File:Embroidery and lace- their manufacture and history from the remotest antiquity to the present day. A handbook for amateurs, collectors and general readers (1888) (14778182224).jpg

Identifier: embroiderylaceth00lefb (find matches)
Title: Embroidery and lace: their manufacture and history from the remotest antiquity to the present day. A handbook for amateurs, collectors and general readers
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Lefébure, Ernest, b. 1835 Cole, Alan S. (Alan Summerly), 1846-1934
Subjects: Lace and lace making Embroidery
Publisher: London, H. Grevel
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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larger hexagonalmeshes. As has been said, they were first constructedby means of button-hole stitching, but instead of this theArgentan workers took to a bride tortillee ; that is, twistingor whipping thread around each of the six brides whichform a single mesh. To fix the twisted thread on eachbridey a button-hole stitch was taken on commencing thetwisting, and a second one on its termination at theother end of the bride. This simplification in producinga bride mesh is well explained by Madame Despierresin her history of Alencon laces. The facility withwhich this twisted bride mesh could be made, con-duced to simpler and more economical work, theresults of which obtained considerable vogue in themiddle of the eighteenth century, and were generallyknown (especially in laces with large meshes made inthis way) as Points d Argentan. Laces in which these FROM LOUIS XV. TO THE PRESENT TIME. 229 Argentan bride meshes are happily blended or con-trasted with smaller mesh grounds (of the Point
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. IOI.—Point dAlencon with hexagonal bride ground or resean,commencement of the eighteenth centur). dAlencon class) are frequently of the choicest descrip-tion. 230 II. LACES. But the grounds of regular meshes led to an impover-ishment in the patterns of laces, and when this wasperceived, ingenuity devised the employment of littlefanciful devices (jours or modes) with which the centresof blossoms and other appropriate spaces in the patternwould be filled in. From these modes or fillings spranga series of most charming little devices, in which theskilfully plied needle often surpassed all that it hadpreviously effected. Such fillings or modes will befound generally to be inserted like little jewellings inthe centres of blossom forms, though they also spreadover wider spaces, as in medallions, shells, or spacesbetween garlands and along the borders of laces. Someof these fillings (jours or modes) were even used asentire grounds for such laces as were to be richer ineffect than when

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