lynxlace.com
    for those who love handmade lace

    Make Lace - Learn Lace Making   

   Site Map - Home Page

    © 2009 Lorelei Halley               
    All rights reserved.

    		 

This website is for those who love to make lace, who want to learn lace making, or who love to collect lace.  Special emphasis goes to bobbin lace, my specialty, but also to needle lace, pulled thread work and Hardanger embroidery.   You will find descriptions of the working methods of many forms of hand made lace, and lessons for bobbinlace, needle lace, pulled thread embroidery (also called drawn fabric embroidery) and Hardanger embroidery.  I have included information on books for needlelace, as well as links to a few tutorials.   There are many photos of antique lace, and of laces made by living lace makers, or designed by living lace designers.  For those interested in lace identification, my aim is to increase your understanding of the structure of the various laces, and thereby increase your enjoyment of the objects you love.  This is a new and updated version of my old website loreleihalley.com.  Below find a  complete list    of all the pages in this website, with a brief description of the contents of each page.

Nearly all the photos on this website have been taken by me using a film camera, more recent ones with a digital camera.  Many close-ups of small pieces were scanned in.  Some, about 5%, are digital files passed to me over the internet by the photographer, and used with their permission.  None are from books.  The range of photos reflects the contents of personal lace collections of people I know personally.  (The abbreviation c/o means "from the collection of".)  Only a very few had laces in their collections which were really old -- prior to 1800.  I encountered some of the oldest laces seen here very early in my attempts at photography, before I had macro capabilities.   So I don't have close-ups of the oldest pieces, much to my sorrow.

All the images immediately visible on these pages are thumbnails: small reduced versions to make loading faster.  To see the whole image in all its glory, click wherever you see a hand.  But many of the pages have large numbers of thumbnails and are slow to load, even so.  Please be patient.  Also you may want to see a much enlarged version of some images (the detail is really there).  You can achieve this easily in Internet Explorer by looking for the PAGE button on the Explorer bar (right side just above the image).  Click on PAGE, then on ZOOM and view the files at 200%.  You can then see each thread (in many, but not all, photos).

Lace Identification -- different techniques and methods of lacemaking                        *

To Order my books and patterns

About Specific Laces

Abbreviations:  abbreviations used in labels on photos, names of contributors, authors, designers, photo sources            


  Bobbin lace c. 1710.            Bobbinlace: learn bobbinlace. Czech bobbin lace - 19th c       *

Bobbin Lace: With the history pages, please be patient.  Some have a lot of photos and even thumbnails need time to load.  

Bobbin lace identification (the first 2 pages):                                                                            *

Antique bobbin laces:

1559-1700                    The early phase, very few pieces survive outside museums

Pottenkant/Milanese          Pottenkant, Milanese tape lace or Flemish tape lace, spans period c. 1650-c. 1850

18th century                    (c. 1700 - c. 1790 up to Napoleonic)

Napoleonic era                c. 1790 - c. 1820

19th Straight Bar             1820s through late 19th c Straight Bar Grounded Laces

19th Straight Mesh          1820s through late 19th c Straight Mesh Grounded Laces

19th Part Lace                1820s through late 19th c Part/Sectional Laces

 

Vintage bobbin laces:

Revival era part laces:        late 19th - early 20th century

Revival era straight laces:    late 19th - early 20th century

 

Modern bobbin laces:                                                                                                         *

New Revival Era:                lace by living lace makers and living designers

Christmas Trees:  Two free patterns for Christmas cards designed and donated by Ilske Thomsen of Hamburg

Harz:  a free pattern donated by Ilske Thomsen of Hamburg, and posted with her permission

Waterlily:  free pattern donated by Ilske Thomsen of Hamburg, and posted with her permission.

Christmas Card 2014: by Ilske Thomsen of Hamburg, and posted with her permission.

Bobbin Lace Collar F19:   free pattern of my design.  Uses Honiton or Duchesse technique, enlarged scale.

My Bobbin Lace:    These are laces I have made from my own designs.

 

Learning bobbin lace:                                                                                                           *

 

Needle Lace                                                                                                            *  

Needlelace. Modern needle lace made and designed  by Irma Ostermann The Sun Needle Lace, designed and made by me, Lorelei Halley Needle lace: Point de Gaze needlelace from the last half of the 19th century.

  Needle lace   

How to:

Needle Lace Introduction:  How it is made, general working methods.  Also called punto in aria, dentelle a l'aguille, merletto ad ago, pizzod'ago, encaje de aguja, sita krajka, Nadelspitze

Learning Needlelace:  Details of the working sequence, recommended books, lessons on line, other online resources  to help you learn needle lace, photos of samplers and learning pieces.

Needle Lace Tutorial:   Detailed instructions for a simple bookmark, explaining the basics of setting up the sandwich, how to attach beginning and ending tails of the lace threads, buttonholing the cordonnette to secure the ends.

Needle Lace Tutorial 2:  Leaf 10, a simple leaf design with 8 spaces for stitches.

Reticella Needle Lace:  how to lay the cordonnet using the fil de trace method.

Needle Lace Stitches:  Some stitch diagrams, specific stitches used in certain historic styles of needlelace.

Free Needle Lace Patterns:  some sampler patterns for you to try out several stitches.

Stitches of Point de Gaze   What stitches were used and how they were used in typical motifs of that style

Stitches of Gros Point     Stitches that occur in photographs of very old antique and in Revival Era gros point

 

Photos of antique and modern pieces:

Needlelace Gallery:     Antique pieces: geometric, curvilinear flat, curvilinear raised 

Needlelace by Living Lacemakers:    Needlelace made and designed by living lacemakers

My Needle Lace:    Pieces I have made and some of these I've designed.  Includes some of my learning pieces.

Tenerife, also called Sol Lace, Nanduti  *   Filet Lacis, also called filet lace, lacis   *

 

Filet Lacis and Teneriffe  (Sol lace)           Laces made on a handmade scaffolding  of threads. 

Embroidered Laces on Hexagonal Net:    needle run (darning) and tambour (chain stitch)  Also called tulle embroidery.             *

    Coggeshall and Limerick are of this type.

Embroidered laces on woven fabric


  pt39b m/b LH d/b LH   Pulled thread work, pulled thread embroidery, drawn fabric embroidery.           *

Pulled Thread Work:

How to do pulled thread embroidery, for those who want to learn pulled thread embroidery:

Photos of finished work:

Hardanger embroidery.  H102 m/b LH d/b LH                                          *  

 

Hardanger embroidery 

How to make Hardanger embroidery:

Photos of finished work:

  drawn thread work     *         cutwork              *

Drawn Thread Work          (including reticello, also called reticella)  photos of antique and modern work.  Cutwork has irregular or curvilinear holes are cut into fabric, stabilized and decorated.

Mixed laces: Battenberg lace and Branscombe point (machine made tapes and needlelace stitches)                                                     *  

 

Battenberg lace   Also included are Romanian Needlepoint Laces, made with a crocheted strip held together with needlelace stitches.

Patchwork Lace  * Made of several different kinds of lace sewn together to make a large object, tablecloth or coverlet.

 

 

Single thread techniques                                                                                                                                                     *   

 

           

 

Tatting, Knitted Lace, and Irish Crochet Lace

© Lorelei Halley 2009   

I am offering a great deal of information free to all the world, but I expect my copyright to be respected.  None of my photographs, diagrams or text may be used for any commercial purpose whatsoever, unless  I give permission in writing.  None of my photographs, diagrams or text may be copied electronically or posted on the web unless I give permission in writing.  Personal private use is permitted.

A new site for discussion of all forms of hand made lace:      http://laceioli.ning.com       For help identifying a piece of your lace go to  http://laceioli.ning.com/group/identification-history

Please email me at lhalley@bytemeusa.com with any questions or comments            July 2012          Last edited:   01/22/20