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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Northern Lights Lodge, post: 2217802, member: 13464&quot;]Sorry - warning! This post has turned out to be a long one. I hope you will enjoy it..if not just scroll on by...that&#039;s ok.</p><p><br /></p><p>Hi Everyone,</p><p><br /></p><p>I hope everyone is staying well and enjoyed the Holiday weekend in some manner... even if it was a cook out in your own back yard!</p><p><br /></p><p>This is a follow up to a post by Joan a few days ago; re: her relief that a lovely lace piece she posted was &quot;not&quot; handmade; because she would have felt bad had it been handmade and only sold for $1.79! I feel her pain! </p><p><br /></p><p>A good case in point is this lovely example from my own collection. I found it; probably around 1988 or so in a small VERY exclusive antique store... very spendy items. My friend and I, both lace makers;&nbsp; happened to be in the area for a lace event and had some time to kill...never dreaming to actually FIND anything we could afford and not expecting a piece such as this. It was the only piece of lace in the shop and wadded up in a ball on the counter! If I&#039;m not mistaken; it was $25.</p><p><br /></p><p>I suppose there are a few ways that one can &quot;read&quot; lace. One way is understanding and &quot;reading&quot; the stitches that were used to create any individual piece like reading a pattern or technical drawing. Understanding how to read that; enables a person to understand how it was made. We &quot;read&quot; this piece; made the purchase and ran! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/smilies/smile.png" class="mceSmilie" alt=":)" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>But, I think the term &quot;reading lace&quot; really refers to &quot;reading&quot; what happened during it&#039;s birth and lifetime!</p><p><br /></p><p>So let&#039;s look at it and &quot;read&quot; what this piece says to us.</p><p>This overview of the entire piece shows us a black French lace shawl.&nbsp; It was likely made in Chantilly circa 1880.&nbsp; LePuy pieces were very similar in design and so it is possible that it could have been made there as well. It measures 16 1/2&quot; from center back to bottom edge and 34 1/2&quot; from side to side.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]254778[/ATTACH] </p><p>*There are some small folds in the piece..that show up a bit better in the close ups... it just doesn&#039;t lay completely flat and hence; they get bound up when I roll it to store it. Disregard the folds..</p><p><br /></p><p>Ok... this piece is a pleasing design, well executed, charming really.</p><p><br /></p><p>Let&#039;s look a bit closer...</p><p><br /></p><p>One of the folds is more obvious here....running vertically just past center bottom right.</p><p><br /></p><p>Observations: Ok... at this point; we can see some small signs of wear... some &quot;undone&quot; dots; a few breaks in the ground; a few loose threads along the outer edges.</p><p><br /></p><p>Any thing else somewhat obvious?&nbsp; The color!&nbsp; Some areas are very black and some rather gray tone rather than entirely blackish... why? </p><p>[ATTACH=full]254769[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Remember back in Lesson #6; there was a discussion about &quot;joins&quot; and how lace pieces were made in pieces or strips and joined together. In the below photo; I&#039;ve marked top and bottom of each 4&quot; wide strips. Each strip is roughly 4&quot; - except for the side edge pieces which are irregular. The white mark indicates one of those folds.[ATTACH=full]254846[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>So now we&#039;ve determined that the piece was made in strips. So, why are they slightly different colors? </p><p><br /></p><p>Close up of the center back joins.&nbsp; It is possible that there were a slightly different number of pairs used by each individual lace maker who would have worked each strip.&nbsp; [ATTACH=full]254780[/ATTACH]</p><p>And indeed; that may be possible as it looks like the flowers in the left side strip are much denser than the ones on the right side strip. But if you look at the over view of the entire piece; even the netting is slightly different color...particularly noticeable in the center to side strips comparison. Netting doesn&#039;t use &quot;extra pairs&quot;. It requires a set number. This undoubtedly meant that that the thread was more than one dye lot... OR that the thread used for each strip was just &quot;slightly&quot; larger than the other.&nbsp; Perhaps a combination of all three... hard to tell without serious magnification. But for our purposes... these things which we have &quot;read&quot;; mean that without a doubt; this lace was hand worked.</p><p><br /></p><p>If that wasn&#039;t enough to convince us; what else can we read? In examining this close up below... does anything jump up and down at you? </p><p><br /></p><p>I see a few small broken bars. Black thread was made by dying it after it was spun. The dye was very acidic and the thread becomes brittle over time; causing the threads to just break or disintegrate. Some old black lace and also black fabric; has a peculiar smell; often due to the dye and should be treated very gently. This can true for both machine and hand-made pieces. But aside from the broken bars? </p><p>[ATTACH=full]254783[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Is anything obvious here? </p><p>[ATTACH=full]254788[/ATTACH] </p><p>We are missing a &quot;dot&quot;!!!!&nbsp; Clearly missing a DOT! (Go back up to the previous picture - it should be very obvious now!) How did that happen? </p><p><br /></p><p>Since if you look at the existing dots in the close up; and look at how they were made; they clearly have a denser look than the surrounding ground. The ground is made by twisting two pairs of threads, the two pairs of threads meet, do a dance to join and then one pair twists alone to meet with the next pair of threads.&nbsp; In the case of the dots, more than one pair is worked with a different combination of stitches to create a denser area which is surrounded by the heavier outline or cordonnet thread.&nbsp; In the case of these dots; probably 4 pairs meet, work and return to the ground.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the case of our &quot;missing&quot; dot; it is truly just &quot;MISSING&quot;!&nbsp; It isn&#039;t just that the outline thread is missing; but also the dance of multiple threads within the outline cordonnet thread. </p><p><br /></p><p>So... one of two things happened. Either the pattern maker failed to draw the dot ON the pattern OR the lace maker missed seeing it drawn/pricked ON the pattern. I must admit that when you are working in a very small space (we are talking under a 1/4&quot; here) under a forest of pins; especially in a poorly lit area; with BLACK thread no less (which is a bear to work on even in GOOD light as it shadows on itself and you can&#039;t see what you are doing)...it is so easy to miss a stitch; and equally as easy to miss a design element! </p><p><br /></p><p>It is unlikely that the lace designer missed drawing the dot; and although it is possible that the pattern maker missed the dot; it is my personal opinion that the lace maker actually missed seeing the dot in the pattern. SO, SO easy to do. It is possible that the light happened to be bad on the particular day that it should have been worked; perhaps she saw it, but ended up at that spot...dropped her bobbins for the night, leaving it for the next day&#039;s stitching and then forgot about it, perhaps she&#039;d been very upset about something and wasn&#039;t concentrating, perhaps she was watching or listening to some other drama unfold, perhaps she wasn&#039;t feeling well, or even possible that someone took over at that spot.... we shall never know. I truly HOPE that her lace mistress in charge never noticed; as I would imagine that the lace maker would have been severely chastised.</p><p><br /></p><p>Chances are very, very good that no one noticed until after it was too late! It is possible that it was never noticed at all!&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;d also like to point out that the &quot;join&quot; of two strips is pretty obvious in this photo. It runs vertically (slightly right to left top down) and is just right of the two dots that are on the left.&nbsp; So instead of looking at 2 twisted threads; there is also a third thread that whips the two strips together; making it look &quot;just&quot; slightly thicker and darker.</p><p><br /></p><p>What other things can we discover about this piece? I&#039;ve found myself searching and searching on occasion for this obvious issue many times... and still it often eludes me!</p><p><br /></p><p>Does anything jump up and down at you in the picture below?</p><p><br /></p><p>Count down from the corner top flower along the outside edge; look between the 6th and 7th flowers. See anything out of place yet? Glaring?</p><p>[ATTACH=full]254806[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Anything now?</p><p>[ATTACH=full]254808[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Sorry, I should have rotated it to the left... but; CLEARLY obvious with brown thread yet... is a very messy 1/2 inch mend!&nbsp; I had always thought that at some point I should do a better mend; but as the years go by, I&#039;ve rather come to accept the mend as part of it&#039;s history.&nbsp; I&#039;ve taken it to many lectures and laid it out or worn it for people to look at and ask them to &quot;read&quot; the lace... it is interesting how often that brown bees nest AND the dot are missed!</p><p>[ATTACH=full]254809[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>We, of course, a mend like this could be found on a machine made piece as well as a hand made lace; but we will never know how the bee&#039;s nest mend came to be; why it was repaired with brown thread instead of black... still, this lace&#039;s life continues...</p><p><br /></p><p>If I scrutinized this piece even longer; I&#039;m sure I could locate &quot;wrong thread paths&quot;; misplaced pinholes, missed stitches... but those are all minor in comparison to the obvious things which we&#039;ve discovered.</p><p><br /></p><p>So now I return to Joan! The machine that pumped out that lovely piece of lace; probably did it in... let&#039;s say it was &quot;embroidered&quot; in roughly an hour (probably less). I base that on my experience in a commercial embroidery studio where we could set a machine to work on a large 12&quot; x 12&quot; HEAVILY embroidered design and it would chug through it in roughly an hour - barring any machine or thread glitches. That, of course, doesn&#039;t include how long it would have taken to design the piece or set up the machinery. But...even including all that; it would have taken considerably less time to make the Schliffi piece. Still a bargain at $1.79!</p><p><br /></p><p>On the other hand; how long did it take the lace makers to create the lace cape&nbsp; example that we&#039;ve been scrutinizing?</p><p><br /></p><p>*Shall we count the design maker?&nbsp; I can&#039;t believe that it would taken him anything less than at least a full day to create the design. We&#039;ll say 8 hours labor (very possibly underestimating - as it takes me days to create a small design that I feel is aesthetically pleasing and workable). I honestly think it could be more than a week... but... we&#039;ll go with 8 hours... assuming that he&#039;s a very experienced design designer.</p><p><br /></p><p>*Next the pattern maker; who would have decided where to split the design into strips and PRE-PRICK PRECISELY by hand, each pin hole. Just to make it easy: lets say 9 strips = 9 pattern makers and in a square inch of ground I count at least 20 x 20 pinholes = 400 pin holes could be more or less in the flowers and other elements. </p><p><br /></p><p>So, correct me if I&#039;m wrong...math is NOT my strong suite! That center strip is 4&quot; x roughly 16 1/2&quot;. That is 66 square inches x 400 pinholes = 26,400 pinholes that would need to be pricked by one pattern maker for just one strip x 9 strips = 237,000 pin holes for the entire cape. </p><p><br /></p><p>How long would it take you to pierce an 1&quot; x 1&quot; square of parchment with 400 holes in a very precise fashion? I just did a sample of 400 holes (mine happens to measure 1 3/8&quot; x 1 3/8&quot; for 20 holes x 20 holes - give or take a few holes) and it took me roughly 8 minutes. I was NOT very precise; just working as quickly as I can.&nbsp; So, I&#039;ll round up to 10 minutes for 20 x 20 pinholes (400 pin holes). </p><p><br /></p><p>At this point; I&#039;m getting lost in all the numbers and clearly, you can see how time consuming this entire process is.</p><p><br /></p><p>*The pattern strips then got taken to what ever lace mistress was in charge of distributing the pattern pieces to her workers along with the appropriate thread for the piece.</p><p><br /></p><p>*Each lace maker would have had to prepare their bobbins - by winding thread on each pair in prep for beginning cleanly. The pattern would have had to be pinned on properly to her pillow to allow her to work advantageously. Work would proceed slowly. I suspect that the floral areas would have taken over several hours to work even a 1/2 inch x a 1/2&quot;; the ground areas perhaps less. I don&#039;t even know how to calculate all that! (When I work; I actually log time so I know roughly how long it is taken.)</p><p><br /></p><p>*Finishing... which would have involved someone; either the lace maker or someone assigned to &quot;finishing&quot;, who would have had to carefully hide &quot;new thread ends&quot; and &quot;tossed out thread ends&quot;, any knots, and of course, the strips would have had to be carefully whip stitched together to make the design on each strip match up perfectly.</p><p><br /></p><p>*Later life... Upon completion; the piece would have moved on to the person who either commissioned the piece or to someone who would have been responsible for finding a buyer.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>So, yes, Joan... for all that labor to have been sold for $25 is unbelievable! Heart breaking! This is why I say that these things on this caliber/scale will never be recreated again. Granted in the time when they were made; they WERE comparatively very expensive... bartered; stolen; traded; smuggled!</p><p><br /></p><p>I just looked on some sale sites and a hand worked cape similar to the one we&#039;ve been discussing today is being listed for over $400 and another hand worked triangular &quot;V&quot; shape one that goes to the floor is being listed at $1000. These prices are better than the give away price of $25; yet... still not really valued as the piece of &quot;art&quot; that they are. And I still occasionally run into a &quot;very good piece&quot; every now and again for a give away price!</p><p><br /></p><p>I believe, my own opinion again... that one reason that these pieces (with rare exception) won&#039;t have &quot;art&quot; values is because it can&#039;t be attributed to one person... like a famous painter&#039;s work might be. It took a village to create; sometimes generations to execute; even the designer wouldn&#039;t have been able to sign his name. Patterns were often destroyed after the piece was made; so it couldn&#039;t be recreated. </p><p><br /></p><p>So on this note; I&#039;m stepping off my soapbox to relax a bit. </p><p>Have a good evening.</p><p>Hope I didn&#039;t bore you too much.</p><p>Leslie[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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