Irish Crochet Lace Renaissance

01 irish crochet lace renaissance by K. L. Bevan In times of austerity, fashion often bucks iconic Lacemaker comes to mind, a great pillow of the trend as if it could make up for what is pins, with bobbins of infinitely fine threads weaving back and forth. Actually, lace can be divided into lacking in our lives. Where there is less, let three sorts, the twisting and plaiting of pillow or us have more; where there is drabness, let bobbin lace, the twisting and looping of needle lace us have decoration. So it is in the current and of course, the crocheted kind. climate that the little-known art of Irish crochet lace is coming back into fashion Irish lace would have been little seen in England, much of the fashionable lace coming from Venice, after many years of being carefully Brussels, Rome, Antwerp or Cologne. Some came archived in acid-free tissue paper. In fact, from England, mostly pillow lace from Honiton, this particular form of embellishment Buckingham or Ripon and this was often from grew out of deprivation in the 1840s continental patterns. In the 19th Century Parisian fashions were de rigeur including the French when it became an opportunity for “Guipure d’Irlande”, actually from – you guessed it industry and income bringing about a lace – Ireland. One thing commonly made from lace 02 renaissance. were matching collar and cuff sets. This may seem antiquated, costume wise, however numerous Irish crochet lace is distinguished by its raised motifs fashion houses are currently selling collars, worn often worked with padding or a cord foundation separately to plain round-necked dresses or T-shirts. within the stitches. Three-dimensional motifs consist Back then lace was a luxury most people could not of flowers, with petals layered over each other, afford. shamrocks, leaves and almost any other shape you can think of. Rather than working in straight rows, Crochet lace was quicker to make than needle lace motifs are made individually and joined by means of and utilised skills that women already had. In her picot, net stitches or bars (known as brides). Older Book of Polonaise Lace, written for people to copy pattern books give only the motif designs and expensive styles of lace for home use, The expect the reader to be adept at joining them Silkworm writes that this style of lace is: “…easily together – fortunately for us we can now expect and quickly executed with the crochet needle, will directions for both – while using just the motifs be welcomed by many ladies whose positions allows one the freedom to invent designs as you go require, for their own toilette and that of their along. Because of its modular nature, work can be children, a style of dress trimming in keeping with made be any number of people, garments can be the mode of the day, but whose incomes are taken apart and remade or sections replaced if they insufficient for the purchase of the real laces wear out. It also gives scope to undo the pattern themselves.” and remake the motifs in a different arrangement, another sign of thrifty thinking. A state of hopeless confusion Needlecraft: a practical journal of Irish Crochet, The Lacemaker published by the Manchester School of Embroidery When thinking of lace, an image like Vermeer’s in 1909, advises keeping your worked motifs and 01. A young girl watches as a 9 year old boy, Joe Cafarella, his 10 years old sister Lena and his 13 years old cousin, Mary Lazzaro crochet in a Somerville alley, Massachusetts, 1912. Photographed by Lewis Hine, American photographer and sociologist 1875 - 1940. 02. Two women and a young girl making Irish crochet lace cuffs and collars in a tenement apartment. Photograph by Lewis Hine c.1990 03 threads in a neat basket as “...there are few kinds of 04 work to beat Irish crochet lace in its facility for getting into a state of hopeless confusion.” Up to three different weights of thread can be used in one pattern, for the motifs, padding and the background netting joining it all together. The overall design is made on tracing paper and transferred onto fabric. The motifs are then tacked in place on this backing material and then the mesh worked from the centre outwards. Once the mesh is complete, the tacking stitches are removed and the design can be lifted off the background. As with other kinds of raised work blocking must be done by steam on the wrong side, so as not to flatten the texture of the pattern, laying it face down on a thick, clean towel. Abbreviations are the same as usual, watching out as ever for the annoyingly different US terms, with the addition of blocks (blks) and more kinds of picot that you can shake a hook at. Stitches are generally worked into the front of the previous stitch, as the work is one sided. Padding is used to create a raised central motif, sometimes with cord wrapped around a cork, or a finger, in the centre of the work. You may recognise some of the filling where it was known as nun’s lace, the trainers constant vexation. In the Needlecraft journal, one the famine. stitches, frequently mesh chains with the addition bringing their skills from France, emigres from the pattern for a child’s dress extends over 20 pages. A group of philanthropists decided that this cottage of picots, while some techniques are new, like the violence of the French revolution. In the 1750s Written instructions would have been difficult to industry could raise people above the breadline and Clones Knot, a kind of padded picot. The region a Honoria Nagle, a young nun, opened two lace follow before images were used. As with most set about to modernise the industry. It was felt that piece comes from may be identified by the way the teaching centres in Cork and in Youghal. At that things, learning would have been easier with the skill was there, but that the patterns used were motifs are joined, with netting, knots or brides. time Catholics were not allowed to own land or someone to follow and by seeing examples of the dated. In 1884 a committee was set up with the work in education, so much of her life had been lace itself. prime objective of obtaining new patterns for Irish History of making spent in France. When she came back to open lace makers and to boost the business of lace-making The original development of crochet as a schools, and to found the Presentation Order, she Co-operative working in Ireland. “The making of lace in Ireland is a technique is still hotly debated. It was not a popular brought French lace skills with her. The ‘great hunger’ of the 1840s known in Irish as domestic industry, practised by some hundreds of craft or evident skill until the 1880s and little is an Gorta Mór, coincided with a fashion for lace peasants in their homes, by communities in known about the early history as few examples are Invention of crochet lace is generally attributed to and opened up an opportunity for lacemakers in Convents, by children in Industrial and other extant. Shepherd’s knitting, an early form of crochet Mademoiselle Riègo de la Blanchardière who Ireland. Workers made lace out of doors, or in poor Schools and by others.” The treasurer of the using just simple slip-stitches, may have been a published instructions in 1846 to replicate Spanish candle light in the evenings. Light from a single committee is named as the Hon Alan S. Cole Esq of precursor. Sometimes known as ‘Scottish’ knitting, needlepoint lace, a simpler variation of Venetian candle was reflected by a glass globe filled with the South Kensington Museum, son of Sir Henry colours were travelled along the back of the work raised needlepoint lace that uses varying thicknesses water, a lacemaker’s lamp. Work passed between Cole the first director of what we now know as the or interestingly worked into the stitches as a kind of padding cords covered by buttonhole stitches. makers who specialised in one particular part of Victoria and Albert Museum, and the V&A still of padding. In bobbin lace a small hook would Although she was a prolific publisher and self- the process – making certain styles of motif, linking holds in its collection a number of fine examples of have been used to pull the threads and this may proclaimed originator of the style, Irish makers had them together or planning and design – in an early Irish crocheted lace. The committee gave prizes for have been the basis of the first crochet hooks. no need of books as they would copy work from version of a co-operative conveyor belt system. The new designs and brought about a second renaissance Similarly tambour work would have used a hook each other and original samples. A string of popular final task was to launder the work – grubby having in crochet lace and numerous schools were set up to to push thread through a base fabric. pattern books fed the popularity of crochet and passed through a number of hands – and flatten it educate the next generation of makers. publishing patterns became popular at this time, with a glass smoother. The extra funds earned in Irish girls learnt the craft in school or in convents, although the writing of the ‘in between’ parts was a this way were crucial in helping families survive Good ideas travel 03. Marie Connelly makes clones knots between the main motifs in a piece of hand crocheted lace.

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