Discovering Victorian Circles and scallops in lace crochet.

     If you were a time travelling Victorian and you were looking at our modern crochet, I wonder what you would think? You would certainly see things that you recognised, but would you also see something missing? I'm sure you would be envious of our yarns and hooks, colour images and step by step instructions!

In a way this entire Discovering series is all the Victorian crochet that has struck my 21st century eyes as different. Last month I was talking about the geometric motifs and shapes that were used to imitate traditional forms of lace, but I entirely left out circles and scallops. I am able to reproduce some of these examples from contemporary instructions but some shapes seem to have vanished.

Flat crossed stitches are not used a great deal today, but they are an excellent way of joining motifs. When I made the design above, last month, I had to go to my own post on the subject to reassure myself that I was getting it right! So let's begin there with some negative space circles. Just in case you've never met this idea before, the negative space is the empty space! The circles are formed in the space between the stitches.

Circles were as common in Victorian crochet as they are today! Both of these patterns are from our old friend Therese De Dillmont. 

This image feels unfamiliar to me. I wonder if it is the empty space, or the idea that the circle is made as a ring of joined stitches rather than a solid shape beginning from the centre and worked outward.

I have found something similar in another needlework encyclopedia which is referred to as Yak or Maltese work. This encyclopedia is by SFA Caulfield, dated 1882. We find this idea common in traditional needle formed lace...

...and tatting.

 

The above tatted illustration brings us neatly on to scallops. Of course if you are a Victorian you call them Scollops and they are everywhere. No matter what, whether they are rounded or pointed or hanging on an angle they are all just scollops!

This design would have been familiar in the Victorian era. I made life easy for myself and used Betty Barnden's modern instructions. It was not fun to make and I wonder how it is that it has survived while others have been forgotten. I have also found this type of scallop worked  in a combination of crochet and needle work.

It's easy to see how we've got from this mostly needle worked lace to the next entirely hook-worked variation.

This example comes from Butterick's The Art of Crocheting and is dated about 1891.

 

They are, perhaps, the type of shell shapes we are more familiar with. But they are placed so closely together that they are overlapping creating a frill. The following image takes this to the Victorian extreme.

The definition between shell and fan has never been clear to me. It seems they can appear in any orientation and the names seem interchangeable. Perhaps I should remember that this is a craft where it's English speakers cannot even agree on the names of the stitches or on the sizes of the hooks!

 

 

This idea of overlapping scallops led me to two more designs from the Butterick book.

Happily this pattern worked up without much difficulty from the original instructions and was much more elegant than I had expected. Perhaps I should take a moment to be grateful for the advances in both photography and blocking techniques!

My next offering is from a modern stitch dictionary but is by no means a modern technique. It's used in short row laces like those from Brussels and Belgium. It employs the same segment by segment construction. Now we have, almost, an entire semi circle rather than just bite-sized segments! We have flipped our scallops through a full ninety degrees.

Following this train of thought, I'm choosing to call this sample, below, diamond scallops. Possibly I am taking my idea too far, but it mostly employs the same techniques.

I have one more to offer you before we return scallops back to their more usual orientation!

 'Less is more' and 'form follows function' are all phrases from the art world of the modern era. It is probably fair to say that, the Bauhaus movement and the paired-down clean lines of the twentieth century would never have existed without the over stuffed and heavily ornamented Victorian age. Certainly, to my eyes, the deep scallops and complex edgings are surprising. And yet they must have featured on pianos, mantelpieces, tables, beds and in fact any flat surface!

I chose this pattern from a stitch dictionary published in 2018. I have shown it here as an edging rather than a fabric, because it takes us nearly back to the beginning of this conversation! It echoes those Victorian tatted scallops and negative-space circles. At the same time, it shares the deep shield shapes of my final choice, but with a cleanliness of line, which speaks to our modern sensibilities.

Returning to Butterick's, The Art of Crocheting, I found these deep scallops. This type of motif was common in both needle formed and crocheted lace. Either in the shield shape as here, or as a rounded half lozenge. The book's editor offers the image without instructions, telling us; "This engraving pictures an edging that may easily be made from the illustration." I have heroically attempted it for you! I don't think I got it quite right. Once again I wonder, was my great great grandmother so much more skilled or would she have been as annoyed as I am by this lazy author?

Before I sign off, I have to tell you about our most talented friend Anna, from Mmatildas Virstad. She too has been researching historical crochet but she has been searching in the dusty basements of Swedish museums. She has found two amazing waistcoats. She wants these unique garments to once more see the light of day and has written a post for English speakers which you will find here! Tack Anna!

Fastening off...