoxious duties and
cheat the government." {41}
[Illustration: Real Mechlin.]
[Illustration: Real Point de Paris.]
{42}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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