Stitches of Point de Gaze Needle Lace
© Lorelei Halley 2010 All rights reserved.
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lynxlace.com Stitches of Point de Gaze Needle Lace © Lorelei Halley 2010 All rights reserved. |
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The Stitches of Point de Gaze and How They Are Used:
I have long had a project in mind, to search through all the photos I could find
of point de gaze and make sketches of all the various motifs I found, with
indications of which stitch was used where, to form a set of possible variants
of working methods and motifs that were an accepted part of the traditional
style.
To understand what stitches were typically part of this historic form of
needlelace (last half of the 19th century) first look at two very good books and
an online article:
Both of the books have chapters devoted to the stitches used in certain historic
needle lace styles, and both include chapters on point de gaze.
Barley also gives full and detailed instructions for working some pieces of her
design, for those who want to learn that form. I won't repeat the work
that they have done very well already. What I want to do is clarify the
range of ways that lacemakers worked this particular style.. How many
different kinds of flowers and what different sets of stitches were chosen in
their work? I'm working with photos in books, photos I find on the
internet (when they are clear enough to see the stitches) and the few actual
laces I have.
216h
This piece is from my personal lace collection, a fragment of 1 1/2 repeats, about 3-4 inches deep. Many shots of it may be seen on my website on the needlelace gallery page.
This photo shows the cordonnet, loosely buttonholed, the very light twisted buttonhole ground, and some other motifs. Click on the thumbnail to get good detail, but if you tell your computer to enlarge the screen to 150% you will get even better detail. In the lower right hand corner is an 8 petaled star pr flower embedded in a circle. The circle is lined with one row of whipped twisted bh. The 8 petals are covered with close buttonholing and the center of the motif is a closely buttonholed ring.
In the upper left hand corner is a small 5 petaled flower that we can only see part of. Three of the petals are corded single Brussels and the other 2 are twisted bh, I can't be sure if it is whipped, but I don't think so. There is a dense spot in the middle of the transparent petals. These 2 motifs are ones I have seen in several pieces.
I the upper right hand quadrant is a set of twigs with 2 sided buttonhole, (the stitches from both sides dovetailing). The ground lies behind the twig which is on top of the ground. Initially I thought that this meant the twig was added after the ground was done. In the lower left quadrant is another twig with some bh rings at the tips. At first I thought that the ground lies on top of this twig, implying that the twig was laid down along with the cordonnet and the ground was worked on top of it. The buttonholed ring on top of the twig is clearly above the ground -- was made after the ground, or on top of the ground.
Liz Ligeti says that the usual method of working the twigs is that they are part of the cordonnet and are couched down first. As the tw bh ground is worked it is anchored to the cordonnet twig, some ground rows anchored from one direction, and the far side ground anchored from the other direction. The twig would then be finished by working buttonhole stitch on top of it from 2 sides, after first padding with several very thin threads. She opined that in this piece it looks like the work is unfinished, and the lacemaker never got around to working the buttonholing on top of all the twigs -- many were just left naked. On looking closely one can see, in fact, the ground stitches connect to the twig, half from one direction and half from the other. The ground is not continuous, ignoring the presence of the twig, but the twig provides a way to work short ground rows. It functions as a kind of pivot point when working the ground. But her explanation does make sense. So perhaps sometimes the ground was worked over the twig -- ignoring it -- and sometimes was anchored to it. See her response at http://needlelacetalk.ning.com/group/pointdegaze her comment of July 7, 2010.
216i
Here is another portion of the same piece. In the twig in the center, with 4 leaves attached, it looks like the ground lies on top, but actually the ground hooks onto the twig from both directions. So the twig was put in first, probably with the rest of the cordonnet, and when the ground was worked the twig served as a partial boundary -- a piece for the ground to anchor onto. The curly twig coming off the petal -- upper right -- has 2 sided tw buttonhole covering it loosely. Most of the petals and leaves are corded single Brussels, their outline threads are covered with the bundle of extra threads, which are then loosely buttonholed.
The twig left has two sided tw buttonhole covering it. The thickness of the twig forces all the twists near the bead. At first glance it looked like up and down buttonhole (Ardenza stitch), but in this photo you can see that they are single twisted buttonhole stitches spaced so that the stitches lie right next to the stitches from the other side of the twig, with a space between every pair of stitches. The ground is clearly alternating rows between 2 twists and 3 twists. The twig in the right hand shot is loosely buttonholed in single Brussels, on one side only. And you cannot see the ground threads on the twigs: they lie under the padding threads laid on the twigs.
Here is a photo of the major flower.
Here is a diagram of what I think is in the underlayer.
The petals are divided into a near-the-center-section and an edge-section. Most of the edge sections are corded single Brussels, but 2 are tw bh with a spot in the center (see Barley for how to do that). The sections near the center are empty rings or scallops with a spider (small wheel or web) on a spoke grid. Some of the spots look like woven spiders but some appear to be rings that are coming apart, perhaps they were intended to be buttonholed. The cordonnet is loosely buttonholed, some twigs serve as ground boundaries, some have 2 sided tw bh.
The layered petal has an outline of twisted buttonhole with the bead facing outwards. That is, the outer edge of the cordonnet is clearly tw buttonhole, not single bh.
There is also a flat point de gaze edging on the gallery page oth 202 and another with layered flowers oth204. Both are from the collection of Doris O'Neill.
http://lynxlace.com/needlelacegallery.html
Also see http://needlelacetalk.ning.com/photo/albums/point-de-gaze-antique and http://needlelacetalk.ning.com/photo/albums/point-de-gaze-modern . Although many are of my piece oth216 described above, there are some other antique point de gaze and also some made by members of needlelacetalk.
I will add analysis of these pieces at some future time.
Barley has photos of several pieces of point de gaze in her book, some sufficiently close up to distinguish the stitches used. The same lappet shown on page 53 also appears in greater detail on page 57, 70, and 104. From some of these I have drawn little motifs indicating what stitch was used where.
Barley page 57.
Barley
page 104
I've color coded the little sketches to show where the various stitches appear. Point de gaze appears to be almost exclusively twisted buttonhole, sometimes whipped and sometimes not, and corded single Brussels, usually worked a little less densely than in gros point. The dense parts are sometimes lightened by a 4 hole bud, or by a single partial row of twist bh. there are also double scrolls, where two scrolls face each other leaving a space between them. These spaces are usually filled with decorative complex circles (modes) or small bh rings but may have fillings laid on a square grid, twigs, or a row of spiders (point d'Angleterre). I'm leaving out of the discussion, for now, the fancy rings and the fillings laid on a grid. They are well described in Earnshaw and Barley. Right now I'm just focusing on how the motifs were made.
Some, but not all, leaves and flowers have the outer edge of the motif lined with one row of wh tw Brussels (#2,3,4). In some flowers some petals may be entirely tw bh (some with spots added), and some may be half tw bh and half corded single Brussels, divided vertically (#1). The large flower - #1 - also has some very small petals worked in another stitch. I can't tell if it is dbl Brussels, dbl tw bh, or possibly double point de Venise (knotted buttonhole, knotted behind). ( If it is knotted bh, it looks like the kind consisting of 2 bh stitches, with another then worked on the loop behind the 1st of these two.) Some petals and leaves show corded bh just inside the outer perimeter, with tw bh nearer the interior of the leaf or petal (#2,3,4). Sometimes the petal or leaf may be filled in straight rows, but the rows contain stitch changes from corded bh to tw bh. Sometimes veins in leaves and petals are 2 sided buttonholed cordonnet (#3), and sometimes just one row of tw bh embedded in an area of solid corded bh (#4). Then there is another kind of 6 or 8 petaled small flower (#5) with one row of wh tw bh lining the cordonnet and one row of plain bh worked into the lining of tw bh, with a dense bh ring in the center. And there are twigs with closely buttonholed rings at the ends of the twigs and the twigs are bh worked on 2 sides (#6).
I have also found motif 17 on more than one lace. It is a narrow leaf filled with tw bh.
The photos in Barley on pages 73 and 90 are from the same piece.
Barley p.73
Barley
p. 90.
7: a layered flower. The petals of the underlayer are scalloped into 3 sections along the edge. In the center of each petal is a cordonnet covered with 2 sided bh. The petals themselves are corded single Brussels in the outer half of the petal, and tw bh with random spots for the inner half. As with many point de gaze flowers part of the center is outlined by a string of small connected rings, closely buttonholed.
8: is a small flower with petals in solid corded single Brussels. The center ring is lined with one row of wh tw bh and is otherwise empty.
9: is also a small flower, but the petals are tw bh with one spot each, and again the center ring is lined with one row of wh tw Brussels.
10. is a medium large leaf of several sections. Sections are alternately corded single Brussels and tw bh with spots.
11. is a small sprig with 4 leaves filled with corded single Brussels. The center vein has a few medium size rings, one touching the next, filled with corded single Brussels.
14. is a medium size leaf -- one half is tw bh with a spot, and the other half is corded single Brussels.
15 A sprig with the twigs loosely covered in buttonhole worked on 2 sides. Some small corded bh leaves, some twigs topped by closely buttonholed rings arranged in a straight line or like tiny buds.
Barley p. 79.
12 A medium size flower with petals alternating between corded single Brussels and tw bh with one spot.
13. A large flat flower with some petals in corded single Brussels and some in tw buttonhole. Part of the center has a series of connected rings, closely buttonholes.
Barley p. 101
16 is a large leaf with center and side veins covered closely in 2 sided buttonhole but I can't tell if it is Ardenza bars or just single buttonhole.
Barley p. 111
18 is a medium small leaf with central vein covered in 2 sided bh, but again I can't tell if it is Ardenza bars or plain bh bars. The filling is worked in straight rows but the stitch changes within the rows from corded single Brussels to tw bh to suggest shading. I've seen this kind of filling in several different pieces of point de gaze in several different shapes of leaves or petals.
Barley has other photos of point de gaze, including pages 68, 79, 101, 105, 111.
I will be adding analysis of those below at some future time.
Nenia Lovesey THE TECHNIQUE OF NEEDLEPOINT LACE, 1980, Larousse & Co., Inc. New York also shows several photos of point de gaze.
14 37 98 129
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36 90 104 105 same piece
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39 & 40 same piece
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131 132 same piece
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These two below are different pieces.
92 inverted pyramids in tw bh, wh tw bh in 4s.
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16 (a fan)
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128 This is the same piece as on page 106 of Lovesey's CREATIVE DESIGN IN NEEDLEPOINT LACE.
Nenia Lovesey CREATIVE DESIGN IN NEEDLEPOINT LACE, 1983, Batsford, London
107 not detailed enough
109 not detailed enough