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 The Lace Dictionary D

DALECARLIAN.    A bobbin lace, usually coffee tinted.

 DALMATIAN.        Simple bobbin  lace,  narrow  and coarse, made by the Dalmatian peasants.

DAM MARTIN.    Village  famous  for Chantilly laces.

DANISH. Cut-work was known in Denmark long before bobbin lace was introduced. Early Tonder laces were Flemish in character, but a species of Tonder lace is a kind of drawn-work, like Broderie de Nancy. In this work needlepoint and bobbin laces  are imitated in  a remarkably clever manner, following the intricacies of flower and arabesque designs. Sometimes a thin cordonnet is introduced to outline the pattern. A great lace-making epoch in Jutland existed in 1647..

DARNED LACE. Darned lace (Opus Filatorium) is divided into a number of classifications. Where the darning is very regular upon a fixed background of countable threads the work is called Point Conte, sometimes Filet Brode. When the work is irregular it is called spider work or guipure d'art or cluny guipure. The modern term for this character of work is simply Antique. The old term is Opus Araneum or Ouvrages Masches.    See Araneum.

DENTELLE. In France, at the end of the Sixteenth Century, laces were called Dentelle. Before that time the term Passement was largely used.

DENTELLE.   French term for scalloped border.

DENTELLE A LA REINE.   Needle-point laces made in Amsterdam by the refugees after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes were called Dentelle a la Reine.

DENTEIXE A LA VIERGE. A style in simple bobbin lace made in the neighborhood of Dieppe by the peasants.

DENTELLE AU FUSEAU.   French term for bobbin lace.

DENTELLE DE FIL. A name given to simple thread laces, such as torchons.

Duchesse Lace. Made originally in Flanders and transplanted, to England by the Flemish, who took refuge in Honiton, Devonshire, at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685. These examples are enlarged under the camera in order to show the technique.

DENTELLE DE LIEGE. Lace resembling Birrche; sometimes fine, sometimes coarse.

DENTELLE IRLANDAISE. An Irish crochet lace made in France about 1850 in reproduction of old Venetian point.

DENTELLE REDIN.   Lace having a net ground.

DENTELLE RENAISSANCE.   See Dentelle Irlandaise.

DEVONIA.    A kind of Honiton applique on net.

DEVONSHIRE. The Flemings introduced lace-making into Devonshire, England, about 1685. Prior to this date only coarse  results  were obtained there.    Trolly  lace  was  made with English thread of coarser quality than Flemish lace. By the end of the Eighteenth Century Devonshire lace, torchons, black laces and Honiton sprigs mounted on silk machine-made net, rivaled the beauty of Flemish lace. Some small villages and towns of Devonshire are still making sprigs in small pieces.

DIEPPE (France). Famous for its simple bobbin laces resembling Valenciennes, but requiring fewer bobbins. Early in 1500 lace-making was a common occupation with women in Normandy. Black and white laces were made in thriving centers, Havre, Honfleur, Eu, Fecamp and Dieppe. The convent school at Dieppe, established under royal patronage, has been very successful.   The thread used here is pure flax.

DORSETSHIRE. Bobbin lace was at one time celebrated. Little lace now made in Dorsetshire.

DOUBLE. POINT DOUBLE. Term sometimes applied to the lace known as Point de Paris.

DRAWN-WORK. (Punto Tirato, Opus Tiratum, or Fil Tire.) Drawn-work is work made by drawing certain threads out of the fabric and tying the remaining threads into patterns.    Cut-work, as already explained, is a fabric with certain spaces cut out.    Frequently cut-work and  drawn-work are   combined,   however, shows simply the drawn-work.    It will be noticed in Fig. 3 that certain threads are drawn out of the work entirely, enabling one to draw together the remaining threads in a way that resembles bobbin work. It is an interlacement and done with a needle, but must not be confused with darning, which is an application of a design direct upon a net. When executed in muslin, drawn-work was often known as Hamburg point or Indian work. Broderie de Nancy, Dresden point and Hamburg point were examples of drawn-work usually elaborated by embroidery of colored stitching

DRESDEN POINT.    A kind of embroidered drawn-work.

DRESSED PILLOWS. Pillows used in bobbin lace-making which are ready for work are called dressed pillows.

DUCHESSE. An old Bruges lace of bobbin character, sometimes called guipure de Bruges. While not made of tape, the pattern takes on a tape-like characteristic; all bobbin-wrought by hand and of very fine thread. A similar lace is often called Honiton or Devonia. Honiton is coarser and shows mosaic effects and built-up effects, conspicuous with wheels and set figures. An imitation of Duchesse is made by combining fine tape figures, obviously detached motifs as distinguished from the detached threads of Duchesse.  

Duchesse was originally made in Bruges, but in later days Flanders, Germany and England took up the work. A lace resembling Duchesse is called Mosaic, because made of many small pieces put together. Brussels Duchesse is the finest quality produced.   An imitation is called Princess.

DUNKIRK. Town in France where Malines, the term applying to nearly all light-weight Flemish laces, particularly Mechlin, were made.

DUTCH LACE. Holland has been celebrated for her flax thread and her fine laces, but the term Dutch lace usually applies to laces of a coarse character suitable for household ornamentation. (See Dentelle a la Reine.) The chief cities of the northern country, now Holland, which in 1576 constituted the Dutch republic of Holland, Zealand and Gelderland, were Haarlem, Delft, Leyden, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam.

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ECCLESIASTICAL. Lace used for church purposes. Usually heavy, drawn, darned, cut or early needlepoint.

EGYPTIAN. We have evidence of Egyptian work of drawn-work character or of ornamental net, 1000 B.C. In the excavations at Thebes and elsewhere we find nets used to bind the hair and nets for dress purposes, especially to cover the breasts of the women. Sometimes these nets are ornamented with beads or with porcelain deities, strung among the meshes.

ELBERFELD. A town of the Rhenish province, Prussia, where considerable lace is made.

EMBROIDERY. The application of a pattern upon a background by stitching or needlework. Sometimes the background is made of soluble texture and when  removed by chemical means   the  embroidery  becomes   a  lace.    See   Plauen   Lace. See Burnt Lace.

The invention of the Schiffli machine revolutionized the embroidery industry and gave a close imitation of hand work. The Schiffli machine produces a stitch similar to that of the shuttle sewing machine, and if the work is raised it is raised but very little. You can always distinguish the shuttle thread on the reverse of the goods.

The hand machine, however, absolutely simulates hand-embroidery, the only difference being that the machine-work shows every repeated detail identically alike because of the mechanical reproduction. The machine work and Schiffli work, moreover, cannot produce so clearly defined and so highly raised a pattern as in hand work. In all kinds of mechanical embroidery, the stitches run up or down or sideways or diagonally, just as in hand work.

ENTOQUIIXE. French term to denote shell-shaped lace trimming.

ENGLISH LACES. In England many kinds of bobbin laces were made, including tape laces. The Flemish influence was strong. Plaited laces were made here as well as reticellas. As early as the Fifteenth Century cut-work and drawn-work were undertaken and in the Seventeenth Century the refugees who fled to England introduced the Flemish methods. Needlepoint work was made here, but especially strong were the bobbin laces. Devonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire were conspicuous centers and English Lille, Valenciennes, Brussels and Maltese were all produced. In Middlesex white blondes were made and in Dorsetshire beautiful examples were produced both at Blandford and Lyme Regis. Point d'Angleterre was an early type and Honiton was a well-developed example following the Duchesse style.

ENGLISH POINT. Any English made lace that is needlepoint. Also a lace combining bobbin and needle-point known as Point d'Angleterre. This lace shows the groundwork of the bobbin, the pattern, however, being often undertaken in needle-point. Sometimes there are raised ribs on the leaves and other parts of the design, but this effect is often produced by twisting and plaiting. While it is thought that much of this work was brought over from Belgium, it has been so long associated with the English  

that it is fair to give them credit for having introduced it. It became popular in Europe,  especially  in  Paris,  where it was often called Brussels lace.   The method was to make the design details first, joining them afterwards with the woven

ENGRELURE.    (Fr.)     Narrow edging sewed to lace so as to attach it without injury to a garment.   Also called heading,

ENTOILAGE.    (Fr.)     Plain mesh, ground or galloon.