Discovering Crochet Covered Rings

     Will I ever cease to be amazed by those wildly creative Victorian crocheters? Covering rings in crochet stitches is a modern thing, right? Well apparently not!

    Last month I was tediously button-hole stitching around the edge of my Dorset button, dragging metre after metre of thread through each stitch. It was twisting and wrapping itself in knots. Of course it occurred to me that it would be so much easier if I crocheted around the metal ring. Perhaps that was unheard of back in the 18th century but certainly by the late 19th century it was an art form. Not just rings but ovals and all manner of fancy motifs.

If you do a quick 21st century image search on the topic you may find Christmas Tree decorations, coasters, belts, and beaded-style curtains. You will also see super sized creations using wooden craft rings.

 

The Victorians, on the other hand, were making napkin rings, lamp mats, window shades and trimmings, edgings and decorations for everything from bags to bell pulls.

Their work may be seen as an extension of Irish crochet, where the work began over a padding of gathered threads or cord to give a relief texture. But it also borrows from the gilded braiding used particularly on military uniforms.

 While today we crochet over anything which comes to hand, back in the waning years of the 19th century Carl Mez & Söhne was supplying the card moulds illustrated here. At first this company was unfamiliar to me until I read it's history and discovered that it later became J&P Coats, Schachenmayr and MEZ. I found them mentioned in two articles; one from the English Cassell's Family magazine, 1894 and the other from the American Ladies' Home Journal, 1892.

Being, unfortunately, back in the 21st century and having only what I have to hand let's see if there is anything here that we can recreate. Firstly using the instructions from the English Cassell's Family Magazine:

•  We cover the ring with closely worked double crochet (Sc-US) and then add an additional round of double crochet in  a metallic thread.
  
• The ring is covered in double crochet, as before, but then add three rounds of single stitches without increase or decrease. I am assuming that 'single' means slip stitch. For those of you who have not attempted Victorian crochet instructions, it should not be assumed that the English Cassell's are using English terminology or that the American 'Ladies Home Journal' is using American terminology!  Each round of Slip stitches is made into the back loop only, this is what makes the stitches stand up and curl inwards. It took me some time to work this out. I actually made 4 rounds to get mine to match more closely the illustrations.
  
• Now after covering the ring, as before, I finish with Bullion stitches which is my least favourite of all stitches. But for you, dear reader, I have attempted it! I will not tell you how many times I attempted this. The instructions are for 12 to 14 wraps but after numerous disasters I went down to just 8 wraps per stitch.
  
• As I wasn't thrilled with the result I decided to try a modernised version and worked a ring of folded stitches. I chose to work Double Treble stitches (Treble-US) and use Dc (Sc-US) to fold them. You can find out how to make those stitches in this post.
  

Now using instructions from the American Ladies' Home Journal:  

• I am working two rounds of double crochet (Sc-US), the second with picots. There are two different instructions for picots given, although as you know there are many ways to make picots, we shall stay authentic to this article!
  
• Picot1. Dc, *Ch4, place the hook in the front loop of Dc just made and into next dc from row below, Yarn over and pull through the stitch and pull through both loops on the hook at the same time, Dcx2, repeat from*.
  
• Picot2. *Dc, Ch4, Dc into dc just made, skip 1 stitch. Repeat from*. This instruction was confusing so I tried various ways to Dc into Dc just made and in the end went with: Place the hook down behind front loop and out behind left leg of 'Dc just made', pull up a loop, yarn over and pull through 2 remaining loops on the hook, creating a Dc. This creates wider picots.
  

Despite the poor quality of the original illustrations you may have noticed that the centres of some are filled with needle formed stitches which creates a curious link back to last months post on Teneriffe work and Dorset buttons. 

• For this first example I used a herringbone stitch which is described in my embroidery stitch dictionary in the section on Drawn Thread Work. As this is the one and only time I have attempted the stitch I am not going to try and walk you through it. But this link takes you to an expert who will. What I did was, after completing the outer most Dc round, I threaded a needle and took the thread down inside the stitches at the back of the ring before working the centre and fastening off on the back afterwards.
  

• I thought we could try a Dorset button centre. This time after finishing the outer round of stitches I took the thread, on a needle, down and in through the base of the stitches I had just made and created the network just as we did last month.

Incidentally you may wish to know that the rings I used in the examples are the white rings seen here from Prym. Although I am not sure if they are still available, as they have been gathering dust in my cupboards for quite some time! I used the Anchor Metallic Fine gold thread and found that 6-strand embroidery floss covered the rings beautifully.

Inspired by a pattern for 'French Lace' from the 1891 publication, The Art of Crocheting, I decided to see if I could translate the pattern to accommodate my rings instead of working over thread. This time I chose to use some KnitPro knitting stitch markers, size large. The image shows one pattern- repeat or Scallop of the lace.

 Örgü Modelleri Tasarim has a pattern on YouTube. The rings she is using are about the size of the KnitPro medium stitch markers. So I have made just a small section based on that design. What is interesting about the design is that there is no inner ring of stitches. The work is made in rows, with half the ring being covered on the first row and the remainder being covered on the return row. It works up very quickly. The video is well worth viewing.

This was intended to be a discussion of how the Mez card moulds were used in the 19th century, but coincidences do happen. I needed to make a quick gift for someone who lives on the Isle of Man. For those of you not familiar with the UK that is the island half way between the west coast of Northern England and Northern Ireland. The coat of arms and flag for the Isle of Man includes a Triskelion, a three legged design. I found a pattern on Ravelry by Michele Marshall for a Triskelion Trivet. This would have been perfect for Herr Mez' card rings, instead it uses the rubber seals used on glass jars. Michele says that her pattern was based on a trivet her Grandmother had owned, so perhaps crocheters back in the day were also making use of whatever came to hand!

Fastening off...

 

Useful links:

The Ladies' Home Journal, November 1892

Cassell's Family Magazine, 1894

Örgü Modelleri Tasarim, YouTube

The Art of Crocheting

Michele Marshall's Triskelion Trivet, Ravelry

 

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...