[HNW] crochet

[Chris Laning]

At 9:09 AM -0800 11/2/03, Dyan Johnson wrote:
>What about needle lace?...Is this what you are referring as netting?
>Dyan

No, though that's certainly another option. Needle lace is like doing 
embroidery with no background cloth -- "punto in aria" ("stitches in 
the air") as the Italians call it. Of course you have to be careful 
to design it so that it holds together when you're done.

Netting is made just like making fish nets, although of course the 
stuff you want to make lace out of is much smaller -- 1/4 inch mesh 
or even less. After you make the netting, you embroider it in 
matching thread. Embroidered square netting like this is called Lacis 
("La-SEESE", rhymes with "peace"). Filet crochet was invented in the 
19thc. as a quick way to make "fake" Lacis.

I've always found it mildly amusing that bobbin lace was invented as 
(among other things) a quicker way to make something that looked like 
needle-made lace, and then crochet was used as a quicker way to make 
something that looked like bobbin lace. Then came machine-made lace, 
and now we have "chemical lace" where something lacy is made by 
dissolving away some threads with chemicals to create the holes.... 
<g> I suppose "virtual lace," which doesn't exist at all, must be 
next!

As for crochet, Santina Levey (author of _Lace: A History_) places 
the origin of crocheted lace in the late 17th century, and as far as 
I know no one has found anything new in the last few years to change 
that. There's a "crochet FAQ" in this file's archives somewhere, and 
also in the archives for H-Costume at 
http://net.indra.com/pipermail/h-costume which I think is public.
-- 
_________________________________________________________
O    Chris Laning
|     <claning at igc.org>
+    Davis, California
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