Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/362

Rh Italian at that time was not of the conversational kind. The whole of the following day was spent struggling over that narrow pattern of torchon.

"It was quite the most hopeless thing I ever attempted," she says. "I could see, however, how it should be done, although I could not do it myself. At night my spirits were at a low ebb, and I ached physically and mentally. The next morning, when I went to work again, the difficulties vanished, and I made several inches without a flaw. I took another lesson and learned a new pattern. I showed my teacher a l)it of Duchesse lace, and to my amazement she failed to even recognize it as pillow lace. With my third lesson I found that I could see ' how to make every pattern my Italian lady had; and there were some fifty different laces, from half an inch to eight inches in width. I went home and proceeded to cut up some Duchesse lace under a microscope. I cut blissfully away, as the days went by, until I had sacrificed several dollars' worth, and had found out all but one thing — how to fasten the leaves together. Although they were not sewed, they were firmly joined; and still they were made in order, one at a time. For a long time the way was hidden.

"Next I turned my attention to strip laces—Mechlin, Valenciennes, and English thread. Here, more than ever, I felt the lack of proper material. I had to resort to ravelling out the finest handkerchief linen and using the threads to acquire the technique of Mechlin and Valenciennes. I made the lives of the shopkeepers miserable trying to get fine lace thread. Finally one shopman asked his buyer to get me some, and I paid him eight dollars for what now costs me sixty cents. With this fine thread I succeeded m producing all kinds of fine laces by copying those I owned and others that were very kindly lent to me. I set about finding out where in Europe I could send for materials, and soon began to import all kinds of fine threads, bobbins, and pins."

One day, while Mrs. Weber was looking over an old English book on lace, she came across a list of tools for lace-making. "Among them," she says, "was a tiny hook, described as 'useful in drawing the threads through when joining the leaves.' Here was the clew to the mystery which for three years I had been unable to solve—how the leaves and scrolls were fastened together without being sewed."

About this time there were shown to Mrs. Weber laces that had been left in an estate, to be sold by the executors. Among them was a great square of Venctian point lace and a Duchesse lace skirt—a flounce four yards long and a yard and an eighth deep, with twenty- four point lace medallions set into the pattern. These two large pieces of lace, too old-fashioned in shape to use, too modern to be of interest to collectors, were a problem to the trustees of the estate. She suggested that the lace was made of small pieces, and could be remade into small articles, making it salable. She was asked to figure the number of articles possible, the value when completed, and the cost of making them, and, having done this, was given the chance to do as she had suggested, with pleasing results to all concerned. This brought her curious bits of mending from those who bought the laces. All kinds of lace work came to her, and she began to collect lace, aiming to make a representative collection of laces made at the present day.

The Arts and Crafts Society attracted her. She knew that among its members were those who had struggled with technical difficulties in various crafts. She applied for membership, was received most pleasantly, listened to with interest, and at length was asked if it were possible to establish a lace industry here. Miss Anne Withington, the head of the W^omen's Residence of the South End Settlement, had become imbued with the idea of establishing some industries for girls and women, to be cooperative in plan and to give employment to girls of fine taste and ability, who would in this way be saved from hopeless drudgery in factories and shops. The industries were to be a refining influence in the neighborhood, and lace was to be one of them. She applied to the Arts and Crafts Society for a lace-maker the same week that Mrs. Weber joined the society.

After much advice from persons already versed in industrial work, also after several generous givers had furnished the money, with the Arts and Crafts Society to influence it, Mrs.