If England boasts the invention of bobbin net, to France must be assigned the application of the Jacquard system to the net-frame, and consequently the invention of machinery lace. Shawls and large pieces in "run lace," as it is termed, had previously been made after this manner at Nottingham and Derby. The pattern proposed to be "run in" is printed by means of engraved wood blocks on the ground, which, if white, is of cotton; if black, of silk. The ground is stretched on a frame; the "lace-runner" places her left hand under the net, and with the right works the pattern. The filling up of the interior is termed either "fining" or "open-working," as the original meshes of the net are brought to a smaller or larger size by the needle.[[1257]]
In 1820 Symes, of Nottingham, invented a pattern which he called "Grecian" net. This was followed by the "spot," or "point d'esprit," and various other fancy nets—bullet-hole, tattings, and others.
The Jacquard system had been used at Lyons with the Mechlin frame in 1823-4 for making patterned net and embroidered blondes. This suggested the possibility of applying the Jacquard cards to making lace, and in 1836 to 1838 Mr. Ferguson,[[1258]] by applying it to the circular bobbin net frame, brought out the black silk net called "dentelle de Cambrai," an imitation of Chantilly. The pattern was woven by the machine, the brodé or relief "run in."
Various patents[[1259]] were immediately taken out in England and France. Nottingham and Saint-Pierre-lez-Calais rival each other in the variety of their productions. At the International Exhibition of 1867 Nottingham exhibited Spanish laces, most faithful copies of the costly pillow-made Barcelona; imitations of Mechlin, the brodé and picot executed by hand; Brussels needle-point; Caen blondes, and Valenciennes rivalling those of Calais; also Cluny and the black laces of Chantilly and Mirecourt.
The French, by adopting what is technically termed eight "motives," produce their lace of a finer make and more complex pattern. The Calais lace is an admirable copy of the square-grounded Valenciennes, and is the staple trade of the manufacture. Calais also produces blondes, black and white, silver and gold, the white nearly approaching in brilliancy and whiteness the famed productions of Caen, which, by their cheapness, they have expelled from competition. She also imitates the woollen laces of Le Puy, together with black and white laces innumerable.
"Broadly speaking, lace-making by machinery is more nearly like the pillow lace-making process than that of needle-point. The machine continues to twist any desired threads around one another. In pillow lace-making, besides twisting, we have plaiting, and this plaiting has not been reproduced by the majority of lace machines. Quite recently, however, a French machine, called the 'Dentellière,' has been invented to do the plaiting. A description of this machine has been published in La Nature (March 3rd, 1881).
"Whilst the ordinary lace-making machine belongs to the family of weaving machines, the Dentellière more nearly resembles the pillow of a lace-worker with the threads arranged over the pillow. In general appearance it looks something like a large semicircular frame-work of iron—with thousands of threads from the outer semicircle converging to the centre, representing the table or pillow. Over this central table is the apparatus which holds the end threads side by side, and which regulates the plaiting of them. The cost of producing lace in this manner is said to be greater at present than by hand."[[1260]]
Almost every description of lace is now fabricated by machinery;[[1261]] and it is often no easy task, even for a practised eye, to detect the difference. Still, we must ever be of opinion that the most finished productions of the frame never possess the touch, the finish, or the beauty of the laces made by hand. The invention of machine-made lace has this peculiarity—it has not diminished the demand for the finer fabrics of the pillow and the needle. On the contrary, the rich have sought more eagerly than ever the exquisite works of Brussels and Alençon, since machinery has brought the wearing of lace within the reach of all classes of society.
Fig. 163.
