Encyclopedia of Needlework

by Thérèse de Dillmont

To wash ordinary lace.—Wind it round a bottle the same width top and bottom and cover it entirely with muslin, fastened to the lace by a few stitches. Fill the bottle half full of sand, so that it may not get knocked about too violently when the water boils.

Immerse the bottle in a saucepan of cold water with a piece of soap the size of a nut in it, and if the lace be very dirty, a small pinch of salt, and let it boil for about an hour pouring off the water as it gets dirty and adding clean.

When all the dirt has been boiled out of the lace, which you will know to be the case when the water remains perfectly clear, rinse out the soap before you take the lace off the bottle, by plunging it into cold water.

To wash real lace.—The process is the same as the above, but as real lace is so seldom washed and is generally very yellow and fragile, particularly if it has been roughly used, it is rather difficult to clean.

If stained or greasy, it should be left to soak for some hours or even days, in good olive oil. This restores to the thread that softness and smoothness which use and bad washing had impaired. After the oil bath it should be washed on a bottle in the manner already described.

To stiffen lace.—Dip the lace when perfectly dry in thin starch prepared as follows.

Take as much fine wheaten starch, as you think you will require, divide it into two portions and dissolve both in cold water. Boil the one portion and when it has so far cooled as to have ceased to steam, stir the cold starch into it and dilute the whole with cold water to the consistency of thick cream. If the lace is to be slightly coloured, add a few drops of black coffee, or dilute the starch with weak tea or guimauve water; the coffee will give it a dark cream colour, either of the latter a pale greenish hue.

Dip the lace in the mixture and squeeze it out gently without wringing it to get rid of all the superfluous liquid, then lay it flat on the left hand and beat it for a few minutes with the right to work the starch well in; repeat the whole process twice, then roll the lace in fine linen and leave it there till you are ready to iron or pin it out, as the case may be.

To iron lace.—After the lace has lain for an hour or two in the cloth, iron it if it be machine-made and if it be Irish Guipure or real point lace of any sort, pin it out.