LACE MANUFACTURE. All the varieties of lace are easily grouped into two classes, according as they are made by hand or by machine.
Hand or Pillow Lace. This fabric differs essentially in form and appearance from the products of an ordinary loom. Until about three centuries ago, lace was made by the needle on a piece of fine woven material, the threads of which were drawn aside to form hold or meshes, held in position by a few stitches. In 1561 Barbara Uttmann, of Annaberg, devised a mode of twisting threads round pine, so as to form a knotted or netted fabric; this was the real origin of pillow lace, the making of which gradually extended to various European countries.
The implements used by hand-lace-makers are few in number, and inartificial in character. They consist of a pillow or cushion, a series of bobbins or small cylindrical pieces of wood round which the thread or silk employed is wound, and pins which are stuck into the cushion and around which the threads are twisted. The pattern of the lane is determined by the disposition of the pins; and this is regulated by holes pierced in a piece of parchment which is laid upon the cushion. It is not possible to give in writing an intelligible descrip tion of the processes of lace-making by means of these implements ; but it will be understood that the effect is produced by the twisting together of the threads upon the bobbins, and their being woven among and around the pins. The pattern depends partly upon the order of arrangement preserved in these twistings and weavings, and partly upon the introduction of a thicker thread, called gymp, which is used for the formation of figures, flowers, and other ornaments.
The finest pillow-lace is made on the continent. It is known in most cases by the names of the towns in which the fabrication is chiefly carried on. The most valuable is Brussels, of which there are two'kinde, Brussels-ground and ll'ire-ground. Brussels-ground has a hexagon mesh, formed by plaiting and twisting four threads of flax to a perpendicular thread; whereas Wire-ground consists of silk, the meshes partly straight and partly arched, and the pattern, worked separately, being Het on by a needle. Mechlin lace has a hexagon mesh formed of three flax threads twisted and plaited to a perpendicular thread ; the pattern being worked in the net. Valenciennes lace has an irregular hexagon mesh, formed of two threads partly twisted and plaited at the top of the mesh ; the pattern is worked on the net. Lisle lace has a diamond-shaped mesh, formed of two threads plaited to a perpendicular. Alencon blond has a hexagon mesh of two threads ; it is one of the poorest of pillow-laces. Alencon paint has two threads twisted round a perpendicular, with octagon and square meshes alternately.
The best Brussels lace excels all others in delicate fineness, and in elegance and variety of design. It is made of flax grown near Hal and at Rebecque ; and the spinning is performed In darkened rooms, with a beam of light admitted only upon the work through a small aperture.
The best are produced by the firms of Tardent-Poilet, and Ducpetiaux, of Brussels. In former days, when Mechlin and Brussels lace often descended as heir-looms from mothers to daughters, the manufacture was confined to Lace from the finest thread that could be prepared from flax ; and neither time nor expense was spared in that preparation. There is now, however, a great deal of cotton worked up in the Belgian lace of medium and inferior quality. In 1856-7-.8, Belgium exported nearly as much cotton lace as flax and silk lace, about a value of 100,000/. of each, chiefly to France. This cotton-lace, however, is mostly of the character of machine-made bobbin-net ; for real pillow-lace is seldom made of other materials than flax or silk.
Besides the description above given, of the different numbers of threads and forms of mesh, the kinds of foreign lace present other diver sities, which are being influenced a good deal at the present day by the machine-made net of Nottingham. Formerly the ground for Brussels lace was made in strips from one to three inches wide, which were after wards joined with such admirable ingenuity as to render the line of junction imperceptible. But the slowness of the process rendered the product very costly; trimming-lace of four inches in width often brought ten guineas a yard, and veils were from twenty to a hundred guineas each. Now, however, the beautiful nct made by machine at Notting ham is more and more used as a ground in Belgium ; the flowers or designs being made on the pillow, and afterwards attached to the ground by the needle. This appliqué lace is now largely made, and is gradually superseding the real Brussels point—insomuch that the are acquiring the antiquarian value which connoisseurs attach to old pictures and old china, depending quite as much on the rarity as on the excellence. Mechlin Lace is all made in one piece, without joining; and its peculiarity consists in a plait-thread surround ing the flowers, so as to give the appearance of embroidery. Valenciennes lace, since about 1S35, has been more largely made at Ypres than at the town whose name it bears ; the dealers now purchase the handiwork of air lead 20,000 persona in and around Ypres. In Franco it is supposed that 200,000 females are employed in pillow-lace mak ing, earning on an average about a penny an hour. Not only flax and but cotton, wool, and gold and silver thread, are often worked up by them into lace ; cotton is increasing in 1111C, relatively to flax. Caen and Bayeux excel in silk Lace piece goods, such as veils, scarfs, berthcs, mantles, robes, and shawls ; Chantilly in the more elaborate and costly kinds of silk-lace; Mirecourt in the elegance of designs for very light and open lace in flax-thread; Alencon in the costly fineness of the flax thread used for making the Alencon point ; and Puy in the cheapness of the lace made by 40,000 or 50,000 workers scattered in the neigh bouring departments.