Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/201

 LACE twisted sides to the mesh ; all are closely plaited (fig. 22), and as a rule the shape of the mesh is diamond. No outline or FIG. 23. Peasant Lace from Crete. cordonnet is used in Valenciennes lace. Besides these dis tinctive classes of pillow-like laces, there are others in which FIG. 24. German Pillow-made Lace. IStli century, equal ingenuity is displayed, though the character of the design remains primitive, as for instance in peasant laces from Crete (fig. 23), Russia, and Germany. Pillow lace ^f-^vff^^f^ffffffff^iyffyt f. making in Crete would seem v^j^X^y^^^^^iiH^ffi said to be extinct, The laces were chiefly made of silk. The patterns in many speci mens are outlined with one, Bg&f two, or three bright-coloured & silken threads. As a rule the motives of the Cretan lace patterns are traceable to orderly arrangement and balance of simple symmetri cal and geometrical details, such as diamonds, triangles, and odd polygonal figures. Uniformity in character of FIG. 25.- -Russian Pillow Laces. 19th century. design may be observed in many of the German and Russian laces, especially in respect of patterns like that shown in fig. 24 and fig. 25 a. This sort of pattern is used in peasant laces of Sweden, in common French &quot;tor chon&quot; laces, and in a lace made at Ripon in Yorkshire. The meshed grounds (reseaux) of the Chantilly silk )j laces were generally simple in character, as shown in fig. 26. Guipure. This name, often applied to needlepoint and pillow laces, pro perly designates a kind of lace or Fj g- 2 &quot; passement &quot; made with &quot; cartisane &quot; and twisted silk. &quot;Cartisane&quot; is a little strip of thin parchment or vellum, which was covered with silk, gold, or silver thread. Guipure is also made with fine wires whipped round with silk, and with cotton thread similarly treated. These stiff threads, formed into a pattern, were held together by stitches worked with the needle. Such work, which is very much dependent upon the ductile characteristics of the materials employed, is now called gimp work. Gold and silver thread laces were usually made on the pillow. Machine-made Lace. We have already seen that a technical peculiarity in making needlepoint lace is that a single thread and needle are alone used to form the pattern and that the button-hole stitch and other loopings which can be worked by meaiu of a needle and thread mark a dis tinction between lace made in this manner and lace made on the pillow. For the process of pillow lace making a series of threads are in constant employment, plaited and twisted the one with another. A button-hole stitch is not producible by it. The machine does not attempt to make either a button-hole stitch or a regular plait. Up to the [resent, however ingenious may be the counterfeits of design of all sorts of lace produced by the machine, an essential principle of the machine-made work is that th-3 threads are merely twisted together. The only ex ception which could be made to this statement would be as regards the plaited lacs made by the &quot;dentelliere&quot; already mentioned. The Leavers lace machine is that which is gene rally in use at Nottingham and Calais. French ingenuity has developsd improvements in this machine whereby laces of delicate thread are made ; but as fast as France makes an improvement England follows with another, and both countries virtually maintain an equal position in this branch of industry. The number of threads brought into operation in a Leavers machine is regulated by the pattern to be produced, the threads being of two sorts, beam or warp threads and bobbin or weft threads. Upwards of 8880 are sometimes used, sixty pieces of lace being made simultaneously, each piece requiring 148 threads 100 beam threads and 48 bobbin threads. The ends of both sets of threads are fixed to a cylinder upon which as the manufacture pro ceeds the lace be comes wound. The supply of the beam or warp threads is held upon reels,and that of the bobbins or weft threads is held in bobbins. The beam or warp thread reels are ar ranged in frames or trays beneath the stage, above which and between it and the cylinder the twisting of the bobbin or weft with beam or warp threads takes place. The bob bins containing the bobbin or weft threads are flattened in shape so as to pass conveniently between the stretched beam or warp threads. Each bobbin can contain about 120 yards of thread. By most ingenious mechanism varying degrees of tension can be imparted to warp and weft threads as required. The bobbins of the weft threads as they pass like pendulums between thewarp threads are made to oscillate, and through this oscillation the threads t wist themselvesor become twisted with the warp threads. As the twistings take place, combs passing through both warp and weft threads compress the twistings. Thus the usual machine-made lace may generally be detected by its com pressed twisted threads. Figs. 27 and 28 are intended