Antique of the Week--Doily No.3

Here is the third of Pat's friend's doilies--Enjoy!!

Full doily.  Many of the motifs used around the outside are more uncommon.  The trellis motifs in the center have been modified from a square shape, so when they are combined they make an oval instead of a rectangle.

One of the flowers on the end of the oval.  Bullion "Clones" Knots in the center and fat bullion stitches on the outer part of the center.  I've not seen this motif before. I'm hoping someone can identify it in the comments!

Fern motif with huge cylindrical bullions in the center.

Thanks again to Pat for sharing these pieces with us!!!

Antique of the Week--Doily No.2

This week's gorgeous antique is the second of the Doilies from Pat (see last week's post).  

Full view

a US quarter and a 2 pence coin to show the tiny scale of the inner lace of the doily

Flower and Grape motifs

Three dimensional flower motif.  Here also is a good view of the Clones Knots on the filling.

Wheel with shamrock spray.   Look at the Clones Knots in the spray, creating tiny shamrocks!

Challenge--Valentino Blue Lace Dress

Have you seen it?  Cameron Diaz is wearing it on the cover of this month's InStyle magazine.  Valentino describes this as a silk macrame lace dress, and it will run you over $5,000.  We've been chatting about it over on Ravelry, and some have come to the conclusion that the lace must be machine made.  Some of us think it's reminiscent of the heavy lace look of Irish Crochet.

I think this is the perfect inspiration piece for a Challenge.  Each month, we will post a Challenge, and anyone can participate.  The only rule is: be inspired!  (oh and send pictures!!!)  Interpret this beautiful Valentino dress into your own Irish Crochet creation. It can be a single motif, a series, or a repeating pattern.  It can be big or small, out of no. 10 thread or 100.  It can be using the color or not, the entire piece, or just part of it.  HAVE FUN!  Send Kim your photos by June 15th and I'll post a collage of them here on the blog.

Thanks to Eileen for the great idea of Modern Interpretation!

Here are some more shots of the dress and the fabric.  

Antique of the Week--Doily

Pat, a member of the Irish Crochet Lovers group on Ravelry shared some exquisite examples of IC a couple of months ago.  Over the next few weeks we will share all of the pieces on this blog.  Pat says, 

"A friend of mine had a bag of IC lace which she gathered up when clearing out her Aunt’s house in Roslea, County Fermanagh back in the late 80's. We got talking one day and the result is that I have now washed and blocked all these pieces for her.  It is not at all impossible that there were many made to the same design in the area. My friend’s older sister remembers, when she was a young girl, ladies from all over coming to the house for an evening working to make up designs from their individual motifs.  My friend’s sisters remember evenings of work and music when groups of local ladies would gather together to make their motifs up into finished articles, both secular and religious. Sadly the older generation of her family are all long gone now."   

17 inches in diameter

Detail of motif

If you have any antiques that you would like to share, please send photos to Kim at irishcrochettogether@gmail.com

Antique of the Week--Look into the Past!

From Jennifer at starchedandcrumpled.com:  "Dating to around 1910, this is an unfinished Irish crochet lace collar, still stitched to the blue fabric and paper with hand drawn pencil guidelines. The large motifs have been completed, and the joining lace tracery has just been begun.  The inner collar measurement is approximately 44cm, and the outer edge is 88cm. It is 10cm deep." 

Here is a full view of the collar.  As Jennifer noted above, the motifs are stitched to a fabric collar shape, and then basted to a paper backing.  Do you think that the fabric shape was a "pattern piece"?  One that they saved and re-used for other collars?  Note how she laid out the motifs in a symmetrical pattern, with the pomegranates thistles at both ends, then working inwards, the daisies, the swirling shamrock, the next swirling flower (what is that?) and centered with the elaborate, three dimensional Irish rose.  Two types of wheels would frame the face. 

Here is a great view of joining in progress!  Can you tell if she started on the outer cord, and worked her way towards the motif, or the opposite?  You can see that the motif is right-side-up.  We had questions about motif placement after watching the Russian style of Irish Crochet.  Do you join your work with the motifs face down or face up?  The Russians usually do it face down.  Maire Treanor does it face up, as she wants the Clones Knots to be on top of the work.  This person worked face up as well.

I wonder why this was never finished?

You can see the pencil tracing on the paper here on the outer edge of the collar, where the maker was going to put the edging.  See the little triple arcs along the upper left and lower left edges?

You also get a great view of the cord that was basted to the paper, outlining the collar and giving her something to anchor the joining ground to.  -posted by Kim


UPDATE!

From Eileen:  "I have observed that most of the motifs are contained in Vol 1 of the Hardouin series-all except the small wheel and 
flower. 


Le Chardon-Thistle-no.20 Les trois Spirales no 13 
La Marguerite no 18 
L’Helice no 1(The Propellor) 


Forgot to check on the rose but was common to have 10 or more petals with more than 3 layers of petals.

It is interesting to note the use of cord to form the outline of the collar.  I know that the lace made at Oriveto (Italy) uses the outline method from the needlepoint laces and the maker crochets over it to form the motifs.

In the background of the photos the invoice has a French Address.

It seems to me the maker of this was drawing upon techniques she was familiar with.

The direction of the small area of ground worked in the double picoted loop begins on the short edge and is worked towards the centre.  Not a direction I would have chosen for me it would have been more pleasing to the eye to begin at the base line and proceed towards the neckline, (like the centre outwards of a circle-have said this one lots before.)

No hard and fast rules have been written for these things in the end they are personal choice."

IC Tips-Hook and Thread Size Guide

Chart from Maire Treanor’s book “Clones Lace”, currently available from her website:

Thread          Hook              Irish-UK     US
#10               1.50mm              10            12
#20               1.0 or 1.25mm    12            13
#40               0.75mm              13            13 
#60               0.60mm              14            14 
#80               0.50mm              15            15 
#100             0.50 or 0.40mm   16            16

This is for general guidance. Always be ready to change your hook size to suit your individual tension and the motif you are making. Irish crochet, unlike many other forms of crochet, looks its best when worked to a firm tension.

“All the stitches in Irish lace must be firm and even, loose or ragged crochet makes inferior lace, wanting in crispness”, Needlecraft No 21, published by Manchester School of Embroidery. This is from the Introduction which has some useful tips on Irish crochet and is available for free download fromwww.antiquepatternlibrary.com

from pages, Irish Crochet Lovers Group on Ravelry

Translation-Hardouin, Volume 2, No. 27, La Feuille de Marguerite

US Terms

This motif is worked entirely on the PC in the back loops.

(making the leaves counter-clockwise from the bottom right leaf, this is all in one piece.  You are working a little hidden stem behind the leaf first, which is not visible in the final piece, then building the leaf from the center out.  You continue making part of the visible stem each time you finish a leaf.)

Leaf:  

32 sc on the PC, turn, skip the first 2 stitches, make 15 stitches going down the next stitches, and 5 stitches in the 16^th.  Make 12 stitches going back up the other side of the stitches you just worked into.  You will be working in the base 2 loops of those sc.  Your 12 stitches should be just opposite the decending stitches.

Make 2 stitches on the PC, turn and skip 2 stitches, sc down 14 stitches,

[these stitches make the tip (seal the tip)] –not sure what this means.  I take it to mean to slipstitch the turning stitch down onto your little stem.

5 stitches in the next stitch. Then continue to rotate around your area and go up the other side with 14 stitches, two stitches on the cord, turn

Go down 16 stitches, always skipping the first 2, making 5 stitches in the 17^th, and go back up 13 stitches.

Turn with 2 stitches on the cord, skip 2, go down 15 stitches, 5 in the 16^th, go back up 15 stitches.

Turn with 2 stitches on the cord, skip 2, go down 17 stitches, 5 st in 18^th, go up 14 sts.

Turn with 2 stitches on the cord, skip 2, down 16, 5 in the 17^th, up 18,

Turn with 2 stitches on the cord, skip 2,  and go to the bottom of the leaf until the 21^st stitch.

Make another stitch in the 21^st, and hook at the same time the first of the remaining stitches on the tip of the cord under the leaf.

This leaf is the first on the bottom right, the other four leaves are made in the same way.

Stem:  La Tige

After the leaf make 65 stitches on the cord, make the second leaf, go 6 stitches down on the stem.

40 stitches on the cord, make the top leaf, go down 8 stitches on the stem.

38 stitches on the cord, make the fourth leaf, 6 stitches on the stem of the leaf, then 20 more stitches along the main stem.

38 stitches on the cord,  5^th leaf, go down 6 stitches for the leaf’s stem.

For the bottom of the stem:  30 stitches on the cord, turn and go back up those stitches, stopping when you meet the base of the first leaf stem

It is not necessary to always make the entire branch, you can make just 2 or 3 leaves as you wish.

Translation by Kim