When I was in high school (over 30 years ago) I enjoyed watching one of my teachers making tatted lace. My fascination with lace began there. 20 years later I eventually learned how to tat and enjoyed it, but wanted more. Around that same time I began lace-collecting lace when I saw a wonderful Italian cutwork tablecloth at a garage sale. That piece was not the type of "so called" cutwork I saw in stores. I knew in my gut it was something special and just had to own it. At that time the $10 price tag seemed beyond my means but it was too beautiful to pass up even though it was damaged in a few places. I treasured that piece and carefully displayed it in a china cabinet. Eventually I found another bit of lace that looked better than average, then another. I still didn't know what it was that attracted me to these pieces.
Eventually I came in contact with a lacemaker/collector and began to learn what "real" lace was all about. I saw lace in her collection that knocked my socks off. I knew I needed to know more. As luck would have it I went to Germany for 6 months and even though I never met any German lacemakers, I did get a chance to travel to Brugge, Belgium and went wild! I bought a pillow and bobbins and a few books. I also bought some lace. I knew that when I returned to the US I would join the lacemaking group of my lacemaker friend.
At my first visit was nervous but was soon put at ease and was given my first lesson. I made a lace snake! I was hooked! I went on to teach myself with the occasional help from the lace group, which met infrequently, and my growing collection of lace books.
The other thing I began to learn was how to recognize "real" lace. When you work the bobbins or needle you begin to see how the stitches are made. That is one of the keys. I bought a number of books that guided me through the recognition process. I was able to buy lace more confidently and have been building up my collection. I made some mistakes in the past, not knowing the differences in well-made machine lace, and handmade. But even those early machine made laces were often exquisitely made and are nothing like today's machine lace.
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