MATERIALS.
The requirements of modern lace-making are few. The products are classed as Honiton, Point, Duchesse, Princesse, Royal Battenburg or Old English Point, etc., etc.; but all are made with various braids arranged in different patterns and connected by numerous kinds of stitches, many different stitches often appearing in one variety of lace.
The materials required are neither numerous nor expensive. The following is a complete list: Tracing cloth, leather or toile cirée, lace braids of various kinds, linen thread, two or three sizes of needles, a good thimble and a pair of fine sharp scissors.
For each kind of lace there is a special sort of braid in various patterns, and the selection of the thread depends entirely upon the variety and quality of lace to be made. This selection should be left to the decision of the teacher or the skilled maker of laces, as she knows from experience the proper combinations of materials. Thus, in making Honiton and point lace, thread in twelve different degrees of fineness is used; and as the braids also vary in size, the thread must always be adapted to the braid. For Battenburg lace the thread is in eight sizes, the finest being used only for "whipping curves" or drawing edges into the outlines required. The "Ideal Honiton" is a new lace made with fancy Honiton braid and wash-silk floss in dainty colors, and is exquisite for doilies, mats, table scarfs and center-pieces.
Designs sold by lace-makers are usually drawn upon tracing cloth, as this is flexible and much more agreeable to work upon than any other material. The tracing cloth, when the braid is arranged, is basted to a foundation of leather or toile cirée; or smooth wrapping-paper may be basted under the design and will furnish all the support that is necessary, while being lighter than the toile cirée.
It must be remembered that the work is really wrong side out while in progress, so that it will not show its true beauty until finished and removed from the foundation or pattern. According to the braid and thread selected, these laces may be made of fairy-like fineness or of massive elegance—general results being dainty enough for the gown of a bride or sumptuous enough for the adornment of an altar.
Lace-making establishments will furnish designs of any width or shape desired, and will also originate designs for special articles for which there are only occasional calls. Regular edging designs are ordinarily made in four widths—from quite narrow to very wide; and not infrequently a handkerchief design is enlarged sufficiently to form a square for a table or a fancy stand.
In filling in the spaces of any design or pattern, the worker may choose the stitches that please her best, if she does not like those accompanying the design that she has selected or that has been sent her.
STITCHES USED IN MODERN LACE-MAKING.
As in all fancy work which has a set of foundation stitches peculiar to it that may be varied according to the proficiency and ingenuity of the maker, so has Modern Lace a series of primary stitches from which may be evolved many others. A large number of illustrations of stitches, some of which are primary or foundation stitches, while others are combinations, are here presented, with full instructions for making; and the entire series given will make perfectly plain to the student the ease with which she may combine or invent stitches, when those of the design she is to work are not to her liking. The first stitch given is the main foundation stitch.