Discovering Medallion Braid Crochet

     There's a problem with this months post. I want to write about something that really doesn't exist any more, so, I may have to take some liberties! We are still investigating mignardise braid and this is the post where we sweep up all the oddities that don't fit anywhere else and try to hang them altogether under a very loose premise!

    Last month I showed you an image of English braid. You might not have spotted how different this detail was. These mignardise medallions are no longer made. This is the problem! First of all, I must discover a way to make various medallions which can then be inserted into a crochet design in the manner it was done in the past. For my own sanity I am trying to avoid Irish Crochet which is a whole other story!

        In keeping with the other posts in this series, I have to ask myself what is it that crochet is either trying to replicate or taking it's inspiration from. I don't think the answer is straightforward. My first thought was Pulled Thread work. This is a kind of embroidery made on linen, where some of the threads of linen are removed. But I also see elements of the Richelieu and Guipure net work that we've already looked at (in May), as well as Reticella lace and even appliqué. I am sure that our Victorian crochet designers were surrounded by so much surface pattern and decoration that even they would have been hard pressed to make the connections themselves!

     In order to replicate the English Braid Medallions I have ended up drawing on some Irish Lace motifs. I found a Dillmont Irish Lace pattern which I used as a starting point. The original pattern was for a pair of leaves. By adding in a third leaf I was able to work up a simplified version of a Dillmont medallion braid design.

     After no end of frustration I was able to work a row of these motifs. I started with a length of chain and then worked back along the chain working each 'leaf' in turn, very much in the same manner that continuous  crochet motifs are made. I found a number of 'blueprints' for crochet designs from N.Alexandre & Cie, Paris, from about 1860; Manuel de Dessins pour Crochet. These designs have no instructions and you have to guess at the size of the stitches used but they make a great jumping off point for your own ideas. The other problem, of course, is that Victorian patterns give no gauge information or even suggest a hook size. So the designs I am showing you are mere approximations of the patterns that I found!

    A version of the next design was in both the Manuel de Dessins and T.E.Parker's Fancy Braid book from 1885. This is my version using two chains of the Irish Lace leaf motifs in place of the original medallions.

The second source had minimal instructions and suggested you make the joining row first, but I have to admit, those instructions defeated me. In the end I made that row last and I actually sewed the centre of those 'X' shapes before sewing the central row of chains with a slip stitch over the join.

   Contemporary with the English Braid medallions is a pattern which uses slip-stitches to create a medallion design.

These Medallions are made by working Back-Loop-only slip stitches into a ring of chain stitches. From the second row onwards, two increases are placed at the top and also at the bottom of the motif. Interestingly the pattern gives no information how to do this, so do we assume this knowledge is well known by our Victorian crocheters? Increases using slip stitches is done slightly differently to other stitches, we looked at it in this post. Working the stitches in this way gives the notif a slightly three dimensional shape, like a doughnut.

    This idea of making motifs separately and then joining them into a design will not come as a surprise to you. But I thought it was worth spending a moment to consider other motifs we might use to create a similar type of work.

   In the Ladies' Home Journal, September 1892 I found a pattern for Queen Lace.  This leaf shape will, no doubt, be familiar to you. I have seen it used in various lace designs and edgings. These instructions defeated me, so I looked to Irish lace for a solution. If you manage to decode it, please explain it to me!

The leaves begin in the centre and are worked outwards in Back Loop only Dc (Sc-US). A number of stitches are left unused at the end of each row to create the shape. The example used in the pattern (far right) uses slip stitches on the first few stitches of the returning row which helps to make the leaf look more symmetrical. I have found a modern example (far left), The Tole Tulip, in Suzann Thompson's Crochet Garden. Suzann's design uses larger stitches and has clever little picots on the row ends.

    Common to both Guipure and Reticella Lace is the use of solid blocks within the designs. I find this surprising as it doesn't fit with my personal definition of 'lace'. Is lace a light weight airy fabric or is it a collection of elements laced together to form a fabric?

This design is a simplified version of another Alexandre & Cie blueprint image. I made the row of squares first, then the picot edging and finally added the header.

    Triangles, in one way or another, feature frequently in Guipure styled crochet. The design is made from the top down in rows. Like the squares, the triangles begin with chain stitches which are worked back into with longer stitches. This design makes a good bridge to my final offering!

    Those original woven braid motifs give an effect reminiscent of Pulled Thread work. So let's shoe horn that idea in here as well! I've worked this square up from another Therese De Dillmont design.

I hope you will agree that this design fits naturally here as an extension of these ideas. The central petals of this motif are worked in Tunisian plain stitch, while the outer triangles are worked in double crochet, (Sc-US). The design is Fig.481 in the Dillmont encyclopedia, for once the instructions are usable. If you fancy taking up the challenge I have left more details on my Ravelry page.

At the time the pattern was written, crocheters would have had long straight hooks which made the Tunisian stitches achievable. I had to use a Prym Tatting hook for this part of the work.  Mme Dillmont claims this design is taken from 'an old collection by Sibmacher.' While I could not find the original inspiration for this design I was able to track down a book of designs by Johann Siebmacher from 1597.

 

If you would like more details for any of the designs here, please let me know.

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...