Battenberg and Other Tape Laces
The many faces of tape lace
**This is one example of the articles you can find about antique lace in my LACE archive, shown as a section at the top of my home page.
I am often asked by beginners, “Is Battenberg handmade lace? What about Branscombe? Is that handmade or machine made?” Basically, these two laces, and many others, are tape laces. That is to say, they are laces that begin with purchased machine-woven braids or “tapes” but include lovely handwork as well. Tape laces were of American origin, but very popularly made as home-craft in Britian and Belgium as well. from the 1880s to the 1930s, much in the same way crochet had its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s and knotted macramé work was a home-crafted fad in the 1960s and 1970s. Women love to work with thread!
To make tape lace, we work from a cloth or paper pattern — either a pattern we buy or one we design ourselves. The tapes are laid out on the pattern and pinned or basted into place and then a variety of handmade connecting thread brides and needle lace fills are added within the design to hold the motifs together and beautify it. So, to answer the question, tape laces are partly handmade and partly machine-made. The descriptor “hand-assembled lace” is more accurate.
The tapes below, were sold by the meter – some plain and some fancy and there were hundreds of different ones.
Notice below - the scalloped edge and the flower-shaped motifs. They look like bobbin lace but are actually a fancy tape!
Tape lace can be very very plain and somewhat slap-dash, such as that coming out of China today,
or it can be lavish and complex, highly detailed and fanciful, such as that found in the grand tablecloths of the Victorian and Edwardian Eras.
Here are just a few of the many types of tape laces you may find :
For many more examples, see my lace identification website . rookandraven.weebly.com . If you find these brief illustrated lace articles helpful, please do let me know by clicking on the Comment Button. I would like to know what other lace topics you might be interested in, and what laces you particularly like.
I have several pieces of lace tablecloths, napkins etc handed down in the family. Always wondered what the differences were so I appreciated this info. Most of what I have comes from Venice Italy and a pair of gloves handmade in France.