Have you ever seen crocheted lace like this?
Posted: August 31, 2014 Filed under: Knitting & crochet | Tags: baby rickrack, Textile, vintage crocheted lace 6 CommentsAt the same antique shop in Canandaigua, New York, where I found those wonderful Niagara Falls souvenir salad servers, I picked up eight feet of this amazing hand-crocheted lace.
Price? A whopping $6. If there had been more of it I would have bought it all!
I loved the creamy color of the cotton thread and the intricacy of the pattern.
And I loved the ingeniousness of the pattern. Look closely:
Two materials, one lacy effect!
Part of this lace is crocheted with a fine cotton thread. And part of it is commercially-made baby rickrack!
Have you ever seen anything like that? I haven’t!
Here’s the end, where the maker tied off her thread.
The other end had been cut. So some of this lace was used for something.
The alternating circular motifs were crocheted, then the straight border was crocheted on top.
I wonder what this lace was made to decorate. Pillowcases? Sheets? The hem of a wedding gown?
Here’s a close-up showing how the rickrack was joined with crochet.
You’d be using a tiny, tiny crochet hook to do that. I’m not even sure those tiny hook sizes are made anymore. Vintage ones are easy to find, though.
Vintage steel crochet hooks in sizes 8, 9, 11, 12, and 13. My eyes are too old to even think about using them.
What shall I do with this amazing lace? I don’t know yet! What would YOU do with it?
luray
janeray
dish sisters vintage home and housewares 
Wow that is pretty lace and I have not ever seen any like it before. I love how the rick-rack is used in it.
I’m sure I’ve never seen instructions for rickrack lace in any of my vintage crochet books! Clearly my collection is incomplete. 🙂 It’s interesting how the maker did those long, loopy chains from section to section. It would have been a total pain to break the thread and weave in the end every time, though!
It would be lovely edging on vintage towels!
I’d have to iron it every time the time the towels got washed, and that’s a non-starter. :-). I think I’ll save it for something wedding-y!
Wooooo! Weddings getting discussed then?
Yes indeed. 😉