Fig. 276.—Genoese Point Lace.
At Antwerp and Cologne, and other cities in Germany and Flanders, imitations of the Venetian pattern-books were published, which served the lace makers of those countries for their patterns.
The Flemish lace workers imitated to a great extent the Venetian patterns, and in later years those of the French.
Lace is made in silk, cotton, flax, and sometimes in gold and silver thread, aloe-fibre, and hair.
In the early kinds of lace the pattern was united by single threads covered with button-hole stitch, and edged with little loops, the flowers or pattern made of compact “clothing,” or woven threads (Fig. 277D), and the ground in its simplest variety by meshes made by plaiting (Fig. 277A), as in the Brussels and Honiton four-thread ground, or in other varieties, by simple twisting (Fig. 277B).
The ground or mesh (réseau) is usually hexagonal, and is worked together with the pattern in the Valenciennes, Mechlin, and Buckingham laces, but in the Brussels and Honiton the ground is worked in afterwards, or the pattern is sewn on. Other fancy grounds or “fillings” are called “modes” or “brides,” which consist of little ties ornamented with “picots” or small loops (see Figs. 280, 284). A more elaborate form of fillings may be seen in the Brussels and Alençon lappets (Figs. 278, 279); in the latter may be seen lozenges and flat hexagons of a solid character set in frames of hexagons and on the intersections of the squares. This groundwork has been termed réseau-rosacé.
Fig. 277.—A, Brussels ground; B, Two-thread Mesh; D, Woven Ground.
The outline around the pattern in some laces is called the “cordonnet”; it is an important feature of the Alençon point lace (Fig. 279), where it consists of a horsehair overcast with a button-hole stitch of thread; it is also a distinctive mark of the pillow-made Mechlin lace (Fig. 283), but never occurs in the true or vraie Valenciennes.