Fabric Definitions — definitions of fabrics, cloths, laces and textile materials from Apparel Search
Limerick lace is an embroidered needle lace formed on a mesh using one or both of two techniques: tambour work, where chain stitch is created with a hook through a fine net stretched over a frame, and needle-run work, where stitches are darned onto the ground using a needle. The lace is associated with the town of Limerick in Ireland.
This is associated with the town of Limerick in Ireland. Limerick is a city in County Limerick, Ireland. It is located in the Mid-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster.
When President Kennedy visited Limerick in 1963 he was presented with a lace christening robe.
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Limerick lace belongs to the embroidered laces, whose economy comes from the ground: a machine-made net supplies the open fabric ready-made, perfectly regular and inexpensive, and hand workers add only the pattern. That division made net-embroidery laces the most teachable and scalable of the Irish industries — a beginner could run simple darned patterns, an expert could combine tambour chains with needle-run fillings in floral designs of real complexity, and both worked on the same ground at the same frame. The tambour frame explains the tambour technique shape: net stretched drum-tight lets the hook pass cleanly and the chain stitch form evenly, row after row, at a pace needlework cannot match; needle-run work, slower and more deliberate, supplies the solid accents. A Limerick piece is identified by exactly this combination — visible chain-stitch outlines and darned fillings on a fine hexagonal machine net, with no applied cloth and no free-standing stitched ground.
The lace takes its working identity from the city of Limerick in County Limerick, in the Mid-West Region of Ireland and the province of Munster, where the industry was organized and from which its reputation spread. The definition keeps one presentation as its modern marker: when President Kennedy visited Limerick in 1963 he was presented with a lace christening robe — christening robes, veils, collars and handkerchiefs being characteristic Limerick products, fine white embroidered net suiting ceremonial garments. Among the Irish laces on this glossary, Limerick is the embroiderer: Kenmare and Youghal built needlepoint grounds stitch by stitch, Inishmacsaint raised its needle lace with a cordonnet, Carrickmacross applied muslin, Irish crochet assembled padded motifs — Limerick alone trusted a bought net and put all the hand skill into the stitching on it, and its best work shows how far tambour hook and darning needle can take that trust.
Chain stitch worked with a fine hook through net. The net is stretched over a frame — the tambour, from the French for drum — and the hook reaches through the net and draws the working thread through, forming chain stitches on the ground at speed. Tambour names a whole family of lace made this way.
The second Limerick technique: stitches darned onto the net ground using a needle, running the thread in and out of the mesh to draw outlines and fillings. Where tambour gives chained lines, needle-run gives darned, woven-looking areas, and Limerick pieces commonly combine both techniques on the same mesh.
Both are Irish laces built on machine-made net, but the pattern is formed differently. Limerick pattern is embroidery — chain stitch and darned stitches worked onto the net itself. Carrickmacross pattern is appliqué — separate muslin shapes stitched to the net with the surplus cut away, so its motifs are solid cloth, not stitching.