Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/556

538 Wales, were all of Honiton lace, the patterns consisting of the national flowers, the latter with prince's-feathers intermixed with ferns, and introduced with the most happy effect." These sprigs are joined with the needle by various stitches, forming Honiton guipure, Fig. 2, which, in richness and delicacy, is by many thought to surpass the fine



guipure of Belgium, known as duchesse lace. "The reliefs are embroidered with the greatest delicacy, and the beauty of the workmanship is exquisite."

Valenciennes and Mechlin were the first laces in which the ground was wrought in one piece with the design. Until this time all lace had been guipure—that is, it had consisted of open embroidery, in which the figures were connected by brides without any thing like a background. The network ground, which we now take to be the essential thing in lace, was not thought of till the end of the seventeenth century. The word guipure means a thick cord over which silk, gold, or silver thread, is twisted. In the seventeenth century this guipure, or guipé, was introduced into lace to imitate the