Discovering Teneriffe Lace Crochet

    CAUTION! Huge rabbit hole ahead!

 

    What do you think of when I say 'Flower Loom'? Do you see a brightly coloured children's toy and squeaky acrylic yarn? Well that is not this! This is a complex story which will take us around the globe and as far back in time as the ancient Greeks and Romans. This is the history of fashion and the development of lace, with a bit of sociology thrown in. While we're at it we may make the odd button and flower as well! Are you ready?!

    A few posts ago I asked for a definition of lace. Tansy left her definition in the comments;  "lace is a fabric with holes in it. (Deliberate holes, of course.) Nothing more, nothing less!" That works for me, so perhaps I should have asked, "why is lace?" Let's face it, lace serves no purpose except ornamentation. To answer this question I found myself back in the 7th century BCE in Greece when what came to be known as Sumptuary laws were first enacted. These laws have been many and varied, as you might imagine. Their importance for us is that they restricted what we could wear based on our social status, even down to what colour and weave of fabric or fur we could use.

 

    Here is a famous image of Elizabeth I. It is packed full of imagery; from the Spanish Armada being wrecked on the top right, to her hand resting on a globe over which, we are to understand, she has dominion. In an age when few people could read, what they saw had to speak volumes. So of course I was wrong when I said, lace serves no purpose. Ornamentation tells us that this person is very rich and very powerful. Her whole dress is made of rich fabrics and smothered in fine time-consuming lace and embroidery, gold and gems.

    Now I know why lace exists but not how it came to be created in the first place. How did it come about that someone sat down one day to make a time consuming fragile textile? There are so many types of lace and no doubt the origin of each one is different. The history of Teneriffe lace gives us an insight to how it might have happened.

    Our story begins with drawn thread work. This is where some of the threads in a linen fabric are cut and drawn out of the fabric. The remaining threads can then be gathered together to create patterns using a needle. With time the designs got increasingly complex. (My apologies for the image above. It is my own experiment from a sometime ago. It was never intended to be seen by anyone and perhaps explains why I now crochet rather than embroider!)

    Eventually we have found ourselves creating Cut Work, where threads are joined to the cut fabric and overlaid with button hole stitch. By Tansy's definition we have created lace! You can see that from here it was no trouble at all to stop using fabric and just begin with a network of threads.

    Teneriffe lace is a fine example of how this process works. Beginning in Spain in the 16th century with drawn thread work, becoming 'Sol'-sun and 'Rueda'-wheel cut work. It in turn was carried to South America where it retained the name Sol in Bolivia, Brazil and Peru and became Ñanduti in Paraguay. Eventually the fabric was dispensed with and the lace was worked on pins set in a ring. There is a DMC Therese de Dillmont book dating from 1920. (As she died in 1890 it was clearly not written by her.) It states that the lace is made on cushions, or metal or rubber discs.

    Our story is not yet finished! In Dorset buttons were made around brass rings, just like Teneriffe lace in miniature, they date from the 17th century. This skill was taken to Yorkshire where the buttons were stuffed rather than left flat. Not to be outdone, there is also a Lincolnshire button. Before anytime has passed we have found ourselves in the land of Passementerie buttons as well. Let us hurriedly back track before we find ourselves lost for all time!

    From perhaps the 1920s Teneriffe lace seems to have crossed over into our world of knit and crochet, becoming 'daisy wheel'. It finally sees a resurgence as 'flower loom' in the 1970s, with those acrylic yarn flowers that I seem to remember making as a child!

  

  All that is left for us is to see how and where exactly the crochet comes into our story! Teneriffe lace and flower looms now come in all manner of shapes and sizes. I have armed myself with a very simple plastic loom, so let's try out a few techniques.

    My looms come in a simple circle and a square, with one row of pins around the outside. You will also find them with a hole in the middle and additional rows of pins. You may find them small and delicate or large and chunky. In all cases you begin by wrapping the yarn or thread in a sort of figure of 8.

Begin by creating a figure of 8 around two opposing pegs.

Take the yarn straight up to the pin on the right,

Around that pin and straight down to it's opposing pin. 

Continue around the loom, you may wrap as many times as you like. Wrapping like this creates a plumper flower.

Or wrap each pair of pegs a number of times before moving to the next pair. This is called a flat wrap.

Now we must secure the centre. There are many alternatives.

To create an open centre thread a needle with the tail end of your yarn, or with a second colour. Bring the needle down through the middle and back up between the threads. You can choose to go between the individual loops (or petals)...

Or into the loops...

Or both...

Continue working around the 'flower'. This technique is easier if you have a loom with an open centre. If you have one like mine then you will find it easier with a flat needle or a bent needle.

Perhaps you prefer a spiral centre. 

In this case the top of the flower is the under side as it sits in your loom. Take your yarn end or second colour. Secure it in the centre. Take the needle under 4 petals, come back over 3, re insert the needle and repeat around the flower. You must do this one time more than the number of pins on your frame. I have 12 pins so I worked the weave 13 times. Fasten off on the back.

A back stitched centre is worked in a similar way. This time the upper side of your flower is the top. When you sew around the flower go under 2 petals and back over one.

For an over sewn centre, simply sew from one side to the other moving systematically around.

A woven centre is made by weaving under one petal and up over the next. When you have completed one whole round bring the needle up through the middle of the next petal. This 'split stitch' will be hidden by the last stitch on this round. Next weave over the petals that were left empty on the last round and under the others.

As this is meant to be a crochet blog, you might instead surface crochet around the flower. For this you will definitely need an open centre frame. I wish I had known that in the beginning! Instead I had to pre thread the working yarn around the flower. You could combine this with your other centres.

Having completed your flower you may use it as it is, or crochet around the edge using it as the centre piece to a patchwork square.

Now you may join your flowers or patchwork pieces in all the usual ways!

 

    Travelling back in time once more we can recreate the art of button making. For these experiments I have chosen a chunky curtain ring.

Take a metal ring and blanket stitch tightly around the edge...

Turn the tops of the stitches under so that they are hidden at the back..

Now wrap the thread around the button to create spokes. You need at least 6. It helps to mark the positions before hand with an air-soluble fabric-marker pen. Begin with the working thread at the back of the button, bring it down and around back to the top. As you bring the thread down again take it to the second position in the same way that we wrapped the pins on the loom. At first it looks very untidy.

When you have made the last wrap, bring the needle up between two pairs of thread, across the centre and down between two more pairs on the other side. Make a second stitch between another pair of spokes. This straightens the spokes. Before continuing, check to make sure the centre of the wheel is central in the button. These two stitches are enough to hold the threads, but you could continue to over sew all the spokes to create a little nipple...

Now we make back stitches to weave around the spokes. Bring the needle up and back stitch over one pair of threads. The needle goes down and forwards under two pairs of thread and then backstitch over one pair...

Repeat this process around the button to the very edge and weave away the thread end.

There are many other techniques for you to investigate if you have a mind to and if so I highly recommend you use a lace netting needle/shuttle. In any case I hope you can already see the similarities emerging between these two crafts.

 

The Teneriffe instructions begin with the same wrapping technique as the Flower Looms.

This time we secure the loops by chain stitching around the edge. This helps to hold the design on the pins.

We can gather the threads together in any combination that takes our fancy.

Additional rows can be be added creating a grid, and adding further complexity.

Now we may make any of the needle lace stitches available to us such as herringbone,

and darning stitches,

to add shape and solidity to the design.

 

I had to have a go at this as well. I quickly found that I needed more pins than my 12 pin loom. After much frustration I repurposed a much abused old blocking mat. I cut out a circle and stuck 36 pins into the edge. I also found that the DMC book was pretty hopeless for a beginner and instead used Alexandra Stillwell's book. 

The result is very simple but I at least satisfied myself, that with practise, I might achieve some of the more complex patterns.

It seemed appropriate to play around with this 'blocking-mat' loom and see if I could create something that drew on all the techniques I have learnt in the process of writing this post.

My final thought is this: in an effort to bring order to the ebullient Victorian world of design did we end up dumbing down the skills that we once had? I don't think it's too late to add back some of these skills and in doing so create something unique to our age. Any thoughts?

Some useful Links:

Therese de Dillmont's 1920's Teneriffe Lace book.

Alexandra Stillwell's 1980 Teneriffe Lace book.

Gina-B Silkworks UK for supplies and YouTube videos.

Knitting-and.com for Information, links and YouTube videos.

Fastening off...

Discovering Fancy Braid Crochet

     

Is there any kind of crochet which might surprise you? I think I may have found one that will. It has certainly surprised me! And trying to track it down will lead us on a merry dance.

    There are a few images in the Therese De Dillmont Encyclopedia that I have become so familiar with without actually realising what I was looking at. The wording 'crochet lace with mignardise', finally broke open this secret.

English Braids for Irish Lace.

So you'll be wanting to know what 'mignardise' is. It has nothing to do with small sweet treats served with coffee. A google search was quite fruitless to start with, even when I added the word 'cordon', which coincidentally had nothing to do with French cooking or lines of Police. Searching for 'braid' was equally fruitless as all I found were military uniforms and hairstyles. Thankfully the learned Cary Karp from the Loopholes blog let me in on the secret.

    Not instantly coming up with the solution has actually meant I have more information than I could ever have imagined. For instance, I am currently working on the premise that crochet did not instantaneously spring up in the 18th and 19th centuries as a development of Tambour work. Instead it emerged from obscurity and grew in popularity due to it's ability to mimic other forms of work. In an 1883 edition of The Girl's Own Paper, the unnamed author tells us that 'crochet itself came out as a more rapid imitation of lace.'

    Sadly, the required mignardise braids are not easily found today, if at all, but there are various ways that we can replicate this work. To do this, we must first discover what lace-work fancy-braid crochet is trying to replicate. The list, you might be surprised to discover, is quite a long one. Although I recognise it as Irish Lace it seems frequently to be compared to Honiton Lace, which are both Tape or Point lace. A quick search leads to a seemingly endless list of leads to follow. For our purposes I shall describe it as; woven tapes tacked and pinned into shapes and designs which are then permanently set in place with needle made stitches, creating a webbing of bars and net. According to my brief research this type of lace was developed in the 17th century but found it's heyday in the 19th. 

    This is a detail from my Mum's best table cloth. To be honest, I can't imagine ever having an occasion to use it. Except today of course, when it is serving as a modern illustration of Lace braid work!

    What can we do if we want to bring this fancy-braid crochet into the 21st century? Well, plenty it seems! There are still braids, laces and trims that we can repurpose. There are various ways we can make our own, and there are ways to repurpose the crochet skills we already have.

    Here are some modern trims that I found. The Braid is called gimp braid. While it is very chunky, all the authors from past eras tell us to match the weight of yarn to the braid.

Personally I've never liked Ric Rac braid, but our unnamed author from 1883 tells us that this can be 'used for the trimming of children's under linen' and makes 'a durable edging'.

Double Chain

Dillmont tells us that, 'a chain like this makes a very good substitute for mignardise when that cannot be got of the right size or colour for the required purpose.' Besides this, she also gives us Lace Picots,

Crochet Lace Picots

and Hand-knotted cord,

or, should you be feeling adventurous, you could make your own pillow lace!

Plaited Pillow Lace Braid

     

Now let's see if any of this is at all possible!

To make the double chain:

Chain2,

put the hook under one loop of the first chain, Yarn Over, pull up a loop,

Yarn Over and pull through both loops on hook, 

*put the hook into the left-hand loop of the stitch, YO, pull up a loop,

YO and pull through both loops on hook,

Repeat from*.

 

This is my version of the Dillmont crochet picots:

*Chain3, 

the loop on the hook will become the picot, so pull the last-chain-made tight, remove the hook,

put the hook in the 2nd-chain and then the 1st-chain at the same time,

Yarn Over and pull up a loop,

Repeat from *. 

To make the hand-knotted cord:

Making this for the first time it helps to use two colours until you get a rhythm.

Take two lengths of yarn and knot together.

Cross the two threads with the left underneath, as shown.

Take the knot with the thumb and middle finger of the right hand, placing the forefinger through the loop that has formed from the bottom thread crossing underneath the top thread. Take the ends of each thread, one in each hand. As shown in the original illustration.

Now put the left forefinger into the loop from the right, and hooking it under the thread coming from the left hand, pull it forward. See below.

At the same time, drop the loop from the right hand and pass the knot to the left hand. Tighten the old loop with the right hand.

Next work the same movements with the right hand. Put the right forefinger into the loop from the left, hook the thread coming from the right hand, pull it forward.

Drop the loop from the left hand and pass the knot to the right hand. Tighten the old loop with the left hand.

Repeat the motion of hooking and passing the cord. 

It took me some patience and practise to get an even cord!

 

To make the plaited pillow lace:

Not having any equipment to make this I used a blocking mat and pins.

Start with two pairs of two threads, each pair knotted at the end and laid side by side.

1. Cross the right thread of each pair over it's left of it's pair.

2. Cross the inner threads as shown, left over right.

Repeat these two steps.

If you would like picots; form the outer threads into picots, pinned in place, at regular intervals. I decided this was too advanced for my first voyage into pillow lace and that the finished braid is fine as is for our purposes. I can honestly say that pillow lace is not for me!

 

Now that we have our substitute mignardise it's time to experiment.

Thinking about how to use the braids it strikes me that there are a number of ways to view the Victorian patterns.

    Firstly, crocheting onto a stable braid makes an easy way to attach stretchy crochet to a more stable fabric, like a pillow or towel edging.

Both of these designs are worked onto gimp braid. In the image below I chose to work into the back for a simpler, less fussy design.

Above, the cotton lace would also create a stable base for sewing onto a fabric. While the hand-knotted cord, below, also gives structure to the light weight crochet design.

    Placing the stable braid between rows of crochet means we can sew the lace anywhere onto a garment, as if it is a decorative trim rather than an edging.

    Obviously, we can use the lace to incorporate a more intricate element within the crochet design for visual interest.

    And finally, we can use the braid to mimic Honiton Lace. 

Above, our modern picot edged foundation is encapsulated within rows of crochet in place of the Victorian braid in this 19th Century design.

Below, I have used the Double Chain to create a delicate Ric Rac braid within symmetrical rows of crochet. This could be used as a decorative trim as it is, or included as an element within a larger crochet design.

I have kept my designs relatively simple leaving the possibilities to your imagination. I shall fasten off with the wise words of our Victorian Author; "Not that we aspire yet awhile to anything so elaborate; we should be at the top rung of the ladder at once if we did."

Fastening off...