How beautiful are these? I aquired a bundle of old laces on Saturday & in amongst it all were these treasures. I am fairly certain all three pictured are hand done.
The top one is a length of filet around a meter in length. I can see little ends peeking out every so often where the joins have been done. I also have another shorter length in a different pattern.
The middle one is a piece of bobbin lace. By looking carefully I can see a few spots where the twists are just not quite right, a sure sign of being hand made. It is about 80cm long.
The bottom one is a beautiful collar done in Battenburg style. I know this is hand done because of the filling stitches and when I looked really closely, different threads had been used in some parts. I think perhaps the maker ran out of the lovely fine thread she was using & had to make do with what she had on hand to finish. Another thought is that perhaps it has been mended in a few spots & the original thread used not known. More likely this was the case.
A very talented person has made them, I just wish I could have met her so she could teach me how. I will take them all to my local Lace group in a few weeks & proudly show them off. One of our members is very preficient in the history of lace & how it has been made, so she will definately let me know one way or the other how they have been made. Whether hand or machine done, they are still all beautiful & I intend to clean them all & recycle them into something new.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of revisiting the "Arts of Islam" exhibition for a second time which is currently showing at the Art Gallery here in Sydney. I'm so glad I went back for a second look, I got to see dtail that I didn't see the first time around. I have come home with a sketch book full of my own sketches of what I saw.
