Looking at lovely lace. Post 568, for clothes, tablecloths, ear-rings, shawls, dresses, and in museums,

 

Angela Lansbury, top right, with cream colour lace background.

Lovely Lace

 I love lace. I have a white lace tablecloth covering a bookcase as my background on Zoom.

But white lace doileys look old, shabby and old-fashioned. You can dye them deep colours. Use them as collars, neck fillers or dickeys.

Solid colour lace is quite fashionable and available in 2022. My modern lace sleeve dress was polyester.

The Design & Construction

Lace can be made with strong thread, fine thread, or a mixture. Chantilly lace has strong threads linking intricate and delicate patterns of leaves and flowers.

Black lace can be worn as a sophisticated evening fashion. For an evening shawl. In the old days it was considered romantic and luxurious. A lace shawl would be part of the trousseau of garments for a bride-to-be. A lace tablecloth with matching lace edge napkins might be a wedding gift.

It can add delicacy and distraction at a funeral or time of mourning.

You can create lace with a crochet hook. 

Or several bobbins, long heavy holders of thread which are hung down from a hump and moved around in a fan shape, semi circular or circular, like weaving, to create the patterns.

A third type of lace is machine made lace.

See more at lace museums on Holland and Belgium.

You can buy huge table cloths entirely of lace, or lace-trimmed tablecloths and matching napkins. 

The History of Lace

A queen, Catherine de Medicis, took lace from Italy to France in the 16th century. (I once read that the country of Belgium was created by Queen Victoria's family to console an aspiring king of England who was bypassed and had to be made king of somewhere. I learned that they chopped a piece off France and a piece off Holland and made Belgium, which at first went well. However, reading Britannica, it appears that the whole area was bounced around like a football between France, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain. It now has a clear identity as Belgium, but three languages, French, Belgian and German for for minority in the East, with French in the capital Brussels, as well as the EU and NATO providing employment.  Belgian lace.

Lace in Bayeux, France. Apart from the medieval buildings, and museums, the tourist can enjoy Belgian chocolates, such as the Godiva brand, Belgian waffles, Belgian chips/frites, and Belgian beer. 

Northern France has lace in Bayeux. A second kind of exquisite fabric to admire. Not just the Bayeux tapestry, featuring embroidery. (Hastings has a rival tapestry about the same event.)

Tapestry in Fishguard, Wales

 Wales has another long story-telling embroidery, celebrating local heroes, and heroines., Fishguard's tapestry tells about the time when Welsh women wearing tall back hats and red cloaks resisted an invasion by French soldiers in boats.

Fasion & Lace Museum, Brussels, Belgium

I drove around looking for a cheap lace souvenir cloth. I have lots at home, inherited from my mother. 

You can also buy lace ear-rings. They look modern and cost less. I turned some of my lace edge antimacassars into tops.

Useful Websites

Brussels, Belgium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashion_%26_Lace_Museum

See my post on dress 453, navy blue lace sleeve dress.

https://dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com/2022/07/bold-blue-bell-sleeves-dress-449.html

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