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Irish Lace
Irish Lace | Irish Lace Styles | Buying Irish Lace
Lace is undoubtedly a luxury item but it was first made in Ireland as a direct result of poverty. During and after the famine years, in the mid 19th century, training centres were set up as a means of charitable assistance to the impoverished Irish population. Some were started by Church of Ireland clergy or their wives, others by philanthropic landowners and quite a few by Catholic convents.
Initially all of these places took a lace making style from elsewhere in Europe and taught it to local women and girls but gradually the Irish styles forked away from the original ones and distinctive methods of working evolved in each locality.
Irish lace gained an international reputation for the fineness of the needlework and the intricacy of the designs used and lace making flourished in many places until late in the 19th century. After that it rapidly declined, chiefly because Ireland, then quite a backward place where the industrial revolution made little impact, was unable to compete with readily available and much cheaper machine-made lace.
By the mid 20th century the craft of lace making had largely died out and the traditional skills were kept alive by just a few enthusiasts in each area.
There has recently been a revival of interest in lace making and there are now many people doing beautiful work in both the traditional style and contemporary version of old styles. It is still a slow, painstaking process to create lace by hand, so lace is not something you will find in most gift shops but it is well worth seeking out.
Machine-made and Hand-made Lace
There are two common types of machine-made lace. In the first type, cutaway lace, the lace pattern is machine embroidered onto fabric and then the fabric is cut away, again by machine, leaving the holes which give the appearance of lace. It is usually quite easy to spot the remnants of the fabric around the edges of the stitching which are characteristic of this technique.
The second type is chemical lace and this is the way in which Irish Crocheted lace is usually made by machine. In this method the stiching is done in a natural fabric, usually cotton or linen, onto a synthetic fabric background. The finished piece is then dipped in a chemical solution which disolves the sythetic fabric leaving just the stitched lace. The result is very close to hand made lace in appearance.
While there is nothing at all wrong with machine-made lace, and it is certainly a lot more affordable than the hand-made variety, you do need to watch out for people attempting to sell 'antique hand-made Irish Lace' which is actually chemically made and stained to look old. It is not a common practice, but be on your guard. Buy antique lace only from reputable dealers, not at market stalls or street fairs.
Hand-made lace is expensive and good quality antique examples especially so. If a piece seems very cheap, it would be wise to wonder why.
Irish Lace | Irish Lace Styles | Buying Irish Lace
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Suggested Reading
Masterpieces of Irish Crochet Lace
Instructions for creating designs that appear in 19th-century pieces of lace.
Fine Irish Crochet Lace
Reprint of a 1930's classic with instructions, diagrams and photographs
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