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The Lure of Lace

© Lori Howe

Where did your fascination with lace begin? Did you admire a piece of lace worn by a great-aunt and ask about it? Perhaps you saw someone tatting as a child and your interest grew from that little seed. No matter where the interest began we all find the wonderful, graceful lines of thread woven into magical fabric to be intoxicating.

We often wonder how someone ever thought how to do it in the first place. Some lace is a simple twisting of threads and others seem to defy description. Like so many things it grew from simple roots and each lacemaker added her own "twist" in order to improve it. They may have only wanted to add to its beauty and make a better lace, or maybe they strove to make a faster and less costly one. Either way they developed variations, which eventually became unique forms unto themselves. Now there are so many kinds of lace, it is difficult to know them all.

Collectors may seek to find any type of lace as long as it is handmade. Others search for only a particular style or age. Either way it is difficult to find. Many collectors have discovered Internet auctions, which make the searching faster and easier. Not all auctions have lace. The Ebay Auction http://www.ebay.com is one of the few that does and seems to have the largest quantity and variation available. Handmade lace can be found under the heading Antiques/Textiles/Linens. Another source is the shops, which collect lace for resale and offer them on the Internet. The Honiton Lace Shop http://www.honiton.com/lace/index.html specializes in wedding veils. Other web sites focus on old handmade lace like at Lacemaking.com. http://www.lacemaking.com/Lantique.htm.

Lacemakers, on the other hand, may choose to spend a lifetime mastering one discipline. Others, especially American Lacemakers, try to learn about as many types of lace as they can, limited only by the finding of a teacher. In Europe there are many extensively schooled lacemakers and teachers but in the US many of us depend on the wonderful "traveling teachers" who visit for lace weekends and workshops and share their knowledge.

Today there are a number of formal and informal lacegroups that anyone interested in lace can join. Some groups are exclusively for lacemakers but others include collectors too. The largest American based group is International Old Lacers, Inc. http://members.aol.com/IOLinc/ioli.html Their membership Handbook even includes non-affiliated groups. They are located in almost every state and Canada.

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