From: ilaine@panix.com (Liz Stokes)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Crocheting - Is It Period?
Date: 1 Sep 92 22:34:35 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

In article <1992Sep1.120940.21218@ousrvr.oulu.fi> Marianne Kinnula <lady@rieska.oulu.fi> writes:
>Greetings!
>
>(I'm sorry of my recent postings - problems with news system)
>
>I heard that crocheting could be period - is that true? And if it is,
>where I can find
>sources of period crocheting "patterns"? Crocheting is one of my favorite
>hobbies
>in mundane world and I'd like to expand it to SCA-world as well.
>
>Please, reply by e-mail since I have no good possibilities to read Rialto.

	Well, I'll do both since others are probably wondering. A very early
form of croceted lace is late period (second half of the 16th century) but
I have no evidence for crocheted clothing.

_Lace: a History_, Santina M. Levey published in 1983 by the Victoria & Albert
Museum inn association with W. S. Maney & Son. Ltd.  p.92
	"Yet another development of the 1840's was the widespread adoption of
crochet, both inIreland and elsewhere. The origins of this technique are 
obscure but it seems probable that it developed in France during the 17th
century. Hooked needles were used in both the passementerie and lace industries
and, in France, the 'stitch' used to link the pieces of a part of lace was
known as a 'crochetage'. The development of this stitch into an independant
technique is suggested  by the Letters Patent which were granted to the French
Mercers in 1653 and which listed among their goods all forms of lace and braid,
including 'cordons facon de broderie, enriches en jolives qui se faconnent
a l'escuille, aux des doights, au crochet, et au fuseau'. The new technique 
was probably stimulated by the vogue, during the second half of the seventeenth
century, for gimp and all froms of metal lace and passementerie. There are a
number of French references to crochet from this period and they suggest theat
the term was used both for the hooked needle and for a product. [...] 'Chain
lace' appears to have been the equivalent English term for the French 
chainettes de crochet, although the term probably referred originally to an 
open cord or braid. The earliest references date from the mid-sixteenth
century; the Earl of Leicster had beds 'garneshed with a chaine lace of goulde
and silver-copper', and it also featured in the Wardrobe Accounts of Queen 
Elizabeth. The appearance of late seventeenth-century lace is perhaps 
suggested by the little piece in figure 392. This border has a rather clumsy
design which none the less relates to better quality laces of the late
seventeenth century and its chained structure can only have been formed with 
a hooked needle in the manner of crochet."

	Whew, I'm personally a little confused, since she dates the invention
of crochet to the 17th century, then proceeds to give 16th century examples.
_Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd_ by Janet Arnold quotes one of those
wardrobe accounts Santina Levey mentions: "Enbrauderinge of a paire of Sleves
for a Wastcoat of fyne lynnen Clothe wrought allover with a worke of white
Cheyne silke lace powdered full of stitches for workemanshipp therof xls. 
Item for v oz of Cheyne lace and silke spente upon the same sleves at iijs
iiijd thounce...." p. 145

The photograph mentioned in the Levy quote has the lines of the design all
done in chain stitch, with no solid areas at all. It looks a little like the
16th century braided bobbin laces (not the tape ones) only wider, and with 
the more realistic rather than geometric design that the technique allows.
	I had been thinking of doing a piece for Pike or TI giving crochet
directions for imitating 16th century bobbin laces for people who want the
look and don't care about total authenticity. Now I am beginning to think 
that this is exactly the thing described here and it's actually correct
(eerie huh?). I'm confused though, by the description 'powdered full of 
stitches'. I can't think of anything in the one photo I have that would fit
that description. I'll have to dig some more.
						-Ilaine

  


-- 
Liz Stokes         | 	Ilaine's E-Z Garb Workshop
Ilaine de Cameron  | 	Before you can spin the wool, you need to comb it.
                   | 	Use the combs with the 5 rows of 6" razor sharp spikes.
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca