Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-02-11
THE LACE INDUSTRY.
How the Costly Venetian Fabric is Manu-
factured-of Interest to the Ladies.


Epoch.
Within late years the. lace industry has
revived in Venice, and not only in
Venice, but throughout all Italy, and is
taught in the public schools of Rome.
There are two kinds of Venetian laces-
that made with needles and that made
with bobbins, only one person being en-
gagged in the former TO every twelve per-
sons engaged in the latter The laces
made with the needle are far more ele-
CANT and costly than those made with the
bobbin. The difference is almost as
marked as the difference between a steel
| engraving and an engraving on wood.
One is an elevated and difficult art, the
other is an Industrial one and serves the
ordinary uses.
The costliness of what is known as
point 'Alencon lace is owing to the fact
| that it is worked with the finest needles
on parchment patterns, the pieces after
ward united by invisible seams. Twelve
different hands are required to produce
single piece of the lace. The design is
engraved upon copper-plate, and is then
printed upon slips of parchment ten
inches long, each slip numbered in a
given order. The pattern is pricked upon
the parchment by the marker; then the
tracer traces the pattern of the parch-
ment with the thread upon piece of
coarse linen attached to the parchment.
The ground netting of the lace is then
worked in, and it thus passes from hand
TO hand until completed, when it is cut
from the pattern with q sharp razor.
A point d 'Alencon shawl has been
known to sell for SO ,000 One of The
-,
press Eugene was a point de BrouXelles
shawl. No less than eighty experts were
employed for one year in making it, and
it cost S22 900 in gold. 1t is in imitation
of royal Venice point, in its magnificent
web, in its tracery of the renais-
sance period and its devices of
antique figures and Moorish conceits.
Heavy ferns droop over the almost invisi-
bic mesh there ere groups Of medallions
set in exquisite garlands of foliage, and
the borders are worked around concealed
horse hair, to give it greater stiffness,
and to offer q striking contrast to the airy
grace of the Brussels manufacture.
Queen Isabella IS laces are valued at
81 900 600, and represent all kinds,
epochs and nationalities; in her collection
are Spanish mantilla wells worth S600G,
dresses in point d 'Alencon and antique
guipure valued at $50 ZOO each.
The hand made lace of France is prin-
cipally produced at Caen, Bayeux, Chan
lilly, and the surrounding districts, and
is executed with remarkable ability The
articles manufactured at Chantilly are
ordinarily very costly, and only within
the command of the wealthy, but the
Bayeux silk lace closely resembles it.
There are no such assemblages of hand lace
workers in Ireland or Scotland as at CaeG
and Bordeaux, where upwards of fifty
thousand females are engaged in the oc-
cupation. The value of the annual eX-
port of SaxonY lace approaches 81 ,000,-
600 The workers in the north of Ire
land and Scotland have an especial apti-
tude in producing difficult work.
A modern Improvement in the produce
ton of lace is the introduction of shaded
tints in the flowers and patterns, giving
them the relief of picture. The art has
been most successfully used in the laces
made in France. The effect is produced
by varying the application of the two
stitches used in making fiOwers-the first
being the ''toiIe'' stitch which forms the
close stitch, and the other the 'grille''
stitch, employed in the more open part
of the pattern.