Mesh grounded bobbin lace

Mesh grounded lace is a continuous bobbin lace also known as straight lace. Continuous bobbin lace is made in one piece on a lace pillow. The threads of the ground enter motifs, then leave to join the ground again further down the process, all made in one go. This is different to part lace, where the motifs are created separately, then joined together afterwards.

Mesh grounded lace is a group of lace types that may look very different but share several common properties.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, many laces could be definitely named by their grounds. In 1820–30 lace making was so widespread that names refer to a kind of lace and no longer to the place where it was made. The inherently complex study of lace is further complicated by the use of foreign terms, of alternative terms, and by contradictory usage. Moreover, lace makers have other viewpoints than collectors and curators, so classification is not a black-and-white discussion. The following overview follows a construction point of view that is recognizable when looking into the minute details, but even with this approach the exception proves the rule.

Dense areas of lace have the worker pair acting like wefts weaving to and fro, and passive threads hanging downwards, like warps. In point ground, the workers stay in the dense area, and the passives join or leave, one pair per pin (the pins define the pattern). The worker properties also apply to Torchon and Freehand lace.

The images below compare fragments of lace with a similar ground. Flanders uses a single pin in the centre of the rectangles, the Torchon Rose ground uses a pin at each edge of the rectangle. The Torchon motif has a weaver in the dense motive, the Flanders motive has no pair making U-turns around pins.

Flanders lace: a single pin (red dot) connects two pairs of the ground with the motif

Color coded diagram of the Flanders sample

Torchon lace: two pins (red dots) connect two pairs of the ground with the motif

The Flanders sample illustrating the two pair per pin principle also shows a ring pair: a pair following the shape of the motive, but unlike the gimp it has some distance.

Another example of a ring pair

Many pattern books and directions for making lace were printed in the first half of the sixteenth century; but very few were printed after about 1565. Originally skilled lacemakers made samples of new designs that were passed around to less skilled lace makers. At the time this was the only way of learning new designs. To date we have instruction and pattern books with diagrams. As bobbin lace is worked by plaiting or weaving pairs of threads, lines in many diagrams represent pairs, less elaborate to draw and easier to read large sections. Basic lessons or special tricks are explained with thread diagrams. Black and white pair diagrams do not contain enough information to reproduce the intricate mesh laces. The Kantnormaalschool (School of Lace Teaching) founded in Brugge in 1911 developed a color code. Simply put: where lines cross, a color indicates what to do at that point. The method is commonly accepted and applied in modern pattern books. Especially for mesh laces though other types of lace types may also benefit from the drawing technique.

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Wikipedia