Fabric Definitions — definitions of fabrics, cloths, laces and textile materials from Apparel Search
Needle lace consists of using a needle to stitch up hundreds and hundreds of little stitches to form the lace itself. Work is generally started by securing the main, heavier guiding threads onto a stiff background such as thick paper, with stitches that can later be removed. The work proceeds in a variety of stitches — the most basic being a variety of blanket stitch — and when the entire area is covered, the stay-stitches are released and the lace comes away from the paper.
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It consists of using a needle to stitch up hundreds and hundreds of little stitches to form the lace itself.
Work is generally started by securing the main, heavier guiding threads onto a stiff background (eg thick paper) with stitches that can later be removed. The work then in a variety of stitches - the most basic being a variety of blanket stitch. When the entire area is covered with the stitching, the stay-stitches are released and the lace comes away from the paper.
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Stitches That Become a FabricNeedle lace is embroidery that has cut its ties to cloth. Ordinary embroidery decorates a fabric that already exists; needle lace uses the same stitch family — blanket stitch and its variants above all — to create the fabric, filling the spaces between guiding threads with row upon row of buttonholed stitches laid thread against thread until the area is solid, or left in open bars and meshes where the design needs air. Density is controlled stitch by stitch: packed buttonhole rows make the opaque cloth-like motifs called clothwork, spaced stitches make grounds and fillings of dozens of named varieties, and a corded outline thread worked over with close stitching gives motifs their raised, finished edge. Because nothing limits the needle path, needle lace can turn corners, taper motifs and shade with stitch density in ways woven laces cannot — the flexibility the definition puts first — at the cost the definition puts second: fine historical pieces represent months of work in thread finer than sewing thread. Needle Lace Among the Lace FamiliesThe Irish pages of this glossary are largely a needle lace atlas: Youghal is flat needle lace, Inishmacsaint is needle lace raised afterward with a cordonnet, Kenmare is a needlepoint school tradition, and Venetian needlepoint — the raised lace Irish crochet imitated — is the historical summit the method is measured against. Against bobbin lace, needle lace is slower and freer; against crocheted lace, it is finer and denser; against embroidered net laces such as Limerick, it builds its own ground instead of borrowing a machine net. Identification follows the making: under magnification, needle lace shows looped buttonhole stitches in rows, each loop interlocking with the row beneath, and no woven crossing of warp and weft anywhere. That stitch structure is also its conservation weakness and strength — a broken thread damages only its local stitches, and a skilled repairer can rebuild a missing motif stitch for stitch, since the whole fabric was made exactly that way. Common QuestionsWhy is needle lace called the pinnacle of lace-making?The definition gives both reasons: it is the most flexible method — a needle and thread alone can produce any pattern, curve or filling at any scale — and the most time-consuming, since the entire fabric is built stitch by stitch with no ground, loom or net to start from. Flexibility without machinery is what purists prize. How does needle lace stay together without a ground fabric?Guiding threads are first laid along the pattern outlines and secured to a stiff background with removable stay-stitches. The needle then builds the lace on that skeleton — rows of blanket-stitch variants filling areas, bars connecting motifs — until the stitched structure is self-supporting; only then are the stay-stitches released and the lace lifted from the paper as a complete fabric. How does needle lace differ from bobbin lace?Tools and logic. Needle lace is sewn: one needle, one thread at a time, stitches accumulated on a drawn pattern. Bobbin lace is woven: many threads wound on bobbins are crossed and twisted over pins on a pillow, building meshes and solid areas simultaneously. Both are hand laces built from thread alone, but a needle lace motif is embroidered into existence while a bobbin lace motif is woven. More to ExploreMore from Apparel Search: Fabric Definitions | Clothing Industry Glossary | Fashion Terms | Apparel Search Home
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