H Castles Thesis

Hybrid stitched textile art: contemporary interpretations of mid nineteenth century Irish Crochet lace making
Heather Castles BA (Hons), MA
Faculty of Art, Design and the Built Environment University of Ulster

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2011
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Page
Chapter 1. Context and methodology

1.1 Contextual review
1.1.1 Overview 1.1.2 Contemporary movements within textiles 1.1.2.1 Slow and Pro-Am 1.1.2.2 Technology and tradition 1.1.2.3 Crafted art Difference Signature 1.1.3 Textile hybridity
1 2 2 6 6 10 12 12 18 22 24
1.2
Research methodology
Chapter 2. Lace
2.1 2.2 Introduction Difficulties in historical lace research
2.2.1 Defining lace 2.2.2 Artefactual and textual limitations 2.2.3 The similarity of types of lace
31 33 35 35 37 41 43 43 49 49 51 52
2.3
Historical styles and techniques

2.3.1 European lace 2.3.2 Irish lace 2.3.2.1 Background 2.3.2.2 New versions of traditional lace 2.3.2.3 Pre-1845 lace in nineteenth century Ireland
Hybrid stitched textile art: contemporary interpretations of mid nineteenth century Irish Crochet lace making Heather Castles
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Chapter 3. British crochet to 1855

3.1 Origins
3.1.1 Nuns work 3.1.2 Shepherds knitting 3.1.3 Tambouring 3.1.4 Netting 3.1.5 Needlelace connection 3.1.6 Crossover in materials and patterns
55 56 57 61 62 64 64 64 66
3.2
Pattern books 1840 1855
Chapter 4. Irish Crochet to 1855

4.1 4.2 The research dates Parallels with British crochet
4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.2.4 Knitting Tambouring Netting Needlelace
69 72 73 73 75 76 76 77 81 84 96 99 111 114
4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9
Origins of Irish crochet Pattern books in Ireland Sources of design Stylistic characteristics Mlle Riego de la Branchardire The collapse of the industry The worldwide legacy
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Chapter 5. Research-led practice

5.1 5.2 Introduction Protocol for practice
5.2.1 Materials and techniques 5.2.2 Technology 5.2.2.1 Machines 5.2.2.2 Software 5.2.3 Cultural and historical links
118 119
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123 124 125 127 128 161 162 164 164 164 166
5.3
Interpretation of historical references

Illustrations 5.3.1 First series repetition 5.3.1.1 Punched paper 5.3.1.2 Twisted paper 5.3.1.3 Rolled linen paper 5.3.1.4 Irish-machining 5.3.1.5 Digitally embroidered motifs 5.3.2 Second series controlled chance Prints from lace sources 5.3.3 Third series hybridity 5.3.3.1 Non-continuous lace 5.3.3.2 Documentation of two completed works
168 170 171 172 175
5.4
Revealed by practice
Chapter 6. Conclusion
6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Contribution to knowledge Limitations Future work Closing comments
177 178 180 182 185 186 200
Bibliography Appendices
Illustrations
Fig.2.a. Fig.2.b. Fig.2.c. Fig.2.d. Fig.2.e. Fig.2.f. Fig.2.g. Fig.2.h. Fig.2.i. Fig.2.j. Some distinctive lace types Earnshaws diagram - the interconnectivity of lace A lacis pattern Drawnthread work Worked lacis Filet crochet Venetian gros point Detail of Figure 2.g Irish Crochet version of reticella Machine/chemical lace
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32 34 45 45 45 45 46 46 46 46
Fig.4.a. Fig.4.b. Fig.4.c. Fig.4.d. Fig.4.e. Fig.4.f. Fig.4.g. Fig.4.h. Fig.4.i. Fig.4.j. Fig.4.k. Fig.4.l. Fig.4.m. Fig.4.n. Fig.4.o. Fig.4.p. Fig.4.q. Fig.4.r.
Lacemaking areas in Ireland 1853 collar from Ballingarry 1854 lappets Coraline lace Cuff showing possible coraline influence Mechlin lace Irish Crochet coat from 1912 pattern 1855 collar from Killeshandra, County Cavan 1855 Killeshandra collar Spanish version of Venetian style Detail of Clones lace collar Riego parasol design Section of Riego collar Section of instructions for making Riego collar Riego design from The Needle, 1853 Section from hybrid crochet collar Riego collar, 1847, Point dEspagne Riegos 1855 Spanish Point Lace
70 91 91 92 92 92 92 93 93 94 94 105 105 105 106 106 107 107
Fig.5.a. Fig.5.b. Fig.5.c. Fig.5.d. Fig.5.e. Fig.5.f. Fig.5.g Fig.5.h Fig.5.i. Fig.5.j.
Punched paper (Section 5.3.1.1) Twisted paper (Section 5.3.1.2) Rolled paper (Section 5.3.1.3) Machined cane (Section 5.3.1.4) 1-36. Prints. (Section 5.3.2) 1-6. Flowers. Prints. (Section 5.3.3.1) Rolled paper & laser-cutting. (Section 5.3.3.1) 1-4. Rings1. Tokens. Prints. (Section 5.3.3.2) 1-10. Prints. (Section 5.3.3.2) 1-4. Ring 2. Prints. (Section 5.3.3.2)
128 128 129 129 130-147 148-150 151 152-153 154-158 159-160
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Acknowledgements
I acknowledge and appreciate the help I have received from Professor Karen Fleming and Dr Joseph McBrinn: in particular, I benefitted from Karens incisiveness and Josephs belief in the value of the research. I am grateful for the support of other members of University of Ulster staff, including Dr Kate Wells, technicians Wilma Kirkpatick and Duncan Neil, and Research Office and Library staff. I thank curators Greer Ramsey, Alex Ward, Valerie Wilson, and Clare Browne and her staff, at, respectively, Armagh Museum, the National Museum of Ireland, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum: and librarians at the British Library, National Art Library, Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Cambridge. I appreciate the help given by expert Irish Crochet maker Eileen Jones and by Sister Maria Coates of the Mary Aikenhead Heritage Centre, Dublin. I thank my sons Conan and Flynn for their efforts to be interested in the subject, and, especially, my husband, Joe, for his genuine interest in this, and support for everything I do.
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Abstract
This thesis examines a brief period, from 1845 to 1855, during which women and girls with no previous experience in textile design or production, initiated and produced a stylistically-unique lace. The context of the achievement is investigated to answer the two-part question: how were unskilled Irish Crochet lace makers able to create work of lasting aesthetic significance, and, what elements of their methodology are relevant for contemporary textile art practice? Primary archival and textual evidence is analysed and reveals that Irish Crochet lace is a hybrid of two styles of crochet that developed separately and simultaneously in Ireland, from different sources. Kildare makers, of their own ingenuity, devised a way to copy old needlelace using a new, hooked, technique. Around Cork, technique allowed designs to evolve during, rather than being created prior to, the process of making. The art practice element of this thesis includes contemporary interpretations that replicate original makers experimental approach to design, using digital software to mimic the spontaneity enabled by crochet technique. This work proposes that creative possibilities are inherent in a choreographed serendipitous way of working. In this approach, experiential craft skills facilitate visualisation of what is possible within the limits of a craft, and chance effects stimulate artistic risk-taking. Using tacit knowledge of craft skills to provide an insight into creative problem-solving processes is one of three methodological bases utilised throughout the research. Grounded theory informed the extraction of pertinent facts from an extensive database of historical information, and an understanding of heuristics-based phenomenology helped effect an empathetic relationship between the researcher and the original lacemakers. Together, text and practice contribute to knowledge by revealing the bilateral sources of Irish Crochet lace, the reason for the historical success of the controlled chance method, and its potential for producing creative outcomes in contemporary practice.
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Notes on the text

Geographical regions. Unless otherwise stated, in this thesis United Kingdom refers to the term used from 1801 to 1927 to describe the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; Britain and British designate, solely, England and/or Scotland; and Ireland refers to the thirty two counties which include the nine counties of the province of Ulster, six of which have, since 1921, comprised Northern Ireland.
Meanings and spellings of words. In quotations from nineteenth century texts, original spellings, (including capitalisation of improper nouns), have been maintained even when there is inconsistency within the quotations: for example, between color and colour, and between crochet and crotchet. The only change made has been to omit the space between a word and a following colon or semicolon, in keeping with modern usage. Except in quotations, the letter s is used in spelling words that commonly adopt a z in American and Oxford English. Color rather than colour is used for software menu choices. The current or most widely accepted spellings of place names have been used. For example, Inishmacsaint replaced Innismacsaint, and Rosslea replaced Royslea, but Roslea is the spelling preferred by the majority who now live there. The exception is in quotations where original spellings, for example, Connamara, are kept. The word contemporaneous is used to describe events that are of a former time; contemporary always means of the current time. Irish Crochet, with a capital letter C, distinguishes a particular style of crochet from Irish crochet which refers to any other crochet made in Ireland. A small letter at the start of a quotation is used to indicate that the quotation starts part way through a quoted sentence: a capital letter is used at the start of a quoted sentence, even when the quotation starts part way through the authors sentence.
Abbreviations NMI - National Museum of Ireland UFTM - Ulster Folk and Transport Museum V&A - Victoria and Albert Museum
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I hereby declare that with effect from the date on which the thesis is deposited in the Library of the University of Ulster, I permit: 1. the Librarian of the University to allow the thesis to be copied in whole or in part without reference to me on the understanding that such authority applies to the provision of single copies made for study purposes or for inclusion within the stock of another library; 2. the thesis to be made available through the Ulster Institutional Repository and/or EThOS under the terms of the Ulster eTheses Deposit Agreement which I have signed. IT IS A CONDITION OF USE OF THIS THESIS THAT ANYONE WHO CONSULTS IT MUST RECOGNISE THAT THE COPYRIGHT RESTS WITH THE AUTHOR AND THAT NO QUOTATION FROM THE THESIS AND NO INFORMATION DERIVED FROM IT MAY BE PUBLISHED UNLESS THE SOURCE IS PROPERLY ACKNOWLEDGED.
Chapter summaries
Chapter 1 outlines movements within contemporary textiles that have a bearing on the course of this research and identifies the group that seeks to produce difference in crafted art as the one whose objectives are most closely related to those of the current research. The methodological foundation underpinning the research process is then detailed. Chapter 2 defines lace and examines problems inherent in its research. Irish Crochet derives from two sources: needlelace and crochet. This chapter traces the history of European needlelace to help gauge the extent to which mid nineteenth century Irish Crochet lace was influenced by pre-existing lace, to measure the degree of Irish innovation. Relevant lacemaking techniques are then identified because technique is stylistically descriptive and can locate a lace in a particular era and geographical area. Chapter 3. The origins of crochet cannot be conclusively determined but makers in Scotland and England were instrumental in popularising the newly fashionable craft by publishing books of patterns from 1840. This chapter is an in-depth study of early British crochet and the significance of the first books of patterns, to assess whether there is a link between that work and the strand of Irish Crochet that derived from crochet technique. Chapter 4. Contemporaneous texts and examples of known early 1850s Irish Crochet lace are the basis for the hypothesis that untrained girls and women produced an original style of lace. Although the makers referenced other lace, the creativity of the crochet-based version came largely from their experiential knowledge and the experimental ease allowed while adapting crochet technique. This chapter includes a detailed consideration of the veracity of the widely-believed claim of one designer that she invented Irish Crochet. Chapter 5. The theory that mastery of craft technique can sometimes generate a form of creativity during making, that is inaccessible at a design stage, is tested in practice. Several series of empirical work are devised to mimic aspects of the early Cork makers experience. Unexpected insights into the creative process are revealed by reinterpreting the repetitive, undemanding tasks required of some makers. Computer software is used to replicate the controlled chance approach of others. Textile art prototypes are made as contemporary interpretations of the spontaneous artistic sensibility that is identified as being the essence of Irish Crochet lace making. Chapter 6 summarises the ways in which this research: (1) clarifies widely-held historical misconceptions; (2) produces new evidence to extend the tentative proposals of other researchers; and, (3) presents evidence, in text and practice, in support of original hypotheses. Limitations are identified before the thesis concludes by noting how the research could be carried forward by others, and the particular way the author intends continuing the research.
Chapter 1. Context and methodology
1.1
Contextual review
1.1.1 Overview 1.1.2 Contemporary movements within textiles 1.1.2.1 Slow and Pro-Am 1.1.2.2 Technology and tradition 1.1.2.3 Crafted art Difference Signature 1.1.3 Textile hybridity 2 6 6 10 12 12 18 22 24
1.2
Research methodology
1.1. Contextual review

1.1.1 Overview
The research presented in this thesis is located in the area where contemporary art and traditional craft intersect. Because of the great number of potential responses to the ways in which contemporary resources could be synthesised with traditional craft practices to produce stitched textile art, regional, temporal and technical parameters are set. Specifically, the historical craft practices being researched are: Irish Crochet lace making between the years 1845 and 1855 and those textile crafts that are so closely connected to Irish Crochet that they help explain why it developed as it did during that decade. Contemporary resources used include analogue and digital stitched textile machinery, and design software packages. The textile art of the title refers to fibre-based or process-derived, single medium or mixed-media textiles.
By concentrating on a historical occasion when resources were appropriated and redirected to produce variations of pre-existing lace, the research emphasises the cyclical nature of craft and the potential to generate creative responses through using available resources with ingenuity. The thesis examines some of the ways contemporary artists perpetuate crafts capacity to evolve; whether the impetus for change is a response to social issues, a desire to incorporate new technology and materials, or an intrinsic artistic impulse. The art made to generate and test ideas during the course of the research is a combination of those factors, and demonstrates that an understanding of historical craft can contribute to crafted art.
According to Professor of Design, Chris Rust, applied art accounted for just 5% of Art and Design research undertaken between 1998 and 20061. A search of more than half a million theses in the database of the British Library
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As measured by the value of Art and Humanities Research Council awards during that period. Chris Rust, Keynote Address, Think or Swim? The Pianists Dilemma, GradCam th Conference, State of Play, Dublin, 9 May 2008.
3 reveals over 1600 theses on Textile Technology but fewer than 50 art-related textile results1. Lace is the focus of just two PhD theses in the Art; Museums class (A4b). One is a study of lace as a Victorian signifier of status and as a metaphor for femininity2. The other researches gros point de Venise lace and its representation by artists in non-textile media3. Research in progress that appears to parallel aspects of the research described in this thesis, (both reinterpret historical lace using contemporary resources), is that of PhD student Joy Buttress4.
Other, diverse PhD theses were considered alongside ideas presented in this thesis. Wood (2006), for example, identifies the phases through which tacit craft knowledge is conveyed to a novice by an expert. Holt5 writes about how traces of lives can be read from material culture and how objects are meaningful as a consequence of their being the products of human activity and because further meanings can be given to them by those encountering them subsequently. Kenning6 investigates crochet lace patterns for their potential to evolve in a digital environment.
Among those whose work has relevance to a study of nineteenth century Irish lace making, Helland (2007; 2008) has researched Irish needlepoint and embroidered laces from 1880, and their promotion by regional craft associations. Social historians, Luddy (1995a; 1995b), and Clirigh (2003), comment on the social conditions of nineteenth century Irish women, including lacemakers. The work of Palliser (1865), who wrote the first English language history of European lace, has been extended by many others
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http://www.theses.com/ Accessed 10 July 2011. Brompton, R.R.N., 2002, Lilies and lace: an investigation into the relationship between hand and machine-made costume lace through fashionable middle class consumption 18511887. Thesis, (PhD), Nottingham Trent University. 3 Walsh, E. C., 2009, Gros point de Venise: lace and its representation 1660-1702. Thesis, (PhD), University of East Anglia. 4 Buttress, J., Understanding the Heritage of Nottingham Lace to Inform Contemporary th Fashion and Culture. Ongoing PhD, Nottingham Trent University. Accessed 10 July 2011. http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/Profiles/88740-1-5/Ms_Joy_Buttress.aspx 5 Holt, T. J. P., 1996, Material Culture: An enquiry into the meaning of artefacts. Thesis, (PhD), University of Warwick. 6 Kenning, G.J., 2007, Pattern as Process: An aesthetic exploration of the digital possibilities for conventional, physical lace patterns. Thesis, (PhD), University of New South Wales, Australia.
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4 including Kraatz (1989) and prolific author and lace authority, Pat Earnshaw (1983 1995). Danish textile historian Paludan (1995) is the authority on early European crochet. Former (Levey, 1990; Wardle, 1982) and current (Browne, 2004) Victoria and Albert curators write briefly about, and show examples of, Irish lace in the museums collection. Research by Boyle (1971) on the Irish flowerers and, especially, Ballantyne (2007a; 2007b) on the early history of Irish Crochet and the work of Mademoiselle Riego, has been useful.
Invaluable primary information has come from Meredith (1865) who founded one of the first Irish lacemaking schools, Maguire (1853), who wrote a contemporaneous account of the Female Industrial Movement and knew many of the original Irish Crochet makers, and the brief record by lace merchants Lindsey and Biddle of Irish lace production up to 1883. Worthwhile information has been gleaned from the myriad instruction manuals and pattern books published between 1840 and 1912.
This thesis includes an extended case study of women and girls, untrained in art and design, who, by developing craft skills, made considerable economic and social changes to their immediate society, and lasting cultural and aesthetic contributions to lace history in Ireland and further afield. To scrutinise lace made by some of these women historical lace collections were consulted at: Victoria and Albert Museum in London (V&A); National Museum of Ireland in Dublin (NMI); Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in County Down (UFTM); Armagh Museum; Sheelin Lace Museum at Bellanaleck, County Fermanagh; Ulster Canal Stores in Clones, County Monaghan; Roslea Heritage Centre, County Fermanagh; and the private collection of author and maker, Maire Treanor, some of whose Irish Crochet lace originally belonged to author and maker, Eithne dArcy.
Of the hundreds of examples of Irish Crochet that were studied, some undated work might have been made during the period being researched but the only Irish Crochet lace examined and known to have been made before 1855 is a small collection in the V&A.
5 Contemporary craft theory revolves around defining craft and justification for maintaining craft skills. By presenting research on a little known aspect of craft history and showing that the information has relevance for contemporary practice, the research contributes to a longstanding debate among craft theorists about the role of hand craft skills in industrial and post industrial societies. Academic writers on the subject, whose work informed the direction of the research, include Dormer (1997), Greenhalgh (2002), Sennett (2008) and Adamson (2010).
The definition and role of craft have fluctuated throughout the centuries (Greenhalgh in Dormer, 1997). For Secondo (in Greenhalgh 2002, p.118), a craftsperson working today incorporates the role of designer (who plans structure and appearance) and artisan (who is skilled in working a particular material), but theorists opinions differ, about the importance of the balance between these two roles, and the contribution of art and technology to the mix. What constitutes design, making skill, and the extent to which the maker wants the object to be seen as art, have been variables for centuries: the speed of technological developments is the element most likely to compel contemporary makers to adjust the balance of the other three components in the equation. This applies even when the maker does not use digital design or production technology but is a result of the impact on their practice of others response to technological innovation.
Despite disagreements about specific issues, there is, among those with an interest in crafts, universal support for the preservation of craft skills. Part of the difficulty in realising the goal of maintaining and further promoting such skills is highlighted by Greenhalgh (2002, p.1), who recognises that,
In late modern culture the crafts are a consortium of genres in the visual arts, genres that make sense collectively because for artistic, economic and institutional reasons, they have been deliberately placed together They have no intrinsic cohesion.
Even within genres there is often no intrinsic cohesion: within textiles, lacemakers, for example, probably have more visual commonality with
6 botanical illustrators - since the majority of lace designs are loosely floral than with materially similar patchworkers or tailors.
Craft theory and craft history are inextricably linked but while craft theorists perspective is often broad enough to encompass the crafts generically, the same is not usually true of craft history. Each craft, and sub-section within it, has a unique past and, consequently, a different contribution to make to theory and contemporary practice. The craft history component of this thesis concentrates, not on the crafts or textiles, but a section within textiles, lace, then, Irish lace, and within that, Irish Crochet lace. Through rigorously researching a small area within the broad genre textiles this thesis discovers a concrete historical paradigm that is tested in contemporary practice. In doing this, the research advocates the perpetuation of craft skills and contributes to broad craft theory.
1.1.2 Contemporary movements within textiles 1.1.2.1 Slow and Pro-Am
In the nineteenth century, justification for maintaining hand craft skills came, primarily, via Pugin and Ruskin, from the Arts and Crafts movement (Naylor, 1990), and in the twentieth century, from advocates of studio crafts (Dormer, 1997). Traces of both movements remain in current hand craft practice, which is increasingly being seen by many as part of the solution to many twenty first century ethical and environmental problems. Using sweatshop labour to produce goods for a satiated market presents ethical dilemmas. Environmental concerns have led to a search for scientific and technological ways to resolve the environmental crises of industrial pollution, sustainability of natural resources, and waste disposal.
Local hand craft making slows the rate of production and consumption of objects. Producing fewer objects means less resource depletion, less
7 pollution and fewer sweatshops. Expansion in the made-to-fit limited run market, because buyers can have precisely what suits them, has also, paradoxically, reduced consumerism; computer automation permits mass customisation, greater flexibility, and hence, greater variation in production (Secondo in Greenhalgh, 2002, p.124). This simple expedient, by increasing the monetary value and/or emotional connection of people to objects, gives them an extended life. Buyers become aware of the content of objects, in terms of materials and hours of work, and feel an attachment to nonhomogeneous, slowly-made and skilfully-made objects; especially if they know something about the maker1.
The demand for crafted objects across a range of markets and skill-levels means that now, in the opinion of Greenhalgh (2002, p.16), this gaggle of methodologies and ideologies the crafts has never been in a healthier condition. It has never been more vibrant. It has persisted; it is poised for a radical new phase. Almost certainly in the new phase are makers who are part of a deliberately low tech movement2, who value goods that are sustainable, ethically and ecologically sound, and show difference (Fletcher 2008; McDonough and Braungart, 2009). The website of Slow Making describes one group within the movement as having a philosophy that respects the speed of the hand in making ... that engages with the longevity of an object, and how it can be maintained and repaired over generations3, while working with ecosystems and for the benefit of local communities.
Makers in this category include textile designers Rebecca Earley, whose work addresses the growing problem of post-consumer waste, and Kate Goldsworthy, whose methods transform trash into treasure (Quinn 2009, pp. 33, 224). Like philosopher and motorbike mechanic, Matthew Crawford (2010), journalist Caroline Roux of Crafts magazine, sees craft as an antidote to mass production and as a practice in which the very time it takes
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Based on comments made by participants at a workshop for gallerists, makers and educators: From Experience, facilitated by Christoph Zellweger, Monica Gaspar Mallol and rd th Jorunn Veiteberg, organised by Craft NI and the University of Ulster, 3 & 5 March 2011. 2 th http://www.slowmovement.com/ Accessed 10 July 2011. 3 http://slowmaking.blogspot.com/2006/09/slow-making-manifesto.html th Accessed 10 July 2011.
8 to produce an object becomes part of its value in a world that often moves too fast.1 Sociologist Richard Sennett, in his book The Craftsman (2008, p.251), contrasts sciences rush with craftsman-time, the slow time that enables reflection, while for sustainable design facilitator, Alastair FuadLuke (2005, Section 2.4), Manifestations of slow design touch the senses deeply, foster a revival of intuition over information and de-commodify time.
Paradoxically, a manifestation of the fast pace of modern life, the internet, by supporting online marketplaces2, fora3, demonstration videos and blogging, is largely responsible for initiating and sustaining the growth of the burgeoning slow movement. What The New York Times (4th September 2008, page F1) has called the alt-crafts world and which was documented by Faythe Levine (2008) in film and book form, has been named the Pro-Am movement by Demos team Leadbeater and Miller (2004). Pro-Ams, innovative, committed and networked amateurs working to professional standards, (p.9) enjoy acquiring cultural capital: they enjoy immersion in a body of knowledge held by a community. But its not just one way. They also like passing it on, being part of a flow of knowledge through a community (p.40). Sennett (2008) supports the Pro-Am concept. For him, craftsmanship is simply the impulse to find inherent worth in doing a job well; any job, not just skilled manual labour. He argues that:
Motivation matters more than talent, and for a particular reason. The craftsmans desire for quality poses a motivational danger: the obsession with getting things perfectly right may deform the work itself. We are more likely to fail as craftsmen, I argue, due to our inability to organize obsession than because of our lack of ability. The Enlightenment believed that everyone possesses the ability to do good work of some kind, that there is an intelligent craftsman in most of us; that faith still makes sense (p.11).
Acting Editor, Crafts magazine. Accessed 10 July 2011. http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/contemporary/crafts/what_is_craft/index.html 2 http://www.etsy.com/ A venture capitalist supported online department store for the D.I.Y. th set, according to The New York Times, 4 September 2008, page F1. 3 Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, weavers and dyers, http://www.ravelry.com/about Membership is increasing by an average of 6000 each day. th th 412120 members when accessed on 11 August 2009 and one million members by 13 th November 2010. Accessed 10 July 2011.
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9 Endorsing the ideas of fellow Pragmatist, John Dewey (1934), Sennett (2008, p.277) believes that, The innate abilities on which craftsmanship is based are not exceptional; they are shared in common by the large majority of human beings and in roughly equal measure.
An eclectic mix of work by amateur and professional makers is the basis for an exhibition at the V&A from September 2011 which will provide an insight into how the knowledge of making is preserved.
Power of Making comes at a time when the loss of skill is threatening cultural practice and impacting on commercial industries. However, there is also a resurgence of making currently taking place as a means of self expression, social participation and cultural definition. The exhibition will examine and celebrate the expertise, knowledge and innovation demonstrated in objects, supporting the importance of traditional making skills and the drive towards new ways of working.1
The exhibition theme summarises the focus of craft theorists: the redefinition of craft over time to maintain its relevance for contemporary makers and users. This thesis highlights the resurgence of making by artisanal textile makers, textile professionals, and practitioners in non-textile disciplines who are finding new ways of working with textile materials and processes.
For some in these groups, innovation starts at the design stage; for others it becomes apparent while making that the object could be made differently. Sometimes the way of working is what is new. Taking decisions collectively and democratically, either when physically together in the same room or online, generates creativity. Co-design, advocated by Fuad-Luke (2009a) and researched in textile practice by Jen Ballie2 in workshops where massproduced clothes are personalised, seems to provide ideal conditions for bringing small groups of people together to exchange knowledge, share skills and stimulate ideas.
Power of Making, 6 September 2011 to 2 January 2012, V&A, London. th http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/power-of-making/ Accessed 10 July 2011. 2 Ballie, J., Considerate C-Creation for Clothing Using Participatory Design Methods within th the Fashion Industry to Promote Sustainable Consumption: 15 International Symposium on rd th Electronic Art, University of Ulster at Belfast, 23 to 29 August 2009.
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10 The case study presented in Chapter 4, of early Irish Crochet lace makers, is an example of a successful nineteenth century Pro-Am/Co-design initiative that corroborates the Enlightenment belief, expressed by Dewey and Sennett, that more people than know it have the capacity to be creative. Those who advocate low tech or slow production methods are just one group among many in the field of textiles. Worldwide, forty million people are estimated to be employed in the industry1, most of them in the four countries that produce two thirds of the worlds textiles2. Individual makers, unable to compete in a mass market, often focus on producing high quality, innovatory textiles for specialist markets. Niche groups whose work has a bearing on this thesis are those who incorporate scientific and high tech developments into textile substrates and/or, use textiles as an art medium.
1.1.2.2 Technology and tradition
Industrialisation in the nineteenth century and the development of synthetic fibres in the twentieth century (Handley, 1999) caused greater change in the textile industry in two hundred years than happened in the previous two thousand years. The change has continued and accelerated: Clarke and OMahony (2005, p.6) believe; what we are seeing in these early years of the twenty-first century is a combination of the creative and scientific as never before and consequently Never has there been a more exciting time to work with advanced textiles. They provide numerous illustrations, from the work of textile makers Jrgen Lehl, Karen Spurgin, Nigel Atkinson and others, of how technology and tradition can work superbly well together (p.7).
Hines, T. and Bruce, M., 2007, Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, 2 Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. 2 th www.exportbureau.com Accessed 10 July 2011. th http://www.textileworld.com/index.html Accessed 10 July 2011.
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11 Technological developments have spearheaded cross-disciplinary interest in textiles by designers. When nanotechnology made possible the ultraminiaturisation of particles and electronic components1, textiles, because of their flexibility, tactility and ubiquity, became important as carriers of technology. The ability of microfibres2 and nanofibres3 to combine with and enhance the properties of other fibres at both the production and finishing stages has caused them to become, in the opinion of Clarke and OMahony (2005, p.15), the real future of textiles. Considered optimal candidates for important applications such as filtration, biomedicine, protective clothing, electrical and optical use, and nanocomposites4, they too have recently begun to be mass produced5. Textiles that can incorporate metals, ceramic and glass close to a molecular level, so that they still look, feel, drape and handle like textiles, are being manufactured: for example, foil-coated Tactel, a fabric that resembles mercury in surface appearance and fluidity (Clarke and OMahony, 2005).
Practitioners in diverse disciplines use the new textiles. Artist Astrid Krogh weaves lengths of optical fibres that, connected to a computer-sequenced light source, display constantly changing colour (Quinn, 2009). Sculptor Anish Kapoors Marysas, 150 metres long, used just three steel rings joined together by a single span of PVC-coated polyester (Clarke and OMahony 2005, p.162). Among those who demonstrate that fabrics are bringing the worlds of art, design, engineering and science ever closer (p.6) are: Dominique Perrault, a textile-based architect6; Oron Catts who has created victimless leather (Technothreads, 2008) in a vacuum flask from
1 2
Roco, M. C., Nanotechnologys Future, Scientific American, August 2006, p.21. A collective term for fibres (e.g. Tactel ) whose individual filaments are finer than one denier, and equal to one hundredth of the diameter of a human hair. th http://www.venosan.com/index-en Accessed 10 July 2011. 3 -9 Nano a prefix - one billionth or 10 http://www.factmonster.com/chemistry/glossary/n.html th Accessed 10 July 2011. 4 Zheng-Ming Huang, Masaya Kotaki and Seeram Ramakrishna, Spinning a Continuous th Nanofibre, Innovation, 10, (1). Accessed 10 July 2011. http://www.innovationmagazine.com/innovation/volumes/v3n3/free/coverstory4.shtml 5 th By textile giants Toray and Teijin. Newspaper: Nihon Sen-I Shinbun, 16 Sept. 2008, p.3. 6 Garcia, M., Impending Landscapes of the Architextile City, in a special Architextiles issue of Architectural Design, 76, (6), Nov/Dec. 2006, pp.28-34.
12 biomaterials; and Joanna Berzowska, whose team develops innovative methods and applications in electronic textiles and responsive garments1.
Stitched textile applications of advanced textiles are rarer but include embroidered surgical implants that provide strong, compact, lightweight, customised support for internal body parts while tissues repair themselves. The advantage of embroidery is that threads can be arranged in multiple directions (Colchester 2007, p.39).
1.1.2.3 Crafted art Difference
The main objective of another niche textile group is to produce innovatory work that demonstrates difference. Some of the professionally-trained practitioners within the field define themselves as artists and some as craft makers, indicating the various emphases each attaches to their output, and how they intend the objects to be read. For some, their work overlaps with the ethos of the slow movement; others work includes high-tech textiles, but what is of primary importance is the conviction that there is a place outside the mass sector for distinctive objects.
Difference in made objects takes many forms. Accidental difference is something that makers can use to advantage when creating individual pieces of work or prototypes. Chapter 5 shows how digital design software can produce unpredictable results. Unexpectedly interesting effects often result when production machines malfunction. Larger scale manufacturers generally avoid accidental difference but can choose to contrive difference by introducing, apparently accidental, imperfections into machined work at the design stage to mimic hand processes, and by using digital processes that almost replicate patterns.
http://www.berzowska.com/ Accessed 10 July 2011.
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13 Irish Crochet is an unusual lace in having inherent difference: when following instructions there can be great variation in outcomes because of a makers style of working and level of artistic awareness (Harvey, 1912). Making motifs separately and arranging them spontaneously before improvising the joining sequence, makes replication impossible. Inherent difference is responsible for most of the variations that appeared when makers from one region tried to copy exactly work from another place. The Killeshandra collars (Chapters 4 and 5) are poor reproductions of Venetian originals but the inherent difference introduced by using a hook to make them, instead of a needle, initiated a process that eventually resulted in Irish Crochet becoming a unique style rather than a variation of a pre-existing lace.
Creating difference is not always done simply to appeal to niche markets or to expand a body of work or collection; sometimes the drive comes from within the maker. Deliberately attempting something new in the chance that she might happen to hit on a new stitch (Meredith 1865, p.374), made timeconsuming, mechanistic work tolerable for those mid nineteenth century Irish Crochet makers who disliked repetition. Unlike other laces, early Irish Crochet had no printed pattern to be followed; unlike knitting, there was no time-consuming section to be ripped back and remade if something did not work; or tatting, where each stitch is knotted and not easily undone. Experience, a facility with technique, and the ease with which diversions can be attempted and undone, encouraged experimentation. For philosopher and Nobel prize winning chemist, Roald Hoffmann (2004, p.62), Intuition begins in trial and error, respecting the richness of matter and its changes. Homage is paid to chance, serendipity can be courted when invention stagnates.
Commenting on the future of crafted objects after the maker releases them to gallerists, Shan McAnena1 believes that What happens to work is a mixture of serendipity and choreography. Extracted from her comment, the oxymoronic expression choreographed serendipity seems to describe aptly
1
Shan McAnena of the Naughton Gallery at Queens University, Belfast. Comment made at a workshop, From Experience: creating objects, interest and interaction, organised by Craft rd th Northern Ireland and the University of Ulster, 3 and 5 March 2011, Belfast.
14 a process part way between accidental and planned. Manipulating chance events or deliberate accidents forces an improvised outcome that a skilful maker can use to advantage. Because of its potential for reinterpretation as contemporary textile art, the element of controlled chance, valued by early Irish Crochet makers, is the primary constituent of the practice component of this thesis.
There are many examples of the crossover of makers from diverse areas whose primary aim is to create distinctive objects. Scott (2003) highlights the art of sculptors with considerable craft skills who include textiles in their practice, and textile artists who produce three-dimensional work and, from their art, it is impossible to tell who originally trained in which medium. The artists include: Kieta Jackson who crochets with wire and whose work shows a strong craft sensibility (p.71) and Helen Weston who gun-tufts fibres into metal, using contrasting materials to emphasise the incongruity of the ideas expressed in her sculptures.
Ceramics specialist, Garth Clark, writes of other fine artists who use craft as an expressive medium:
You can take an artist from the fine arts and put them in the crafts and the work they make may not rise to the level of art by craft standards. It's not a complicated thing we are talking about, it is two distinct disciplines with their own cultures. And success in one is not automatically transferable into the other.1
Some make their, or others, lack of craft skill a contributory factor in their art. Those working within the idiom of debased craft, include ceramicist Robert Arneson and photographer Cindy Sherman. Mike Kelly deliberately and provocatively incorporated discarded hobbyist craft into More love hours than can ever be repaid, which evokes, in his opinion, the wretched excess and pathos of domestic craft activity (Adamson 2007, p.139).
Clark, G., How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement: An Autopsy in Two Parts, a lecture given at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon, on October 16, 2008. Published in: Adamson, G., (ed), The Craft Reader, Berg, Oxford, pp.445 453.
15 Bauhaus-trained textile artist, Anni Albers, believes the uneasy relationship between fine art and craft began with the birth of design in the nineteenth century, when industry overran craft1. For some, the way to maintain crafts strength is by not presenting it as anything other than craft.
For decades, craft institutions have been favoring the outer edges of craft, its hybrid manifestations, in which craft is channeled through design and fine art at the expense of the more traditional crafters In the process, far from improving the mediums place in the visual arts, its brand in the visual arts marketplace has been corrupted and diminished.2
A current limitation of hand lacemaking is that it is economically unsustainable as a traditional craft. Lace, so desirably exclusive that landowners sold estates to buy it in the seventeenth century (Pollen, 1908), became ubiquitous when machines became able to reproduce it so perfectly that it was indistinguishable from its handmade source lace: causing the hand industry almost to die out. The time commitment involved in training and production means there are few professionals able to make a living from lace production alone. It is unlikely, therefore, that traditional hand lace will ever be made to match past splendours.
Yet, now, after more than a century during which there was very little change in lacemaking, aesthetic innovation has re-emerged. Lace is being crafted, not as textiles, but as textile art, using a wide range of tools, techniques and materials. Makers of hybrid lace, - such as Karen Nichol3, who makes fabrics for major fashion labels, - by doing what Garth Clark opposes, and channelling lace through design and fine art, are revitalising the genre. The recent prevalence of major lace exhibitions is an indication of the resurgence of interest in the subject.
Albers, Anni, 1944, One Aspect of Art Work, Design, 46, (4), pp.21-22. Reprinted in Halper, V. & Douglas. D., (eds), 2009, Choosing Craft: The Artist's Viewpoint, University of North Carolina Press. 2 Session introduction to lecture: Clark, G., Palace and Cottage (The Case for Conservatism). American Crafts Council Conference. Minneapolis. October 2009. th http://www.craftcouncil.org/conference09/?page_id=109#sennett Accessed 10 July 2011. 3 th http://www.karennicol.com/pages/lace.html Accessed 10 July 2011.
16 Exhibitors in Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting are described as artists who apply traditional knitting and lacemaking techniques to unusual materials, or new techniques and technologies to traditional materials and whose works speak to pervasive and persuasive cultural, social and political issues with which art intersects today (McFadden 2008, p.6). Crossing disciplinary and material boundaries is a characteristic of contemporary textile making. In the Love Lace exhibition at Australias Powerhouse Museum1, more than fifty techniques that manipulate materials as diverse as metals and echidna spines have been used to craft contemporary works that interpret traditional laces. It is planned that Lost in Lace2 will be An ambitious exhibition featuring large-scale, theatrical and visually stimulating work by international artists who have been inspired by the language of lace.
The impetus of these artists to innovate is something that would have been understood, albeit on a smaller scale, by many makers in mid nineteenth century Ireland. Risking failure in the drive to create difference links early Irish Crochet makers to contemporary artists. Even under severe financial pressure to make marketable edgings, mid nineteenth century workers sometimes made less sellable work (Meredith, 1865); a phenomenon only partly accounted for by the hope that something more lucrative would result from experimenting. It suggests some makers had an innate need for novelty, and, more than other lace techniques, crochet suited their circumstances perfectly because it facilitates experimentation by those without prior design training.
In the skilled-crafts field, Pye (1995) writes of the elements involved in making uncommon artefacts. He believes that the time involved in acquiring the skills necessary to design objects, use tools and understand the nature and potential of materials can only be justified by creating unique objects. If there is no risk of something going wrong in the making of every object then
From July 2011 to April 2012. Accessed 10 July 2011. http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/lovelace/index.php/exhibition-overview 2 Organised by the Crafts Council and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 29 October 2011 to 19 February 2012.
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17 the object could just as well be made by machine, be part of the workmanship of certainty. He argues that most objects are better made, and should be made, by machine, but those craft objects that are more appropriately made by a person should belong to the workmanship of risk. The workmanship of certainty is evident in all objects produced in quantity and found in its pure state in full automation (p.18), whereas:
Free workmanship is one of the main sources of diversity. To achieve diversity in all its possible manifestations is the chief reason for continuing the workmanship of risk as a productive undertaking; in other words for perpetuating craftsmanship (p.139).
Pyes definition of craftsmanship is:

workmanship using any kind of technique or apparatus, in which the quality of the result is not predetermined but depends on the judgement, dexterity and care which the maker exercises as he works. The essential idea is that the result is continually at risk during the process of making (p.20).
Textile maker Sophie Roet also stresses the value of skilfully creating diversity. When asked what she considered the most significant recent development in textiles, she spoke about a return to the importance of craftsmanship and how:
due to globalisation and the possibility to produce an exact copy of these luxury goods in places like China, it is now important to develop textiles and products which have a hand-made signature so that they have an individual, one-off quality.1
Hoffmann
(1991,
p.165)
also
believes
the
answer
to
having
an
overabundance of similar objects is to show the hand of the maker on some of them: to individualise mass produced items in order to satisfy an innate need for the chanced, the unique. Fuad-Luke (2009a, p.21) agrees that Theres a sterility with certain types of mass production that leaves a gap in our souls. He suggests that low-volume manufacturing is the way forward. A challenge for craft has remained the same since the Enlightenment, when craftsmanship seemed to mediate between machined abundance and the
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/contemporary/crafts/craft_interviews/sophie_roet/index.html.
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Accessed 10 July 2011.

18 modestly humane (Sennett 2008, p.118): how craft makers can work with technology to utilise what is best in both forms of production.
Even when an object is handmade, getting the right balance between hand input and appearance can be precarious for manufacturers. The connection with people was lost in Lefbures nineteenth century workshop when handmade lace was produced, because the very perfection of the work required of the lacemakers resulted in a total uniformity and regularity which paradoxically ended by making the laces of these workshops appear mechanical (Kraatz 1989, p.120).
The strength of mass production is its capacity to replicate. Machine-made textiles not only give consistent results but can also function better, cost less, and avoid having people work mechanistically: some synthetics can also include desirable properties unobtainable in natural textiles. For most textiles and everyday objects, especially machinery with electronic components, the rigorous perfection of the machine (Sennett 2008, p.84) is essential. To satisfy a different human need, some objects made by machine have, since the eighteenth century, simulated a handmade look (Sennett 2008, p.141), but, since digital technology has facilitated the production of non-identical replicas, identifying the machine-made is becoming increasingly difficult for the consumer. The dream of textile maker Junichi Arai for the personal textile (Handley 1999, p.136), and Handleys prediction of artificial imperfection and manufactured irregularity that signify the handmade luxury product (1997, p.300), have become reality. Therefore, are Pyes diversity and Roets one-off quality, which each believes validates craftsmanship, still adequate justification for the inordinate time investment that is needed to become skilled in a craft, when machines can create diversity and a hand-made look? Hoffmann (1991) writes about the psychological and emotional reasons that natural materials are preferred to those perceived to be unnatural or synthetic. The reasons could equally apply to the dichotomy between handmade and machinemade since handwork is equated with the natural and honest, and machine processes
19 with artificiality or cheating. For Hoffmann some pretence is acceptable but too much imitation, a dissembling that accumulates, inevitably leads to revulsion. One longs for the authentic, the real (p.165).
Signature
When machines replicate the look of the handmade then what is desirable in the handmade is something other than its appearance. Often, what is sought, by those for whom the handmade is important, is the connection with the real person who made the object and this is more valued, or valued for different reasons, than the connection with real materials. Hoffmann calls the process alienation when The typical mass produced object shows little of the history of its making There is something deep within us that makes us want to see the signature of a human hand on a product (1991, p.165). This signature of a human hand appears to describe something different from Roets hand-made signature: it seems to involve seeing, or imagining, a specific person behind an object, regardless of whether the object is made by that person, or hand-made. In high-end fashion, a garment that bears the name of a famous (or, preferably, infamous) haute couture designer is valued, even when the name behind it had little hands-on contact with the garment and others (or machines) created the fabric and sewed the pieces together.
With crafted objects, the less well-known the makers the greater the need for them to be directly involved in the making process: for contemporary makers who believe the objects they make become independent when they leave the studio, this can present a problem. They are concerned that revealing information about themselves to potential buyers, who feel the need to connect with a maker to enhance their pleasure in an object, commoditises them.
20 At a workshop1 organised to promote understanding of the various viewpoints of those who teach, make or exhibit crafts, gallerists said they saw it as their responsibility to be intermediaries between makers and buyers: to provide just enough information about the maker to enable buyers to feel connected, via the object, to the creative process. When author and ceramicist Edmund de Waal theorised about the connection between maker and thing made, he described the hand craft process as synaptic: he believes that the pulse of making transfers to objects2. This is, possibly, what buyers want to access when they buy craft but, unable to recognise it in bought objects, they attempt to get to it through knowing about the maker, even though the transference process is both intangible and ineffable.
In some instances it appears that objects themselves have signatures: they conjure up people who are part of their history. An exhibition, Threads of Feeling, at the Foundling Museum, London, from October 2010 to March 2011 (Styles, 2010), illustrated the powerful connection that can exist between people through objects; suggesting that an object does not need to be made by, but simply used by, another person, to forge a link with that person; even if he or she is widely separated by time or place. The exhibition showed tokens, tiny objects, (often heart-shaped), left with infants by mothers forced by circumstances, between the years 1741 and 1760, to abandon their children or hand them into the care of the Foundling Hospital. Of the more than five thousand tokens, intended to help identify the child if he or she were later reclaimed, the majority were textiles, because, when no token was left, staff cut a scrap from the clothing in which the child arrived, or was found. Somehow, although all the tokens were deeply moving because of the circumstances surrounding their history, the scraps, because the garment had been worn by the baby, had an especial potency.
From Experience: creating objects, interest and interaction. Workshop organised by Craft rd th Northern Ireland and the University of Ulster on 3 and 5 March 2011 in Belfast and facilitated by Christoph Zellweger, Monica Gaspar Mallol and Jorunn Veiteberg, 2 Ideas expressed in answer to a question posed after a lecture given at the Ormeau Baths st Gallery, Belfast, on 31 October 2007.
21
A similar poignancy and empathetic sensibility attaches to Irish Crochet lace made from 1845 to 1855. Part of its attraction is the skill and artistry evident in the surviving examples; part is the charm of the naivety of design that gels with modern aesthetic sensibilities; but, part is that the lives of the makers are inextricably bound with the work they made. That particular body of work has a signature, the makers behind it can be visualised. By contributing to the makers and their families survival at that time of famine and disease Irish Crochet lace has unconsciously met the necessary criteria to justify being remembered and perpetuated. It is one of the reasons that early Irish Crochet lace should be researched further than this thesis remit: to identify distinguishing characteristics of that period, so that surviving undated examples in museum collections can have a more accurate date attribution than their current, vague, nineteenth century description.
This sense of communion with previous generations who had similar skills seems to be what maker, Michael Brennand-Wood was responding to when, asked what he was looking for when he studied historical textiles, replied, I like the idea of a genealogy, of being part of the history of textiles. It makes me feel rooted in a tradition (1996, p.5). Companies that attempt to humanise mass produced textiles by using craftsmanship as a mediator are often trying to access nostalgia for tradition and a connection with skilled people. Japanese textile producer Nuno Corporation for example, often incorporates the expertise of artisans at the design, sampling, making or finishing stages. Marcia Ganem accentuates the artisanal contribution to her luxury textiles (Quinn 2009, p.120). Lindsay Alker, whose clients include Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, goes a step further. She makes her (hand) silkscreened fabrics look as if they have been lino-block printed and has them made intentionally uneven1: perhaps a borderline dissembling. Artist Yinka Shonibare (2004), however, plays on the irony of the fact that the African print textiles that he uses in his
http://www.lindsayalker.com Accessed 10 July 2011.
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22 sculptures as a commentary on the entanglement of colonialism are mass produced in Holland from Indonesian batik designs before being sold in West Africa.
Part of the attraction of Japanese synthetics is that there is no simulation, no intentional deception; theirs is openly artificial fabrication, a distinction examined in depth by Schwartz (1996). In recent decades, Japanese designers have enhanced previously despised synthetics to the extent that a metre of polyester could cost 300 in 1999: experimentation is expensive (Handley 1999, p.132). With Japanese synthetics the value is not inherent to the fibres themselves but is constructed, by association with quality design, with technological innovation and with consumer impressions (Handley 1997, p.316). Many of the marks of distinction, identified by fashion historian Lou Taylor, that separate contemporary luxury fabrics from others, are in evidence, including: known elitist designers or manufacturers name; unusual or costly manufacturing technique and high level of aesthetic quality (in Schoeser 2002, pp.69, 70). Value also attaches to difference or novelty: if designer Issey Miyakes pleats and A-POC lengths of garments (Fukai et al, 2010) were mass produced, even they would become less desirable because, When the synthetic becomes inexpensive and available to all, a curious inversion of taste occurs (Hoffmann 1991, p.165).
1.1.3 Textile hybridity Japanese designers clothes are hybrid creations that combine Western style and elements of their indigenous culture1. The textiles of Nuno inhabit the blurred territory between artisanal craft, high-end design, industrial manufacturing, and artistic creative intervention and celebrate a new hybridity, a contemporary interdisciplinarity and a modern expressive
Tokushige, Y., 2005, The identities of Japanese designers as seen through Western eyes. Thesis, (PhD), Essex University.
1
23 synthesis in textiles (Catherine Harper, in Millar 2005, p.36). Arai, who cofounded Nuno in 1984 with Reiko Sudo, and invented many manufacturing processes in the early days of the company, was interested in fusing industrial and the handmade as well as traditional techniques and innovative finishing processes1.
Hybridity in textiles can also describe material content: usually a mix of textile and non-textile materials2, especially carbon, glass, and metals. Hybrids + Fusion3 is a Dutch company that uses all of these materials in manufacturing three-dimensional textiles for industrial and medical applications. Fashion designer Hussein Chalayan forges unexpected alliances between clothing, machinery, built structures and technology (Beylerian and Dent 2007, p.132); evident in the Aeroplane dress where figure hugging rigid glass fibre panels can be remotely opened out to reveal a voluminous net skirt. Transmaterial (2006) catalogues multiple examples of material hybridity; from soft light switches to resin-encapsulated textiles. As material science continues to broker even more interdisciplinary exchanges, the boundaries between science, technology, craft and design blurs [sic] even more (Beylerian and Dent 2007, p.7).
The stitched textile art that, with text, comprises this thesis, incorporates elements from historical, material and technical hybridities. The historical element researches a period when makers faced some of the same problems as makers today. Irish lacemakers set up a hand skills-based industry at the very time machines became able to mimic some of their work. This thesis shows that, historically, although lace perpetuated tradition by being based on the work of previous makers, it has also constantly evolved, incorporating new materials and coping with the changes necessitated by advances in technology. Lacemaking is, therefore, an appropriate historical model for the successful integration of craft tradition and contemporary practice.
1 2 3
http://www.2121vision.com/McQuaid_paper.html. Accessed 10 July 2011. th http://www.tex.in/education/nextiles/ht/ht.html. Accessed 10 July 2011. th http://www.hybridsandfusion.com/. Accessed 10 July 2011.
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24
1.2. Research methodology

A bricoleur (French: handyman, DIY expert) system, of deploying whatever strategies, methods, or empirical materials are to hand (Denzin quoted in Gray and Malins 2004, p.74) was first suggested as a methodological strategy by anthropologist Claude Lvi-Strauss (1966). Appropriating resources and information from diverse sources and disciplines and reconfiguring them to fulfil an art commission, is the way that artists commonly work and seems, therefore, to be an instinctively suitable way to approach a research-led art project.
In this thesis, the bricolage element means three methodological systems combine to formulate theory: theory that is then tested in practice. Throughout the research a hermeneutic process, of re-reading texts and reexamining artefacts in the light of more recently acquired information, meant that Irish Crochet lace making presented itself as the most appropriate subject for a case study during, and not in advance of, the initial informationgathering stage. Sennett equates the process to a system devised by computer programmers:
A fuzzy logic program is sophisticated enough to delay resolving one set of problems until it works in another realm, searching for useful inputs; the modern computer is able to hold in its memory a huge number of these provisional solutions (2008, p.231).
Creating lace presents design challenges: having to consider space between motifs as a design element, for example; and opportunities, the possibility for three-dimensionality because of its, seeming, reversibility. Additionally, and unusually, in Irish Crochet the design process remains fluid until late in the making stage. Therefore, Irish Crochet lace became an appropriate focus for research into a versatile craft that has interpretative potential in art. A contextual review of literature and museum artefacts supported Irish Crochet as the most likely, of all the laces considered, to generate theory that could be interpreted in art.
25 There are few contemporaneous accounts of early Irish Crochet making, no known photographic record or other form of illustration, and, while vast quantities of work were made between 1845 and 1855, little has survived that can be accurately dated to those years. This provided the author, a textile specialist, with an opportunity to discover if the limited material available from the mid-nineteenth century would reveal more than it had to others who did not have the same experiential background.
Because many lacemaking styles and techniques overlap, knowing about one can often help explain another one. Therefore, information was gathered about laces that were closely related geographically, stylistically or by technique. This had the advantage that the unique features of Irish Crochet practice were immediately apparent when examined in tandem with other lace. The strategy of gathering extensive information before forming hypotheses, while part of the overall bricoleur approach, is more usually associated with a social science methodology, namely, grounded theory.
Generally, research produces information to verify a predetermined theory. Yet, often, when the main emphasis is on verifying theory, there is no provision for discovering novelty, and potentially illuminating perspectives, that do emerge and might change the theory, actually are suppressed (Glaser and Strauss, 1977, p.40).
In social science, to predict and explain behaviour, sociologists Glaser and Strauss argue the case for grounding theory in research itself, for collecting data before formulating a theory based on it. They believe that Generating a theory from data means that most hypotheses and concepts not only come from the data, but are systematically worked out in relation to the data in the course of the research. The discovery of theory from data, provides relevant predictions, explanations, interpretations and applications (1977, p.1). This thesis finds that attempting to generate theory from data is as useful a methodological approach in art as it is in the social sciences.
26 The working method used by many artists is the human equivalent of the computers fuzzy logic byte-marking. An artist instinctively identifies some information as noteworthy during a preliminary data gathering stage, without knowing the significance at that time. Both Hanrahan (1996) and Rust (2007, p.701; 2009) describe the experience of finding answers in art before knowing the question. Social scientist Michael Polanyi writes about an empirical inductive process of noticing clues and, through experimentation, turning up supporting evidence while anticipating discovery of the, as yet, unknown. Tacit powers of personal judgment are essential in the process, which he likens to perception:
Any sustained effort to make out what confronts us in a confusing configuration of sights, is an exercise of similar powers of searching for clues by sensing the nearness of a significant shape to which they might tend to crystallize (1962, p.612).
After gathering all the information that seemed relevant; that is, that related to the intersection of stitched textiles with major European lacemaking techniques (Chapter 2), British crochet (Chapter 3) and Irish lace (Chapter 4), significant shapes crystallised to form hypotheses.
Art produced as part of the thesis (Chapter 5) is the tangible expression of attempts to discover the essence of Irish Crochet by identifying and mimicking the creative impetus of the people who first created it. Philosopher Martin Heidegger (1978) explains what he means by essence and shows the interdependence of work made, maker and context. He suggests thingness means an object has physicality, has traits, and induces sensations. Beyond that is its essence, its self-contained, irreducible spontaneity (pp.153, 161).
Origin here means that from which and by which something is what it is and as it is. What something is, as it is, we call its essence. The origin of something is the source of its essence. The question concerning the origin of the work of art asks about its essential source. On the usual view, the work arises out of and by means of the activity of the artist. But by what and whence is the artist what he is? By the work; for to say that the work does credit to the master means that it is the work that first lets the artist emerge as a master of his art. The
1
Rust quotes Katie MacLeod, artists make in order to know what they wanted to make and Horst Rittel, the problem cant be defined until the solution is found.
27
artist is the origin of the work. The work is the origin of the artist. Neither is without the other. Nevertheless, neither is the sole support of the other. In themselves and in their interrelations artist and work are each of them by virtue of a third thing which is prior to both, art (p.149).
For Polanyi (1967, pp.23, 79) the creative process is imagination seeking discovery. He believes that having a tacit foreknowledge of yet undiscovered things drives the creative person, whether scientist or artist.
To hit upon a problem is the first step to any discovery and indeed to any creative act. To see a problem is to see something hidden that may yet be accessible. The knowledge of a problem is, therefore, like the knowledge of unspecifiables, a knowing of more than you can tell. But our awareness of unspecifiable things, whether of particulars or of the coherence of particulars, is intensified here to an exciting intimation of their hidden presence. It is an engrossing possession of incipient knowledge which passionately strives to validate itself. Such is the heuristic power of a problem (Polanyi 1969, pp.131132).
While gathering information about the people, processes, materials and techniques connected with traditional lacemaking practices it became clear that some aspects of makers practice could only make sense to a person with textile craft skills: someone who could visualise the craft aspects of the working process through the original makers eyes. Believing that it is possible to see solutions to problems from another persons perspective, means incorporating ideas from a branch of human science, phenomenology. Introducing the second methodological strategy both supplemented the limited textual and artefactual evidence available and reduced the likelihood that the information gathered would generate no theory.
Two of the reflexive practices described by artist, and art educationalist at Columbia University, Graeme Sullivan (2005, p.100), parallel the methods used during this stage of the research. Gathered information was objectively analysed; a process that is meta-analytic in focus and reveals the plurality of new views. Phenomenologically, the essences1 of the craft being
1
Grossmann simplifies Heideggers thingness and essence: Phenomenology distinguishes sharply between perceptual properties on the one hand, and abstract properties on the other. Grossmann, R., 1995, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Ted Honderich (ed.), OUP, p.659.
28 scrutinised were revealing themselves. Sullivans second practice
undoubtedly had a bearing on the identification of the essences that were later reinterpreted as contemporary art. This, a self-reflective practice, describes an inquiry process that is directed by personal interest and creative insight, yet is informed by discipline knowledge and research expertise (2005, p.100).
In empirical phenomenology, a researcher derives universal meaning from the responses of people who have lived through a given experience, even though the researcher has not had the experience personally. When a researcher and participants have experienced the same phenomena, psychologist Clark Moustakas (1994) proposes the adoption of a heuristic approach to phenomenological analysis, which echoes Sullivans selfreflective practice. For Moustakas, heuristics
refers to a process of internal search through which one discovers the nature and meaning of experience and develops methods and procedures for further investigation and analysis. The self of the researcher is present throughout the process and, while understanding the phenomenon with increasing depth, the researcher also experiences growing self-awareness and self-knowledge. Heuristic processes incorporate creative self-processes and self-discoveries (1990, p.9).
Heuristic research begins subjectively but, by seeking out others who have had similar experiences, it becomes evident that the research has more than personal significance. Moustakas named the process of seeking to understand another persons experience indwelling, which:
involves a willingness to gaze with unwavering attention and concentration into some facet of human experience in order to understand its constituent qualities and its wholeness. To understand something fully, one dwells inside the subsidiary and focal factors to draw from them every possible nuance, texture, fact, and meaning. The indwelling process is conscious and deliberate, yet it is not lineal or logical. It follows clues wherever they appear; one dwells inside them and expands their meanings and associations until a fundamental insight is achieved (1990, p.24).
29 Polanyi (1967, p.16) equates understanding and tacit knowledge; a process achievable through indwelling, through which, in turn, new meaning can be accessed. He quotes Dilthey1 who taught that the mind of a person can be understood only by reliving its workings and Lipps2 who represented aesthetic appreciation as an entering into a work of art and thus dwelling in the mind of its creator. Moustakas agrees that; Underlying all other concepts in heuristic research, at the base of all heuristic discovery, is the power of revelation in tacit knowledge because it is tacit knowledge that gives birth to hunches and vague, formless insights that characterize heuristic discovery (Moustakas 1990, pp.20-22). For Polanyi, certainties
dissolve again in the light of second thoughts or of further experimental observations. Yet from time to time certain visions of the truth, having made their appearance, continue to gain strength both by further reflection and additional evidence (1964, p.30).
In this thesis, unearthing historical facts from primary sources enabled misconceptions about Irish lace to be rectified, but the new understanding was insufficient to formulate a hypothesis that could be resolved in art practice. Later, when data was analysed using a heuristic approach to phenomenological insights gained from textual and artefactual knowledge, it answered the question did untrained women and girls, with no tacit underpinning knowledge of textile design or production, create a unique, beautiful lace that has proved to be of lasing social, economic and aesthetic significance? This raised a further question: how was it possible for them to do that? Answering that question suggested theory that art practice was able to resolve.
Theory emerged, therefore, when parts of three methodological approaches were combined: acquiring an extensive database of information; adopting a heuristic approach to accessing phenomenological insights into others working methods; and, applying tacit and explicit knowledge of the craft skills evident in the working practices of Irish Crochet makers around 1850.
1 2
Dilthey, W., Gesammelte Schriftem (Leipzig and Berlin, 1914-36), Vol. VII, p. 213-216. Lipps, T., 1903, Asthetik, Hamburg.
30 The theory is: mastery of a craft can generate, in some circumstances, creative outcomes that could not be anticipated by generic designers who do not possess a comparable level of craft skill.
Early Irish Crochet lacemakers demonstrate that the ingenuity and problemsolving skills that develop during the making process produce objects that are different from those designed in advance of making. Motivated makers, competent in using materials and technique, and at a precise level of engagement, begin risk-taking, asking, what would happen if ? This can effect changes that could not have been visualised during a design stage. Machines can replicate anticipated physical processes but cannot replace the insights, chance combinations and instant responses to serendipitous events that are part of artisanal experience.
Written records help form a mental image of the makers and the conditions in which they lived and worked, but the work itself reveals further insights for those able to read it. Sennett believes anonymous workers can leave traces of themselves in inanimate things (2008, p.10). Perpetuating the knowledge that enables an accurate reading of the artefacts left by previous generations is sufficient justification for maintaining craft skills.
This thesis proposes that tacit knowledge enables contemporary makers of crafted art to understand, heuristically, those elements of craft practice that are common to former and current makers. By recreating similar working practices modern makers can gain insight into the thinking processes that affected the decision making of former craft practitioners. An aim of this thesis is to determine empirically if it is also possible to identify and access, behind the craft skills, the creative impetus apparent in the work of many early Irish Crochet makers; and whether that impulse can be reconfigured to suit contemporary circumstances.
31
Chapter 2 Lace
2.1 2.2 Introduction Difficulties in historical lace research
2.2.1 Defining lace 2.2.2 Limitations in artefactual and textual evidence 2.2.3 The similarity of types of lace 33 35 35 37 41 43 43 49 49 51 52
2.3
Historical styles and techniques

2.3.1 European lace 2.3.2 Irish lace 2.3.2.1 Background 2.3.2.2 New versions of traditional lace 2.3.2.3 Pre-1845 lace in nineteenth century Ireland
32 Alenon. Antwerp. Appenzell. Argentan. Argentella. Armenian. Arras. Aurillac. Ayrshire. Bailleul. Barmen. Battenburg. Bayeux. Bebilla.
Bedfordshire. Beveren. Binche. Bisette. Bloemwerk. Blonde. Bohemian. Borris. Brabant. Branscombe. Broderie Anglaise. Broomstick. Brussels. Bruges. Bucks Point. Bunt. Burano. Buratto. Burgandy. Caen. Carnival. Carrickmacross. Chantilly. Chemical. Chrysanthemum. Clones. Cluny.
Coggeshall. Cogne. Coraline. Cork. Croatian. Curragh. Cutwork. Dentelle la Reine. Downton. Dresden. Duchesse. Dutch Beveren. Edelweiss. Filet. Filet Crochet. Flanders. Flemish. Geneva. Genoese. Greek. Gros Point de Venise. Hairpin. Halas. Hamburg. Hamilton. Hardanger. Hedebo. Hollie Point. Honiton. Horsehair. Hungarian. Idrijan. Inishmacsaint. Irish Crochet. Kells. Kenmare. Lacis. Liege. Le Puy. Leavers. Lille. Limerick. Luxeuil. Machine. Madeira. Malmesbury. Maltese. Mechlin. Metal. Mignonette. Milanese. Miracourt. Nanduti. Net. Normandy. Nottingham. Orris. Oya. Plat point. Point d'Angleterre. Point de France. Point de Gaze. Point de Neige. Point de Paris. Polka Spider Web. Polychrome. Potten Kant. Princess. Puncetto Valsesiano. Punto in Aria. Punto a Groppo. Pusher. Renaissance. Reticella. Rhodes. Ripon. Rococo. Romanian Point. Rosaline. Roseground. Rosepoint. Roslea. Russian. Saxony. Sedan. Schneeberg. Sherborne. Shetland. Slovenia. Skansk. Spanish. Swedish. Swiss. Tambour. Tape. Tatting. Tenerife. Tignes. Tonder. Torchon. Trolle Kant. Trolly. Valenciennes. Vandyke. Venetian. Vieux Flandre. War. Wire. Withof. Yak. Youghal. Ypres. Fig. 2.a. Some distinctive lace types
The majority of laces belong to one of four groups: - depending on whether their roots are in embroidery or weaving. Almost all the types of lace listed in Figure 2.a can be classified as being [a] needlelace, [b] bobbin lace, [c] a hybrid of needlelace and bobbin lace or [d] a variation of [a], [b], or [c]. Few are stylistically unique. Most attempt to be an exact copy of a pre-existing lace or, by changing tools, techniques or materials, a variation of a known lace. Irish laces are emboldened in the list. Their sources are easily traceable because, following tradition, they are copies or versions of identifiable European laces. Irish Crochet Clones, Cork and Roslea in the list is Irelands most stylistically distinctive lace.
33
2.1
Introduction
Because it is made with neither a needle nor bobbins, crochet is not universally recognised as a lacemaking technique. Therefore, this chapter begins with an attempt to define lace to establish that crochet can be classified as lace. Other problems associated with a research project centred on lace are then addressed. In summary, they are:
little artefactual evidence survives; textiles are naturally perishable and a large amount of historical lace has been lost or recycled. Most that has survived is anonymous and undated;
there is limited primary textual evidence; contemporaneous trade and census records are unreliable sources of information because lace was often made by an invisible workforce of women and girls, at home and part-time (Bourke, 1993);
many types of lace are so alike that attribution, chronological and geographical, is problematic.
The chapter then begins the process of identifying the features that make Irish Crochet lace stylistically distinct from other Continental, British and Irish laces.
During the 1840s the newly fashionable craft of crochet acquired multiple manifestations depending on which of the aspects of its connections to knitting, netting, tambouring or needlelace was emphasised. This research proposes that, in Ireland, initially, two crochet styles developed, from different sources. The needlelace origins of the crochet that was first made in County Kildare are traced in this chapter. Chapter 3 details the possible sources of the crochet that was made around Cork.
Crochet stitch, if made independently or on a substrate, is a chain stitch. If made over cord, the stitch is indistinguishable from a buttonhole stitch. Needlelace is multiple repetitions of buttonhole stitch over a variable number
34 of strands of fine cord for motif outlines, and buttonhole stitch variants for motif fillings. This means that all historical needlelaces worked over cord can be used as design sources for crocheted versions of needlelaces. Parts crocheted over cord can look the same as needlelace: only non cordcovering parts (fillings, ground and edging), look different, since they are hooked chain stitches, rather than needle-made buttonhole stitch variants.
The interconnectivity of all lace types.
Fig.2.b. Earnshaws (1983, p.5) diagram of lace relationships. Additions to the original show the sources of Kilcullen lace (Chapter 2) and Cork lace (Chapter 3). Irish Crochet (Chapter 4) is a hybrid of lace from the two areas.
The cyclical nature of fashions in lace means that similar styles are reproduced decades, and sometimes centuries, apart (Kraatz 1989, p.15). Laces created using new techniques are additions to the catalogue, not replacements: so that, when punto in aria (Italian: stitch in air) developed from reticella (Italian: net) for example, both were made subsequently, rather
35 than the most recently-made superseding its predecessor. In the mid nineteenth century, it was fashionable, among those who could afford what was still a luxury purchase, to wear antique lace from many periods and places (sometimes all together - Palliser 1865, p.345); from the many varieties and variations of Venetian needlepoints to gossamer-like Chantilly.
The Irish lace that originated in Kilcullen, County Kildare, was a hooked version of a pre-existing needlelace. To understand why it developed as it did, this chapter outlines the history of the laces that most directly affected its course. This provides a vocabulary for describing styles and techniques adopted and, subsequently, adapted, by Irish lacemakers. Knowing what the laces looked like that were available to Irish makers as source material also helps illustrate the extent to which Irish Crochet was different from other laces of the period. It is then possible to gauge the contribution to innovation of the makers.
The chapter concludes by briefly tracing the early history of the only nineteenth century Irish laces to pre-date crochet, Carrickmacross from around 1820 and Limerick from 1829, to determine their influence on the development of the crochet industry from 1845.
2.2
Difficulties in historical lace research

2.2.1 Defining lace
The word lace, from the Latin word laqueus which means noose, could describe the cord of the noose, the space enclosed by the cord, or the noose-like (buttonhole) stitch that is the major component in all needlepoint and many embroidered laces. Lace, therefore, is defined as cord &c to fasten or tighten ; kinds of fine open fabric often of elaborate pattern.1 In this thesis, lace will always refer to a fabric and not a cordlike tying device.
1
The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 1942, 4 edn., OUP, London.
th
36 Lace specialists are sometimes more precise, about aspects of what constitutes lace, than lexicographers. For one specialist, lace
is essentially a textile ornamentation depending upon special design, which can be rendered, so far as needle-point lace is concerned, by variations of the buttonhole stitch which is distinctively a looping, and not a whipping or weaving, stitch (Cole, in Pollen 1908, p.vii).
Lace experts agree that lace should be open but if it is too open, or not open enough, it becomes an example of the prevailing technique. A distinction is often made between real, imitation and embroidered lace1. For purists, real means solely bobbin and needlepoint lace (Simeon 1979, p.3) so that, when Lowes (1919, p.178) writes that Irish Crochet is the only real lace that Ireland can claim, she is using the word real in a literary sense to mean original since Irish Crochet is neither a needle nor bobbin lace. Real generally excludes embroidered net2 and crochet, although Bowe and Cumming (1998, p.90) describe crochet as technically a true lace. The potential for confusion is compounded by the fact that the meanings of many lace-related words have changed over the centuries3, by the tradition of sometimes using or mis-translating the original Italian or French for techniques and stitches, and by local custom4. The widespread tendency to call Kilcullen style Crochet Irish point until the early twentieth century has caused some problems during the course of this research.
1
Applying bobbin-made motifs to machine net ... properly speaking what was made was not a lace, since it was constructed on a permanent support (Kraatz 1989, p.130); The essential feature of the fabric now recognised as lace lies in its being wrought independently of any visible foundation such as linen or net (Cole, in Pollen 1908, p.vi); It is, in fact, only to work performed in this manner [on a cushion] that the name of lace can be strictly applied (Sproule 1854, p.336); and, real, that is , handmade lace (Illustrated Exhibitor 1851, p.174). 2 Both of these products [Carrickmacross and Limerick] were really varieties of needlework and not true lace, but they have always been treated as types of lace as they were intended to fulfil the same decorative functions as true lace while being easier and quicker to make (Wardle 1982, p.173). 3 Sixteenth century lacis or darned net was revived in the nineteenth century as Guipure dArt; nineteenth century modern point lace was a tape variation (Palliser 1869; Wardle 1982, p.165). Seventeenth century guipure describes raised lace; later it refers to barred lace (Kraatz 1989, p.189). For Cole (in Palliser 1881, p.xvi), gimp is the lace pattern, and should not be confused with the material gimp, which was formerly called guipure: the word is now used to describe an outlining cord (Earnshaw, 1984a). 4 Treanor (1992), for example, uses the word filling to describe what is generally called ground and buttonies for the covered rings that, in Carrickmacross, are pops: Clones knots are rolled dots in Clones. In Ireland, motifs are bits and Ayrshire whitework is, variously, flowerering, sprigging, muslin work, parcelling or, simply, the sewing.
37
Kraatz (1989, p.180) believes the essential qualities of lace are that the structure is open and that there is freedom of movement, autonomy, between the connecting threads; thus excluding embroidered net lace. Earnshaws more encompassing definition allows for the inclusion of embroidered net and other Irish laces, including tatting, cutwork, crochet, and even the open parts of sprigging. For her, the fabric must be made of threads, it must have holes which form an essential part of the design, and which are made by special movements of the threads (Earnshaw 1984a, p.91). In an attempt to encompass all forms, including 3D, laser-cut and virtual lace, Australias Powerhouse Museum defines lace simply, as an openwork structure whose pattern of spaces is as important as the solid areas1.
Earnshaw (1983, p.5), illustrates a reason for it being so difficult to define lace. Her diagram (Fig. 2.b) shows that the majority of laces are hybrids rather than one, self-contained, technique: the diversity of lace types cannot be encompassed in a succinct definition.
2.2.2 Artefactual and textual limitations Unfortunately, the history of textiles will remain incomplete because most cloth has been lost. Compared with other forms of material culture, precious metals and ceramics, for example, fabrics are fragile. Because textiles are perishable, long-term survival has depended on exceptional storage conditions: third century Coptic textiles have been buried for most of the intervening years in the dry sand of Egypt2 and fifth century BCE Scythian felts in permafrost (Mullins 2009, p.31); the clothes on ancient Danish bog
1 2
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/lace/ Accessed 10 July 2011. The most badly damaged textiles have been attacked by fibre-eating insects, while others have been adversely affected by ultraviolet light which fades dyes and breaks down fibres. Heat makes the fabrics brittle, and humidity causes physical deterioration. The dry climate and sandy soil have preserved [Egypt's collection of textiles] in large numbers Jill Kamil, Al-Ahram Weekly, 24 - 30 July 2003, (648), Threads of history, th http://www.jillkamil.com/newpage5.htm Accessed 15 May 2010.
th
38 bodies did not disintegrate because of the bacteria-resisting nature of peat soil1. Ecclesiastical vestments, buried with Saint Cuthbert at the time of his re-interment around 916 AD and recovered in 1827 (Alford, 1886) survived because of a combination of storage conditions, materials and technique: the laid gold thread and couching linen threads held together sufficiently for the embroidered stole and maniple to remain intact even though their silk ground had almost completely disintegrated.
Immeasurable quantities of precious textiles were cut up in the Middle Ages to recover precious stones, or burned to salvage gold and silver. Quality fabrics and costly garments were discarded or reshaped as fashion and figures changed (Palliser, 1865), but most simply experienced a natural life cycle of wear and laundering that demotes textiles over time from best to everyday to rag.
What is true for textiles generally, is also true for lace. An Irish Parliamentary Act of 1778 that forbade the importation into Ireland of metal lace (Palliser 1865, p.414) helped ensure the success, for a few years, of the manufacturing of metal lace in Dublin. Unfortunately, little has survived, having been remade when fashion changed, or destroyed to recover its precious metal content.
Prior to the nineteenth century, trade and sumptuary restrictions, expensive threads2, and a labour-intensive manufacturing process made lace exorbitantly expensive. Paradoxically, the immense value of lace contributed to its destruction. Earnshaw (1983, p.167) writes of vast quantities burned by the Customs men, buried with the dead, or lost in battle. In 1764, for
1
Peat consists of dead but not quite decomposed vegetation, and has preservative th qualities. http://www.drentsmuseum.nl/index.cfm?pid=179 Accessed 15 May 2010. 2 A notion of the extreme delicacy of the thread used in the manufacture of Brussels lace may be formed from the fact that a pound of such thread sometimes costs 160, and that, with all the extra care bestowed upon it, it is even then not sufficiently refined for entire use, but that nearly one-half of the costly article is wasted. The extreme of this fine quality is the production of thread which cannot be worked when the wind is in the north, or the slightest breath of air moves, from its extraordinary tenuity. Linen thread thus obtained is worth more than six times its weight in pure gold: affording a striking exemplification of the manner in th which labour imparts value to raw material. The Illustrated Exhibitor, (18), 4 October 1851, p.333.
39
example, to protect British manufacture, forty five kilos of smuggled French lace - then valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds and representing millions of hours of labour - was burned. Throughout Europe, for centuries, the dead were customarily buried in their most precious clothes which, for those who could afford it, included lace (Palliser 1865, p.411); some of which can still be seen as carving on effigies (Palliser, 1865; Jackson, 1900). According to Felkin (1867), tombs were raided in the mid eighteen hundreds when there was a mania for antique lace. Earnshaw (1984b, p.12) cites a late seventeenth century publication that regrets the terrible waste when precious hand-knitted silk stockings and Venetian lace cravats could not be recovered from soldiers killed in battle.
Most nineteenth century lace no longer exists, not because of its great worth but because of its relative cheapness. Since machines became able to reproduce expensive handmade lace so successfully only an expert could differentiate between some types, valuable lace has, undoubtedly, been discarded or cut up and reused because its worth has not been recognised (Palliser 1881, p.xxvii). Even irreplaceable lace of known provenance can sometimes disappear: the whereabouts of the 1911 Youghal needlelace train of Queen Mary, comprising six months work by sixty women, (Earnshaw, 1988) has been uncertain since the death of its last known owner, the Queen Mother1. The remarkable quality of the work, in 300 thread, can now be gauged only from a small sample (acquisition number L.1020) in the National Museum of Ireland.
Researching Irish lace has added complications. Relatively few examples have survived for the above reasons, but additionally:
Because the outlining gimp is insecurely attached, Carrickmacross lace often disintegrated when inexpertly laundered.
According to Alex Ward, Assistant Keeper, National Museum of Ireland, Dublin.
40
Acquisition numbers show that most lace in Irish museums was donated during the twentieth century1 and, since lace designs and materials change very little over time, dating is vague. Few museums have lace experts among their staff.
Comparatively little was made of some types of lace. Of the major repositories of textiles in Ireland, the National Museum of Ireland has just four examples of Inishmacsaint needlelace in their collection (DT: 1880.796 - DT: 1880.799) and the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum has just one collar and a paper pattern. Most surviving examples of Borris tape lace appear to be owned by one family (Laurie and Meldrum, 2010).
Almost all Irish lace was made for export. Although Englishwomen often purchased Irish lace for charitable reasons, the fact that Mrs Bury Pallisers own collection included Irish work2 indicates Irish lace was of high quality: yet Irish women who could afford handmade lace bought it from France, Italy or Belgium: just 5% of Cork lace was sold locally (Maguire, 1853). Irish makers of lace rarely wore it themselves until the late nineteenth century.
Textual evidence is limited. A lot of history and social context of needlelace and crochet can be gleaned from pattern books but, unlike England and Scotland, no pattern books were published in Ireland in the nineteenth century. The first authoritative English language account of European lacemaking practice was by Palliser (1865), and she devotes just seven pages to Irish lace a few years after lacemaking reached its peak in Ireland.
According to curator Valerie Wilson of the UFTM, much of their large lace collection was acquired in the 1960s from anonymous donors who left bags of textiles at the gate of the museum. 2 Judged by the specimens she bequeathed to what became the Victoria and Albert Museum and recorded in the Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Lace in the South Kensington rd Museum, (3 edition) 1881.
41 2.2.3 The similarity of types of lace Until the widespread distribution of printed manuals from the 1840s, there were just two major ways of learning to make lace: either to be taught by an experienced maker or to examine finished lace, unpick stitches, and tacitly work out the process by which it was made. When the survival of families and whole communities depended on selling lace as a commodity, the secrets involved in its making were jealously guarded. In 1665, thirty forewomen were enticed at great expense to travel from Venice to Alenon to instigate lacemaking in France (Palliser 1865, p.140). Felkin (1867) gives a different account of the beginning of lacemaking in France, but it too involves apprentices being taught by an experienced maker.
The reluctance of individuals and groups to share skills with outsiders led to the tradition of deconstructing complicated lace in an attempt to work out its structure; a process recently recreated by artist Anne Wilson in her work, Topologies1, albeit for a rather different reason. Palliser (1902, [revised 4th edn.] p.443) describes how Mother Mary Ann Smith examined Milanese lace, unravelled the threads one by one, and at last succeeded in mastering its many details before reconstructing it into what became known as Youghal lace. In nearby Kenmare, Mother Augustine Dalton used the same method before remaking a rose point (p.443). Boyle (1971) records a makers practice of sending work to buyers via a distant post office to avoid the risk of a local person seeing and plagiarising a family-owned motif; and it is still customary for makers in Clones to hide their work when someone approaches (Treanor 2002, p.36). The invention of a bobbinet machine in the early 1800s (Felkin, 1867) changed the objective of lacemakers which was, until then, to produce a lace that looked exactly like a valuable, pre-existing lace. Over time, the attempted copy usually became a variation of the original. Manufactured net, because it did not reproduce the irregularity of handmade net grounds, could
1
Anne Wilson. Topologies. http://www.annewilsonartist.com/walkthrough.html th Accessed 10 July 2011

42
not mimic handmade lace and any lace that incorporated bobbinet, including Limerick and varieties of Carrickmacross, Brussels and Honiton, never claimed to be exact copies, but versions, of pre-existing laces. The same is true of most crochet: because it is made with a hook, it cannot exactly copy named laces but often attempts to be a hooked version of different styles of lace. Of the many crochet versions of lace, Irish point came closest to reproducing a valuable, pre-existing lace.
Before the manufacture of machine net and the development of crochet, the inclination to copy was based on the principle that only the best quality lace was worth the difficulty of deconstruction and reproduction. Often the highest praise a critic could give was that the copy was indistinguishable from its source. Palliser (1869, p.384), for example, writes that the school set up at Belfast by the late Jane Clarke exhibited, in 1851, beautiful imitations of the old Spanish and Italian points; amongst others a specimen of the fine raised Venetian point, which can scarcely be distinguished from the original. It is now in the South Kensington Museum.
When the reproduced lace matched the original in quality, retaining the originals name conferred cachet; Mechlin, for example, was made throughout Belgium, and in Spain and Italy, while all Europe (Kraatz 1989, p.132,134) made Lille: when made in the English Midlands, it was English Lille (Palliser 1881, p.xxx [Introduction]). Sometimes the place where the copy was made was added to the originals name to distinguish it from other copies: Belgian Chantilly and Chantilly of Bayeux attempted to be exact copies of authentic Chantilly lace. When copied lace changed over time and became good enough not to need the association with the source, it adopted its own place name. In Burano, for example, eighteenth century Alenon and seventeenth century Venetian gros point were copied extensively before the town became known for its own Burano lace (Kraatz 1989, p.130). If machine made, however, the place of manufacture was not usually included in the name. Except for a relatively short period in the early second half of the nineteenth century, machine made lace has been ranked as less desirable
43 than handmade work and has tended to gloss over its actual place of manufacture; except, perhaps, for Nottingham where the place name is synonymous with machine lace.
Because Limerick lace production was a large scale commercial enterprise, it became Limerick lace almost immediately even though it began by copying Coggeshall lace. The same was not true for crochet made in Ireland. Until the end of the nineteenth century, the work was called by its style; plain, Greek, Spanish, Jesuit, knotted, lifted, guipure, and Venetian point. Meredith (1865, p.16) calls the work crochet and Irish point; descriptions still used in 1884, (Young Ladies Journal) even though it was not needlelace. When copied in France in the early twentieth century, the style was point dIrlande. The name Irish Crochet has been used by publishers of patterns (Needlecraft [1910]), and others1 since the early twentieth century. Among makers in Ireland, it has always been the crochet (Treanor, 2002).
2.3. Historical styles and techniques

2.3.1 European lace Netting is among the oldest2 of all lacelike fabrics. Although plain netting, made from prehistory to trap animals, does not constitute lace, decorated netting does. The oldest known European nets are closely-worked hairnets on German bog bodies believed to be five to six thousand years old (Pfannschmidt 1975, p.7). Much more lace-like is a Danish Bronze Age hairnet (Potter 1990, p.17), which could be mistaken for netting or crochet but which has been identified by Collingwood (1974) as sprang, a technique where vertically-strung lengths of yarn are horizontally looped by hand across neighbouring lengths.
1
A 1907 advertisement by manufacturer, John Wilson, of Belfast, uses the term. http://www.gjenvick.com/Fashions/1907-Adv-JohnWilsonAndSon-Belfast.html th Accessed 10 July 2011. 2 The British Museum in London, for example, has Assyrian relief carvings from 728 BC (Registration numbers: 1906,0514.1 and 1856,0909.21) that show net fringes on the hems of garments and nets used in hunting.
44 Worked net (lacis) is similar in appearance to many later laces, including some examples of hollie point, drawnthread work, Hardanger embroidery, and filet crochet, although each of these originated independently at different times and in a range of countries. The visual similarity of the various types of needlework helps explain why filet crochet, mistakenly, has been assumed to have been made since medieval times, along with other nuns work.
Chronologically, cutwork is the next significant development. The earliest English record of cutwork is what would now be called appliqu and reverse appliqu, where precise shapes are cut from cloth and the raw edges bound with buttonhole stitch (Palliser, 1869). When so much fabric was cut away that the remaining threads could not support being bound, a system was devised of withdrawing sufficient threads from a linen fabric to leave a skeletal frame of interwoven threads. Although flimsy, the structure held together adequately enough to be worked, and, when entirely buttonholed, proved to be stronger than its delicate look suggested. The popularity of this reticella technique was helped greatly by the publication in 1587 of a book of needlework patterns by Federico Vinciolo. His book, forty editions of which were published by 1658, and others from that era, including two by women, contributed to a nineteenth century revival of reticella (Kraatz 1989), at which time it was often called Greek lace. An 1883 London Mansion House exhibition of Irish lace, organised by Ben Lindsey of Dublin and Harry C. Biddle of Haywards Company, Regent Street, London, illustrated reticella crochet in the accompanying catalogue.
A freer version of reticella soon followed. A pattern outline of laid and couched threads was covered in buttonhole stitches. Spaces within motifs were filled with decorative needlepoint patterns and the areas between motifs with buttonholed bars (brides). The technique, punto in aria, had the advantage of freeing the design from the restrictive, geometric grid of reticella. For the first time it was possible to create flowing, organic shapes in lace; ideal for an artistic form that lends itself to interpreting flora in textiles.
45
Figures 2.c & 2.d
Figures 2.e & 2.f
Fig.2.c. An illustration from the pattern book of designer Frederico Vinciolo (1588 edition) for lacis (darned net). (Palliser 1865, p.16). Fig.2.d. One of many variations of drawnthread work, Italian, 16th century (Pollen 1908, Plate XXI, detail). Fig.2.e. Section of antique Dutch lacis from the collection of Karen McCullagh, Sligo. Fig.2.f. Section of filet crochet worked by Karen McCullagh, Sligo. The above illustrations show: (1). Why graphed charts have remained popular for so long. Vinciolos chart is still usable for many techniques including canvaswork, cross stitch, beadwork, Assisi work, Swiss darning, and the three shown. (2). The difficulty of distinguishing between similar-looking techniques when the work uses very fine threads. The lacis at 2.e. was thought by the owner to be filet crochet but digitally zooming the high resolution digital photograph shows it to be lacis. The superficial similarity of a variety of techniques helps explain why medieval nuns work is so often mistaken for crochet (Section 4.3).
46
Figure 2.g.
Figures 2.h. & 2.i.
Figure 2.j.
Fig.2.g. Venetian gros point, Austrian, 1880 (Browne 2004, Plate 87, detail). Fig.2.h. Detail from Browne (2004, Plate 87) showing the carved ivory appearance. Fig.2.i. Irish crochet version of reticella or Greek lace (Lindsey 1883, Plate 5). Fig.2.j. Section of a collar. Machine/chemical version of Venetian rose motifs with point neige brides and reticella edging. Laces from all eras are often mixed. (Authors collection).
47 A second advantage of being free of the grid of reticella is that the number of threads to be covered can be easily increased or decreased to give thicker or thinner lines, as the design demanded. In skilled hands, the outcome can look sculptural: the best Venetian examples are often compared to carved ivory and are, probably, the most copied of all laces (Figs.2.g., 2.h). Since needle-made buttonhole stitches over cord are indistinguishable from those made using a hook, feasibly, a hooked technique could replicate the cordcovered elements of needlepoint, with the advantage that it is quicker to make. This was the premise behind the style of Irish Crochet that was often, confusingly, called Irish point (Sproule, 1854; Meredith, 1865) alongside the real Irish (needle)points of Youghal, Kenmare and Inishmacsaint. Fashions in lace changed with fashions in fabrics and clothes; heavy Italian lace of the Baroque period gave way to lighter Alenon and Argentan as velvets and brocades were replaced by Rococo silks and satins in the eighteenth century. Its value as a status symbol ensured that demand for lace continued to outstrip supply until the 1780s French movement against ostentatious display of wealth caused the market to collapse (Kraatz, 1989). In the Regency period, dresses were lightweight, less decorated and more simply constructed (Earnshaw 1985, p.76). Lace, which had been so unfashionable that many manufacturers, including the Dublin metal-lace producers, went out of business, enjoyed a revival because of the newlyproduced bobbinet. Royal patronage helped ensure the success of bobbinet: Charlotte, Princess of Wales wedding dress in 1816 was net studded with silver (Earnshaw 1985, p.80). The coronation dress of Queen Adelaide, in 1829, and Queen Victorias wedding gown, in 1840, had a top layer of bobbinet decorated with Honiton sprigs (Staniland and Levey, 1983). Net, 60 a square yard around 1800 (Earnshaw 1985, p.73), was three pence a yard in 1853 (Sproule, 1854, p.336) and the wearing of lace by the middle classes became feasible. Crinolines, themselves composed of fourteen square metres of fabric1, provided a suitable expanse to show off
National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin. Exhibit caption.
48 vast quantities of lace and could be overlaid with a deep lace flounce fourteen metres long (Kraatz 1989, p.118), or a shawl of similar area (Wardle 1982, Plate 5). The Pusher and Leavers machines, from 1812 and 1813 respectively, produced worked nets. Within a few years machines adapted the Jacquard card system and could handle tens of thousands of threads, so that, By 1831 the market was flooded by machine laces (Earnshaw 1985, p.82). The lace was of finer quality, more even in its texture, and considerably more elegant in its appearance than any bone-lace whatever, and at about one-third the price of bone-lace (p.84).
During the early Irish Crochet period, handmade and machine lace successfully co-existed.
Almost every description of lace is now fabricated by machinery; and it is often no easy task, even for a practised eye, to detect the difference. it has not diminished the demand for the finer fabrics of the pillow and the needle. On the contrary, the rich have sought more eagerly than ever the exquisite works of Brussels and Alenon, since machinery has brought the wearing of lace within the reach of all classes of society (Palliser 1869, p.394).
In 1862, there were 3552 lace machines in England 70% of them in Nottingham, (Palliser 1865, p.425 footnote), and hundreds of thousands of hand lacemakers across Europe (Kraatz 1989, p.120). Labour statistics are remarkable: a hand lace dress, for example, sold in 1867 for 3400, gave employment to forty women for seven years (Earnshaw 1985, p.95). The last major innovation in nineteenth century lacemaking had no direct impact on Irish lace made during the period to 1855 but ensured that later revivals, in Ireland, France (Bancaud et al, 2003) and Hungary1, were shortlived. From 1883, in Germany, lacelike cotton-thread machine embroidery on a silk substrate was put into caustic or chlorine solutions to perish the silk and release the undamaged embroidery as lace. Improvements were made to the chemical lace process by manufacturers in St Gall, Switzerland, where enormous quantities of very close imitations of crochet, Venetian gros point and three-dimensional laces in general were produced (Kraatz 1989, p.136).
http://www.csetnekicsipke.hu/en/indexen.htm Accessed 10 July 2011
th
49 2.3.2 Irish lace 2.3.2.1 Background
For more than two centuries, the textile industry and the economy of Ireland were inextricably linked. Unfair competition because of the cheapness of Irish labour was the reason given for the 1698 Parliamentary Act designed to protect the English and Welsh woollen industry. Crawford (2005, p.117) suggests that some were unaffected by the measure, which confined the export of Irish yarn to England and forbade the export of all woollen cloth:
Over the 17th and 18th centuries in Ireland the preparation and spinning of both woollen and linen yarns by women in their own homes provided a major source of employment and income for many families. Women processed raw materials not only for the weaving of clothes and household furnishings for the Irish market but also for profitable export as yarn to thriving English textile manufacturing regions.
However, Warden (1864, [1967 edn] p.391) believes:

The effect of this [1698 Act] was to ruin the woollen trade. Several thousand manufacturers left the kingdom, some of the southern and western districts were almost depopulated, and the whole of the kingdom reduced to the utmost poverty and distress by these improvident measures.
Despite government efforts to substitute a national linen industry for the decimated wool trade (Warden 1864, pp.392, 400), including subsidies from 1698 until the 1820s, linen production became established only around Cork and in the north east of Ireland. Emigration became an established way of escaping unemployment and poverty: Over four hundred thousand Irish-born men and women lived in Great Britain in 1841, whereas between 1780 and 1845 more than one million Irish had made their way to the United States and Canada (Diner 1983, p.5).
Oversupply of labour meant that, even for those in the industrialised north east who had paid work, wages were pitifully low. Women were largely responsible for growing and spinning the flax from which in 1825, for example, about 70,000 handloom weavers (Crawford 2005, p.134, quoting
50 Gill) made more than 55 million yards of linen (Warden 1864, p.399). With industrialisation, women lost the means to contribute, equally with men, to farming and cottage industries (Valenze, 1995). When weaving was mechanised in the nineteenth century, and mens work shifted from the domestic to the mill setting, if men did not move to the mill area, spinning by women and girls, as young as four years, (Crawford 2005, p.190) became the only source of family income. According to Warden:
the superior excellence of the hand-spun Irish yarn, the low price at which it was spun, and the difficulty at first experienced in spinning by machinery the very fine numbers of yarn which is used in Ireland, all combined to delay the erection of spinning mills there (1864, p.404).
The spinners skill was remarkable1 but, eventually, they too were replaced by machines2. The loss of domestic spinning left many families with no income other than the little earned as spriggers for the, largely Scottish, industry that produced Ayrshire embroidery or sewed muslin; and which employed 300,000 in Ireland in the 1860s (Meredith, 1865; Boyle, 1971).
Although some bobbin lace and metal thread lace was made in Dublin before the nineteenth century, Ireland had never been a lacemaking country. (Palliser 1865; Longfield 1970, 1978). In 1812, Wakefield3 reported that lace is not manufactured to a large extent in Ireland. Accounts of the Linen Board show that in 1815 77.6s was spent in premiums to reward expertise in manufacturing thread lace (Warden 1864, p.394), but their efforts, and those of the Dublin Society, had almost no impact. In Ireland, as elsewhere, machine-made net was responsible for revitalising lacemaking.
Numerous accounts show how women of means promoted craft enterprises to help alleviate poverty. Contemporaneously with Lady Arabella Dennys
1
Warden (1864) cites the example of specimens in the 1851 Great Exhibition which were 760 lea (equivalent to 130 miles of thread for one pound weight of spun fibre); close to being a single fibre of flax. 2 From 1825, This wet-spinning process transformed flax spinning from a domestic activity to a process carried out in mills (Brennan et al 1988, p.18; Crawford 2005, p.190). In 1828 the first flax-spinning mill opened in Ireland; Mullhollands, in York Street, Belfast. By 1859, Ireland had 82 spinning mills (Warden 1864, p.727). 3 Edward Wakefield, Account of Ireland: Statistical and Political, quoted in Palliser (1865, p.415, footnote).
51 work in eighteenth century Dublin, the Duchess of Hamilton, in Scotland, brought over women from France, and caused them to show the girls in her schools how to make bunt lace, as it was termed (Palliser 1869, p.372). Lacemakings revival at Burano, in 1873, was an initiative of the Countess Andriana Marcello who wanted in this way to provide work for the fishermens wives (Kraatz 1989, p.130).
When conditions were at their worst in nineteenth century Ireland, enterprising women introduced schemes to help their communities. Mrs Roberts, Mrs Grey Porter, Mrs Maclean, Mrs Hand and Mrs Martin, the respective initiators of Kilcullen, Carrickmacross, Inishmacsaint, Clones and Killeshandra lace, were wives of clergymen. Ursuline nuns and the related teaching order of Presentation Sisters1, established and preserved the making of lace at Cork, Youghal and other convent workrooms. Maguire (1853) lists the names and contributions of many of the women referred to by Meredith when she describes the atmosphere of the time; Ladies burst the bonds of conventialisms, and went regularly into business, to procure remunerative occupation for the destitute of their own sex (1865, p.6). In 1847, the eagerness to obtain means of support was so pressing that a perfect clamour for employment arose and The rapidity with which [the diffusion of knowledge of needlecraft] spread was almost electric ... (1865, pp.5,6).
2.3.2.2 New versions of traditional lace Figure 2.a is a very incomplete list of lace types. Some differ only slightly from others; only an expert can distinguish Arras from Lille, (Palliser 1869) but others are so unalike, Alenon and Hardanger, for example, that the two would never be confused by anyone with even a minimal knowledge of lace.
McGahan, F., Whyte, M., & Stanislaus, M., 1911, Order of the Presentation, The Catholic Encyclopedia, Robert Appleton Company, New York. Retrieved from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12397a.htm Accessed 10th July 2011.
52 Lindseys map of 1883 (Figure 4.a) shows where lace was made in Ireland. Some laces have Irish names, suggesting they have features that are different enough from their source lace to warrant being named after their place of manufacture. If a place of manufacture covered an extensive area, lace was often named after the town in which the lace school or distribution and collection centre was located. A lot of Irish Crochet lace was made in the Roslea area but, because the lace was collected at Clones, the lace made over the whole area became known as Clones lace and the once distinctive features of Roslea lace were subsumed.
If a lace did not attempt to imitate, but developed a new version of a classic lace, it could choose to associate itself with the original until established enough, or different enough, to become known by its own name. Sometimes though, the naming conventions were complicated by other considerations: an imitation Brussels point lace called point dAngleterre was neither a point lace nor made in England, but was so called to avoid the duties imposed on foreign lace (Cole in Palliser 1881, pp. xvi, xxii).
Many new versions of known lace appeared from the early nineteenth century when bobbinet replaced handmade reseau until guipure lace became fashionable again from the 1850s (Earnshaw 1984a, pp.23, 144). Brussels net lace inspired both a version of Honiton lace, where bobbin-made motifs were attached to a machine-net, and the type of Carrickmacross lace that is primarily appliqud cambric or muslin motifs on machine-net.
2.3.2.3 Pre-1845 lace in nineteenth century Ireland Nineteenth century Irish lacemaking began near Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, around 1820 for philanthropic reasons, and was very successful at providing an income for local girls until the 1840s. It was, however, only dependent on private orders, and gradually suffered from over-production, and threatened to die out (Palliser 1902, p.440). Part of the problem was
53 that the technique was widely promoted as a suitable recreational activity for women. Harvey (1829, pp.310, 296) suggests that making bobbin and needle laces is difficult and best left to professionals, who are financially dependent on it: lace-making, though formerly practised by ladies is not now among the pursuits of ladies, and gives instructions for making appliqu on net (in effect, Carrickmacross lace) as an fitting alternative. From 1849, the manager and agent of the Bath and Shirley estates, anxious to have their tenants financially independent, revived the lace first developed in the area in 1820. The girls were trained, in the first instance, in plain work, afterwards in sewed muslin, and finally in lace (Maguire 1853, p.274). Subsequently, Carrickmacross became identified with some of the finest guipure that Ireland has produced (Palliser 1902, p.440). Irelands first nineteenth century non-cottage lacemaking enterprise began in Limerick in 1829 and was, initially, very successful. In England in the early "fifties" every woman of either high or low degree [possessed] at least a lace collar or fichu of Limerick lace (Lowes 1919, p.169): at which point the, now commonplace, lace went out of fashion. 1500 women made Limerick lace in 1855; but just 500 ten years later (Palliser, 1865). The tambouring and needlerun versions were too easily produced by non-specialists (Harvey, 1829) and machines: a tambour stitch machine had been unveiled in Paris in 1834 (Leslie, 2007). Limerick lace was included in Lindsey and Biddles 1883 London Mansion House exhibition of Irish lace to illustrate the high quality and range of work made when the industry was at its most successful; but by then, the previous large variety of kinds produced in Limerick had reduced to just tambour, run, and appliqu (Lindsey, 1883, p.3).
Carrickmacross and Limerick were the only laces made commercially in Ireland immediately before crochet making began. An advantage of crochet was that it was not, at that time, reproducible by machine (Earnshaw, 1995). Meredith summarises other advantages: The art was easily acquired, the materials were inexpensive, and the market was ready (1865, p.9). It proved to be ideal for Irish makers for the following reasons:
54 It required no complicated or expensive tools; often just a sewing needle pushed point first into a piece of whittled wood and the eye of the needle filed to form a hook (Treanor, 2002). The maker did not need space for a frame the size of the work being made, as was needed for Carrickmacross. Unlike Carrickmacross and Limerick lace, crochet can withstand heavy laundering, a useful attribute when made in overcrowded and peatsmoke-filled homes. All levels of ability could be accommodated: beginners could quickly learn simple motifs and repetitive edgings, and progress over time to complicated work; those with artistic skills could arrange finished motifs on a temporary backing parchment before expert makers created a ground to hold the pieces together.
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Chapter 3. British crochet to 1855
3.1
Origins
3.1.1 Nuns work 3.1.2 Shepherds knitting 3.1.3 Tambouring 3.1.4 Netting 3.1.5 Needlelace connection 3.1.6 Crossover in materials and patterns
56 57 61 62 64 64 64 66
3.2
56
3.1
Origins
Irish Crochet is an amalgam of two types of crochet that began in separate places in Ireland, each type derived from a different source. Chapter 2 traced the lineage of needlelace, from which the Kilcullen strand developed (Chapter 4). This chapter examines the roots of crochet, which was the source for the lace that was first made in Ireland in County Cork.
In 1840, crochet was a new craft. Because there was no precedent for how it should look, for the first few years, in Britain, it waivered between knitting, netting and lace. Indications suggest that styles of crochet would have remained variations of knitting and netting if books containing illustrations of worked crochet had not been published in England and Scotland from the mid 1840s. The illustrations enabled a craft that was easy to follow, if seen, but difficult to grasp from verbal or textual descriptions alone, to become lacelike. Just at the time that illustrations appeared in books, Irish women began to make crochet lace.
The underlying premise of this thesis is: crochet technique enabled Irish women with no art and design training to be spontaneously creative and the originators of a distinctive style of lace. Yet, some of the work of one of the first English designers of crochet lace is so like Irish Crochet that it has been identified as such by lace experts, in publications (Earnshaw 1984b, Illustration 154; Yallop 1992, Illustration 73), and in museum collections (UFTM, 1975.445 and V&A 162-1892). This chapter begins to answer the question: is it possible that Irish Crochet originated in England?
In summary, this chapter shows: crochet is not synonymous with nuns work, and began in the nineteenth century crochet has roots in knitting and netting, with connections to tambouring and needlelace two styles of crochet developed simultaneously and independently in Britain; one derived from shepherds knitting and the other from netting
57 the early history of crochet in Britain can be reconstructed from pattern books of the1840s crochet changed direction during the 1840s because of changes in published pattern books
3.1.1 Nuns work
There is no doubt that making and teaching needlework have been major occupations of nuns for many centuries. Palliser (1865, p.8) writes:
Needlework was the daily employment of the convent. As early as the fourteenth century it was termed nuns work; [Reference: 1380 inventory of Charles V] and even now, in secluded parts of the kingdom, ancient lace is styled by that name.
Alford (1886, p.324) confirms:

Embroidery till the thirteenth century had been entirely in the hands of cloistered women, and the ladies who practised it learned their craft with the rest of their education in convents, and their work was simply ecclesiastical and dedicatory.
She believes that The first white laces appear to have followed close upon the first white embroideries, used during the medieval period to decorate plain white linen. From the fourteenth century we find continually mention of such work by nuns and ladies. In England it was especially called nuns work. (p.200)
Opus Anglicanum embroidery between 1250 and 1350, produced in English cloistered communities and secular workshops, was considered the finest in Europe (Snook, 1974). It would be reasonable to assume, therefore, that crochet, a relatively simple textile technique requiring little more than a hook, yarn and instruction in how to make a chain stitch, would have been known to those who designed and made complex needlework, and that it was among the skills practised and taught by nuns. Many authors believe this to be the
58 case1. The line of reasoning appears to be: needlepoint lace was made by nuns at least since the sixteenth century; some types of needlepoint lace (filet, hollie, and reticella) look so like some crochet laces that nuns who made needlepoint must have known how to crochet; therefore, crochet lace must be included in early designations of nuns work. Potter (1990, p.12) cites a 1653 reference to au crochet, et au fuseau as evidence for crochets early existence. The source could be referring to either the small hook used by bobbin lace makers to pull through loose ends, or a large hook to hold the centre of lengths of threads while they are twisted or plaited into braids or laces. What is clear is that the reference is to tools hooks and bobbins - rather than a technique. Potter acknowledges that no ancient crochet hooks have been found although many needles, pins and bobbins have been archaeologically unearthed and that, unlike other needlecrafts, there is a notable absence of early crochet pieces in museum collections and texts. She also concedes that, While paintings are often an excellent source of detailed information there are no paintings available in the worlds galleries that show recognizable crochet until the mid-1800s (p.12). Taunton (1997) confirms that precious metal crochet hooks, datable from hallmarks, appear only from that time. Research by Paludan (1995) supports the conclusion that Nothing definite can be said about the history of crochet before 1800, as there is no concrete proof of its existence (p.76).
Tatting and Crochet Lessons, for H.F. Verran Company, 1915, Royal Society Press, New York, 1, (5) p.1: The golden age of lace was of course the sixteenth century, and crochet arose in the nunneries during the period that lace making was at its height. It was not very fully developed, however, until much later, when the Irish workers succeeded in copying Italian point in the most beautiful way they have ever been copied. The Young Ladies Journal [Anon]., 1885, E. Harrison, London: Crochet of a very fine quality was worked by nuns on the Continent in the sixteenth century, but was not popular work in England until about 1840, when for quite twenty years it was very fashionable . This more elaborate kind of crochet comes to England still in large quantities as Irish point (p.25). Boyle (1971, p.20, referencing Caulfeild and Saward 1887, p.102) writes that: Crochet had been practised in European convents since the sixteenth century, and was called, like most lace and embroidery, nuns work.
59 The release of large quantities of Spanish lace made by nuns coincided with the beginnings of crochet and each seems to have become confused with the other. Palliser writes:
We may safely say that the fine Church lace of Spain was but little known to the commercial world of Europe until the dissolution of the Spanish monasteries [Footnote: Spain had 8932 convents in 1787] in 1830, when the most splendid specimens of nuns work came suddenly into the market; not only the heavy lace generally designated Spanish point, but pieces of the very finest description (1869, p.75 and footnote)
Lambert (1842, 1844) and Owen (1844) show that crochet became fashionable in Britain during the late 1830s. Lambert writes (1842, p.147) that Crochet work, although long known and practised, did not attract particular attention until within the last four years, since which time it has been brought to great perfection , and has (1844, p.9) obtained the preference over all other ornamental works of a similar nature. She (1846, p.240) applies a line from the poet Cowper to crochet: I teach an art too little known.
Lambert (1842) gives precise instructions on how to form stitches, how to wrap thread round fingers appropriately and even how to hold the hook; suggesting that crochet-making was an uncommon skill. Savage (1847, p.132) shows that tambour needles in screw handles were adequate substitutes if crochet hooks were not available. Because tambour needles were so fine and sharp (to pierce fabric) and had a wing nut to limit the extent to which the tamboured fabric could be pierced, specialist hooks for crochet were preferable. By the 1840s, there seems to have been no problem with obtaining the necessary hook for the newly-fashionable craft. All needlework manuals were in their infancy. Miss Watts (1840, [5th edn.] preface) little volume on knitting and netting, the only one hitherto published on this subject, was a bestseller. Although the first pattern for crochet is widely reported to have appeared in the 1824 Dutch magazine, Pnelop (Paludan 1995, p.76), the earliest known book to include crochet patterns was by knitting specialist Mrs Jane Gaugain of Edinburgh, in 1840.
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The text and the inconsistency in spelling indicate that a few crochet patterns were included at the last minute in response to demand from her pupils and customers; and, perhaps, to offer something distinctive compared with Miss Watts book which did not include crochet. Mrs Gaugain advertises that she gives instruction in Knitting, Netting and the various Kinds of Embroidery; but not crochet. The simplicity of the patterns suggests the author was herself just learning the technique. Inconsistent terminology - the word is spelled crochet in the contents and crotchet on the cover and used interchangeably with tambour - reflects the newness of the craft: for Mee (1844, p.68) the word crochet describes technique, stitches and hook. Eventually, the lexicography was standardised: until then, hook, needle and crochet; recipe, receipt and pattern; and, tambour, crochet and crotchet were used interchangeably. Crochets increasing popularity during the 1840s can be gauged by the fact that at the beginning of the decade a few patterns were included in knitting or needlework books but from 1844 (Mee) whole books of crochet patterns were printed. Ballantyne (2007b) lists more than thirty books of crochet lace patterns published in Britain between 1846 and 1849. Lambert writes (1844, p.10), This art has attained its highest degree of perfection in England, whence it has been transplanted to France and Germany, and both these countries, although unjustifiably, have claimed the invention.1 Paludan (1995) quotes from books in Scandinavian languages, mainly translated from German, but illustrations from the books suggest that what was being made in northern Europe at the time was very similar to British crochet2.
The British Library Catalogue includes: 1842. Hkel-, Strick- und Stickmuster, gesammelt von C. L. [Charlotte Leander, the pseudonym of Emma Hennings]. 2 Crochet books written in languages other than English are outside the scope of the current research but Paludans illustrations (pp. 106, 107, 118, 142, 149) from Leander, 1847, Hkelschule fr Damen; Minna Horn, 1847, Hkle-Bog; and, Leander, Korn and Lambert, 1848, Den nya Wirkboken, show that crochet design was on a par in northern mainland Europe and Britain. A collar by Riego (1847) Point dEspagne, is almost indistinguishable from one published in a German booklet, Leander, C. 1847, Hkelschule fr Damen. (llustrated in Paludan 1995, p.108).
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3.1.2 Shepherds knitting
Shepherds knitting produces a textile that looks like a conventional closeknitted fabric. The difference is in process; instead of working multiple stitches from one needle to another in rows, as is usually done in knitting, shepherds knitting loops a single stitch at a time using a hook. Highland Lady, Elizabeth Grant, provides the first dated reference to shepherds knitting. Although not published until 1898, her memoirs, written in the 1840s, describe shepherds knitting she saw in Scotland when a child. Recalling events of 1812, she writes of her great grand uncle sometimes wearing
a night cap, red or white, made by his industrious wife in a stitch she called Shepherds knitting. It was done with a little hook which she manufactured for herself out of the tooth of an old tortoiseshell comb, and she used to go on looping her homespun wool as quick as fingers could move (Grant 1988 edn., p.238).
A Swedish version of the craft uses no extrinsic tools but systematically loops yarn round the makers fingers to create fabric that looks indistinguishable from that made using a hook (Paludan 1995, p.15). Paludan shows examples of hooks made from fishbone, horn, brass, and recycled silver spoons; all suitable for use with thick wool to make functional, warm garments and accessories that can be fulled to improve waterproofing and durability. Lambert (1844, p.1) describes crochet as a species of knitting originally practised by the peasants of Scotland. She gives (p.57) crochet patterns for multi-coloured receipts that would be difficult to distinguish from knitting when completed: Raised, or ribbed crochet is worked in rows from right to left, according to the ordinary method, i.e., worked into the back of each stitch and the yarn broken off at the end of each row, so that the stitches always travel in one direction only (Mee 1844, p.69). In this method, if using more than one colour, the pattern is only viewable from the front because unworked colours are carried along the back. In a variation (Lambert 1842, p.150) unworked wool is not passed along the back but crocheted over so
62 that the textile is reversible and, significantly for Irish Crochet, the rows are padded. Emphasising the connection with knitting Lambert describes the technique as being suitable for invalids and those with poor eyesight and gives patterns for items normally knitted: slippers, purses, cushions and tablecovers. In these early books there is no mention of lace and no patterns for collars. Gaugain (1840, p.190) suggests a way of adjusting tension to create a lacy effect in an otherwise solid fabric: for a Plain French Tambour Long Purse the maker should Work with a fine ivory hook; this hook being coarser than the silk, gives it the appearance of an open stitch. Riego (1846) has instructions for patterns in Shepherd or Single Crochet. Even when crochet was well known, tightly worked single or slip stitch crochet was still commonly called Scottish knitting. Riego (1862, p.10; 1867, p.8) gives patterns for a muffler and a muff in tricot cossais, the latter using a tricot needle; a crochet hook of constant diameter and the length of a knitting needle, designed to hold multiple stitches that are worked in rows.
3.1.3 Tambouring
Decorating woven fabric or animal skins using a hooked awl is a skill with a long history in India. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries many fine Indian chain-stitch embroideries reached Europe via the East India Company (Irwin and Hanish 1970, p.3). A version, using silk and fine hooked needles, became a fashionable pastime for aristocratic women; as illustrated in the 1780 portrait of The Ladies Waldegrave by Sir Joshua Reynolds, on display at the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. The heyday for this work was between 1780 and 1850 when many dresses in white muslin as well as accessories were tamboured (Clabburn 1976, p.260). Named from the hoop that holds fabric drum-tight (tambour, French: drum) while being worked, tambouring uses a thin, sharp hooked needle to create continuous chain-stitched lines on the surface of an existing fabric. Just as drawnthread
63
work jumped to punto in aria, so tambouring on fabric as embellishment gave way to tambouring in aria, in effect, crochet, which does not decorate fabric but creates it. Indicating that the link had not yet been made between tambouring and crochet in England, Harvey (1829, pp.299, 300) gives detailed information on tambouring tools and method but makes no mention of tambouring being possible without a substrate, although the substrates he recommends are often diaphanous, muslin and net.
No-one is credited with developing crochet from tambouring. Paludan writes: A widely accepted view is that crochet developed in France from tambouring at the end of the eighteenth century (1995, p.76), and suggests that crochet was first made when someone realised it was possible to tambour off the edges of a fabric to form a fringe. It is also possible that a fine fabric tore or rotted and it was noticed that the released chain stitches held together without a base fabric; or perhaps a tambourer continued making stitches across a hole in a woven fabric or net.
The reticella version of drawnthread work seems to be so closely related to filet crochet that it is possible that crochet developed along this route. What began with the use of a hook to whip threads around a cord - to reproduce needlepoints buttonhole stitches - could have developed into a way of using the hook without the underlying structure that remains when the majority of threads are withdrawn from a woven fabric. Figure 2.j from Lindsey (1883), and described as Greek lace, shows an Irish example of a reticella-crochet hybrid; rarely used for fashion items but often made to decorate household linens.
Because chain is the only stitch possible by tambouring, variety was often introduced by including coloured silks or beads in the design. Karl Lagerfeld is among the couturiers whose haute couture collections still incorporate tambour- beaded fabric (Shaeffer 2001, p.205).
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3.1.4 Netting
When derived from tambouring, crochet lent itself to being interpreted as a variant of netting. In the early 1840s netting was popular for creating open fabrics for gloves and table mats or shapes that, when lined, became purses. As a more conveniently executed substitute, crochet, using the same range of threads, from finest silk to coarse yarn, almost entirely replaced netting within a few years. Many pattern books published from 1840 to 1845 included netting patterns, but, as crochet patterns increased, the number of netting patterns reduced, and relatively few appeared after 1845.
3.1.5 Needlelace connection
Chapter 2 showed that it was common practice to name imitation laces after quality laces to give the new version some status. In Britain, early crochet lace patterns continued the practice even though they had no connection, stylistically or geographically, with any bobbin or needle laces. Mee (1846b) names her collars, the first crochet lace patterns published, Brussels, Grecian, point, guipure, Lisle, and Dresden. Riego (1847) continues the trend giving point names to her crochet collars: Angleterre, Guise, Valois, etc. and Wheeler (1847) includes Honiton and Valenciennes among her crochet collar pattern names. Chapter 4 will show it was Irish Crochet, although not named after any foreign lace, which re-established the stylistic connections with needlepoints.
3.1.6 Crossover in materials and patterns
While establishing itself as an independent craft, crochet often switched between knitting and netting styles. The looped (chain) stitch connects all
65 three, as Gaugain suggests when she writes of the elementary stitch of Knitting, Netting and Crochet-work (1840, Preface). In that book, the first to include crochet patterns, just 12 are given, after 97 knitting and 25 netting patterns but most of the crochet could just as easily be netting: for example, (pattern CXXIV, page 189), a Long Purse, Open Stitch of Single Tambour describes a simple diamond net. Maguire (1853, p.254) shows that, at times, two techniques were combined in one piece of work: he describes a knitted polka jacket edged in crochet. Warren (1848) combines netting and crochet.
Warren (1848) is typical of many early crochet manuals in showing the multidirectional potential of the new craft: patterns are given for two and three-dimensional work; from flat edgings as substitutes for expensive bobbin and needle laces, to a 3D vase of coloured flowers. All weights of mono and polychromatic yarns and threads in silk, cotton, linen and wool created outcomes that could be as closely-worked as a solid fabric to as open as a netting substitute1. Crochets hybrid tendencies influenced other laces: carriage-lace making as a trade had been wearing out for many years 2 and, in an attempt to revive it, Messrs. Dart and Son of London introduced colour. The work was remarkable for the skill evinced in the combination of apparently incongruous and gaudy colours, so as to produce an article harmonious and beautiful (Sproule 1854, p.337). Although numerous patterns for coloured crochet were published, including many that included coloured beads, Kraatz believes coloured lace was never very popular, except for the woollen laces of Le Puy, made in all colours in the 1850s (1989, p.165: Lefbure, 1888).
Crochet, within a few years, found its direction and settled into being, almost entirely, a monochromatic, thread lace for the rest of the nineteenth century. Paludan comments on the split between solid, yarn crochet and lace-like
1
Riego de la Branchardiere, E., c1851, Exhibition Book of Crochet Elegancies, Faudel and Phillips, London. Anon.,1842, The Ladies Handbook of Knitting, Netting, and Crochet, London. Great Exhibition catalogue, 1851, Class XIX, Entry number 261, A crochet table-cover in Berlin wool. 2 The Mechanics Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette. April 8 September 30, 1837, Vol. XXVII, p.208, W.A. Robertson, London.
66 thread crochet: (1995, p.76) there does not seem to be any link between shepherds knitting and fine crochet. it is from fine crochet that crochet as we know it today, worked with coarser yarns and thicker hooks, evolved during the 1800s. Shepherds knitting continued, however, mainly in Northern Europe (Paludan, 1995): Ravelry, the umbrella group for online fora, includes a group, formed in 2008, that specialises in slip stitch crochet.
3.2
A sufficient experiential base seems to have existed in crafts with a long history, for example, knitting, to enable visualisation of finished work without illustrations. Even when knitting first became a recreational activity in the late 1830s (Potter, 1955), Watts (1840) and Gaugain (1840) describe relatively complicated knitting patterns using just text, albeit with idiosyncratic abbreviation systems1. Because no general knowledge of crochet existed, there were problems in writing text-only patterns. Gaugain, for example, (1840, p.195) after giving instructions for a Double tambour spiral chain writes; I do not, however, think that this chain can be accomplished without some previous knowledge of it.
Other writers comment on the difficulty of explaining a simple crochet process in text. Owen (1844, p.75) writes, Enough has been said to give as good an idea of the mode of working Crochet as it is possible to do, by merely verbal description and Lambert (1842 p.148), believes Crochet, although in itself a most simple stitch, is difficult to explain in writing . Savage (1847, p.82) comments on how the basic crochet stitch is by then so generally known that the novice might, by five minutes exercise with any one possessing a knowledge of its mysteries, obtain more real information than from the most elaborately written description."
Gaugain (1840), has 30 symbols: A, upside down A, A and upside down A , were all terms for decreasing.
67
Illustrations, until the middle of the decade, were similar to the simple graph paper charts used by makers of canvaswork, cross stitch, beadwork and other techniques. Text in such books was superfluous, consisting of colourchange instructions that were obvious to anyone looking at the squared paper. Lambert (1844) marked a turning point: My Crochet Sampler had illustrations of hand position, a crochet hook and basic stitches. The breakthrough in publications at that time is evident by comparing the first and second editions of Crochet Explained (Mee 1845,1846a). In the first edition, more than 100 pages of text could be summarised by: cut a template to any desired shape and change yarn colour to correspond to the squares in any of the attached graphed patterns. Four small illustrations of how stitches should look were probably the most informative part of the book. The second edition had whole page engravings of pattern sections, from which stitches could be read without reference to any text. The success of this edition resulted in the patterns, now readable from illustrations, being re-published, within months, as a separate book (Mee, 1846b).
This research suggests that: had book illustrations not become commonplace from the mid-1840s, crochet, as a recreational activity, would have remained a form of knitting, using wool and large hooks, or netting, using fine yarn and hooks, but would not, at that time, have developed into a lacemaking technique. Mrs Mees (1846a) book marks the point at which crochet changed direction. Once patterns that would have been impossible to follow in text could be understood by looking at an illustration, crochet was no longer restricted to being a variation of knitting or netting, and could become an elaborate form of lace. More than others, Mrs Mee, because of her (1846a) book, would have been justified in claiming to have invented crochet lace (Chapter 4.7).
When stitches in worked patterns could be seen in book engravings, crochet burgeoned. To meet the demand for patterns, books went from being large, expensive volumes of hundreds of pages that covered many needlecrafts to
68 being, often, tiny (10cm X 11.5cm) books1 of sixteen pages, sometimes with a single pattern. Publishing books in this format meant that there was a shorter turnaround time some authors were able to produce three or more books in a year (Mee 1846; Riego 1849). Makers were able to buy only those patterns that they knew they would work and designers could improve on previous editions: Eureka (1848), for example, published a second edition three months after the first in which a recut woodblock engraving of the finished collar, its only pattern, improved stitch identification. Riegos first crochet book (1847) furthered clarity by having illustrations of close-ups of stitch formation.
The majority of authors of early books had haberdashery businesses and taught needlecraft to women with disposable income to stimulate sales of their goods. Riego (1846, preface) is typical: The Authoress, having had much experience in teaching, and always writing her own directions, has been induced to publish this little Volume for the use of her pupils . Gaugains book (1840, preface), was written both as a guide to those whom, in my vocation, I have had the pleasure of instructing, and as an assistant to myself in performing the task with accuracy. Pattern books were written for The Ladies of England (Owen,1844). Gaugain (1840) lists four royals, and more than one hundred titled women among her patrons and subscribers. Some authors mention that their books are suitable for all classes but the contents suggest crochet was promoted in books as a recreational pastime for leisured women.
Hypothetically, if illustrations had not appeared in the mid 1840s, crochet lace making would have been available only to women like these who could get instruction directly from teachers. Without illustrated books, for the majority of British women, crochet would have remained variants of knitting and netting. In Ireland, where making skills were freely passed from person to person by demonstration, crochet lace could have been made.
For example - Warren Mrs [Eliza], 1847, The Court Collar and Cuff Book, Ackerman & Co., London. Price sixpence.
69
Chapter 4. Irish Crochet to 1855
4.1 4.2
The research dates Parallels with British crochet

4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.2.4 Knitting Tambouring Netting Needlelace
72 73 73 75 76 76 77 81 84 96 99 111 114
4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9
Origins of Irish crochet Pattern books in Ireland Sources of design Stylistic characteristics Mlle Riego de la Branchardire The collapse of the industry The worldwide legacy
70
Fig.4.a. Lindsey and Biddles map showing where all types of lace were made in 1883 (red dots) and areas where lacemaking had almost died out (blue dots).
According to Meredith (1865), crochet was produced in: Adare Blackrock Clonmel Roscrea Anamult Blarney Cork Roslea Ardara Borrisleigh Kilcullen Thurles Ardee Carrigaline Kildare Youghal Ballingarry Coachford Kinsale Bandon Clones New Ross
71 Lindsey (1883, p.4) writes that for all the enterprises begun to help counteract the effects of the Famine years, it is not easy to find month and year when in each case the work began. For crochet, the first dated reference in Ireland is to its being made by the pupils of the industrial school at the Presentation Convent in Cork, and sold in 1845 (Maguire, 1853). Indisputably, the first crochet seen by one of the earliest groups to make crochet in Ireland, in County Kildare, was a sample that was brought from England (Meredith 1865, p.371). No-one knows the source for the crochet of the second, Cork, group. It is possible that they too saw English work: through trade and temporary migration for work, there was a lot of movement between mainland Britain and Ireland in the mid-1900s. Just as feasible is the possibility that Cork crochet came to Ireland directly from the Continent. During the formative years for crochet, Ireland had close connections with continental Europe, partly because of the tradition of sending the children of wealthy families to Belgium, France, Spain or Italy, to be educated by members of Catholic religious orders (Murphy, 1865); and nuns, as Chapter 2 showed, were often skilled needlewomen. A third potential source for crochets appearance in Cork is as a derivative of tamboured lace, great quantities of which were made in nearby Limerick from 1829. Regardless of how it arrived, in both Kildare and Cork crochet very soon changed from the way it originally looked. In this chapter historiographical and artefactual evidence is analysed to reveal the influences on early crochet in Ireland and to trace the path taken by the new craft in the decade 1845 to 1855. Research supports two inferences. The first is: Irish makers were aware of, and influenced by, what was happening outside Ireland but the distinctive style now recognised worldwide as inimitably Irish is the result of the initiative of the makers themselves. The second is: although Irish Crochet developed simultaneously and independently in two areas of Ireland, each had distinctive stylistic characteristics because of different initial influences. One style began as a crocheted needlelace variation of Venetian raised lace; the other was rooted in technique rather than any particular pre-existing style.
72
4.1
The research dates
The research period begins in 1840 in Britain because in that year the first known English language book was published that contained crochet patterns, and 1845 in Ireland because that marks the first mention of crochet being made here. The period under closest research scrutiny ends in 1855 for the following reasons.
International exhibitions of art and industry in London (1851) and Dublin (1853) and a National exhibition in Cork (1852) showed crochet from throughout the United Kingdom. The large number of people attending exhibitions1 increases the likelihood there was cross-fertilisation of designs, making it increasingly difficult to attribute stylistic differences to their sources.
Men of business began to deal in Irish lace from about 1852 (Meredith 1865, p.7). A manual of about twelve designs was published in January 1853 by Marsland, an English thread manufacturer, In an endeavour to supply a want extensively felt by the Ladies of Ireland, who interest themselves in promoting the industrial employment of the People . Even though there is no evidence that Irish designs were unduly influenced by dealers, or that any makers used Marslands manual, the publication signals the end of the period of design autonomy.
By 1855, the worst of the devastating effects of the Famine were over; there was less demand for lace by those who bought it as a way of providing charitable support for the makers. Many enterprises begun after 1845 had already ceased production by the mid 1850s (Meredith, 1865; Lindsey, 1883).
The Illustrated Exhibitor (1851, p. 295) gives the number attending the 1851 London exhibition as 4,205,509: Maguire (1853, p.424) shows 138,375 attended the 1852 Cork exhibition; and Sproule (1854, p.26) gives 956,295 as the number of visitors to the Dublin exhibition of 1853.
73 Few verifiably-dated examples of early Irish Crochet exist. A small collection, acquired by the V&A just after its founding in 1852, comprises the only Irish Crochet available to this research that is known to have been made before 1855. The next accurately dated work, an altar cloth made for the Novitiate Chapel of The Religious Sisters of Charity, Dublin, was made in 18581. There are no dates on the photographic illustrations in the 1883 book (Lindsey and Biddle, and the Lindsey 1886 revised reprint) which accompanied a London exhibition of Irish lace, to show when the exhibited lace, some of it old, was actually made.
4.2
Parallels with British crochet
4.2.1 Knitting
There is no evidence that shepherds knitting was made in Ireland but literature shows two possible instances of its being known.
The first is an illustration in the account of their travels through Ireland by Mr and Mrs Hall (1843, p.472) which seems to show a knitter using just one needle or shepherds hook but the references in text to needles and turning long needles tend to suggest more than one. A professional itinerant knitter would knit out her board and lodging while living for several months with a household and, in her role as matchmaker, would sometimes be accused of knitting with double needles which is more likely a reference to doublepointed needles, used to knit in-the-round, than a suggestion that knitters generally used a single, hooked, needle.
The altar cloth was presented in May 1858 to Mother Mary Augustine (Mrs Aikenhead, who died in July 1858). The presentation date was confirmed by Sister Maria Coates, Manager of th the Mary Aikenhead Centre, on 26 April 2011.
74 In the second instance, Maguire (1853, p.257) records that Elizabeth Carmichael of Dublin showed a Piece of Berlin work done on the finger in the 1852 Cork exhibition. This could refer to shepherds knitting using Berlin wool, which, in Sweden, was sometimes made using the fingers as tools (Paludan, 1995). It is more likely, however, that the Dublin work was evenweave canvas embroidery made without using a supporting frame1: Bach (1890) illustrates tricot stitch on canvas that appears indistinguishable from knitting.
Before machines became capable of reproducing their work, knitting was the only source of income for many Irish women. According to the Halls (1843, p.473), nearly all the women of Connamara knit more or less. Lambert (1842, pp.185,187) writes of the splendid specimens of knitting done by the poor Irish cottage girls where the fineness, variety, and perfection, exhibited in this knitting, almost exceed belief as to the possibility of its execution by the hand. Makers received sixpence for a pair of fine wool socks, or even fourpence, if persons can be found to give no more (Hall 1843, p.472).
Maguire records that knitting provided employment for several thousand women in the early 1850s. In Arnotts company, which employed more than 300 knitters, an expert worker could earn three shillings for two days work knitting a womans polka jacket for export to England or Canada. At Fermoy, some of the 250 workers knitted thread hosiery that rivalled the silk equivalent. Before industrial schools and manufacturing companies became involved, the small return for many hours of work caused some knitting enterprises to diversify. By 1847, Mrs Roberts sister-in-laws group in Kilcullen (Thornton, in Lindsey, 1883) had begun to crochet because they could no longer make a living from knitting polka jackets (Meredith, 1865).
It is interesting that the Kilcullen women transferred their skills to crocheted lace rather than knitted lace. The Dublin Society, around 1770, had offered prizes for thread lace made with knitting needles (quoted in Palliser 1865,
1
Alford (1886, p.197) cites Rees, 1819, Cyclopdia (Stitches), which includes: Tent stitch on the finger, Tent stitch in the tent or frame.
75
p.413) but the only examples of Irish-made knitted thread lace discovered during the course of this research were shown at the 1853 Dublin exhibition (Sproule 1854, Class XIX, No.143). The collection, made at Mrs Veevers industrial school in County Leitrim, included a shawl made from nettle fibre, a scarf from daisies, polkas from japonica and marsh mallow, parasols from sweet pea, nasturtium and convolvulus, and cloth from a mix of wild bogdown and wool fibres. Some of the same collection, along with fibre and worked samples, was acquired by Lady Doneraile, who later donated it to The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew1 where it is still held, in the Economic Botany Collection. Maguire (1853) records Doneraile as one of the few centres in Ireland where lace was knitted; Shetland wool veils were made there.
4.2.2
Tambouring
A great number of Irish women tamboured, mainly at Charles Walkers company in Limerick. Earnshaw (1985, p.82) describes how:
the run, or needlerun, technique began in Nottingham, and had spread by the 1830s to Limerick, in Ireland. Tambour, or chain-stitch, embroidery on patent nets, which had been popular in France in the late eighteenth century, had become established in England, at Coggeshall, in the 1820s, but using bobbinet. Again the technique spread to Ireland where it became known as Limerick tambour.
Lindsey (1883) makes the connection between tambouring and crocheting through their having a common tool, and supports the idea that the skill was first developed by leisured women and, sometime later, adopted by others.
Whoever suggested the tambour needle, for ladies to amuse themselves in producing crochet work, at the same time indirectly conferred a great boon on the poor. Had factories with their thousand spindles been planted in Cork, they
1
A complete photographic record of the collection was sent by email to the author by Dr Mark Nesbitt of the Jodrell Laboratory at Kew, with a copy of an article about the lace, written by Mairead Dunlevy and E. Charles Nelson, Sir Williams Irish Lace Gifts from an Irish Viscountess, and published for the Bentham-Moxon Trust in 1995 by Blackwell, Oxford.
76
would not have wrought so great a change as has been wrought by the magic force of this simple artistic instrument. In Limerick it was used to inweave the thread in the meshes of the net, and to form those designs of beauty that charm the eye. In Cork, it became a kind of independent knitting-needle, doing more work and better than any pair of knitting-pins had ever done (Lindsey 1883, p.5).
4.2.3
Netting
There is no evidence to suggest that netting was popular in Ireland as a hobby activity, as it was in England until crochet replaced it (Chapter 3). According to Maguire (1853), among the many post-Famine commercial ventures, silk hairnets were made at the industrial schools of The Sisters of Mercy, St. Mary, Arnott and Cork. Boyle (1971) believes that the female relatives of Cork fishermen transferred skill in making fishing nets to crochetmaking but there is no reason to believe they had netting skills and, basic crochet is so easily learnt that someone starting without previous needle skills is at no great disadvantage.
4.2.4
Needlelace
Chapter 2 showed that all needlelaces are formed with buttonhole stitch and that they developed from drawnthread work, via reticella to punto in aria. Chapter 3 showed that British crochet is chain stitch, the same stitch that comprises tambouring and knitting; and the openness of the style is derived from netting. British designers producing patterns for the large number of crochet books published and sold between 1840 and 1855 created, predominantly, crochet patterns. Usually, their only connection with needlelace was in the name; given, as Chapter 2 showed, in keeping with tradition, to add cachet, and that bobbin lace names were used just as frequently, and equally unjustifiably.
77 Although Mrs Roberts and her Kilcullen neighbours used her English crochet piece as a learning sample, the women then copied a needlelace to create a new form of crochet. No lace names were given to Irish work (probably because it never appeared in books of patterns), so the Kilcullen style that derived from needlepoint became known, confusingly, as Irish point (Meredith, 1865). The Irish crochet made in Cork was not based on needlelace and appears to have been similar, in the beginning, to crochet made in Britain: most of it was plain crochet. Before long, the style changed: the lace that later became known as Irish Crochet was an amalgam of the two styles. This chapter will show that chance events led to the development of two distinctive types of crochet in Ireland, which happened to combine well. Sennett (2008, p.125, 126), writes; a type-form is technology-speak for a generic category of object; change occurs through the elaboration of its species. He believes that failure is an essential part of changing the details of the form from within to keep it evolving and viable mistakes can easily be rectified during the process. Metamorphosis happens through combination, producing compounds or mixtures. Irish Crochet is neither crochet nor needlelace: it is a hybrid of the two.
4.3
Origins of Irish crochet
According to dArcy (1984, p.9), the Irish tradition for producing [crochet lace] dates back to the sixteenth century, when it was known as nuns work because the technique and style of the craft was developed in Irish convent communities in imitation of continental European lacemaking styles. Chapter 2 has shown that nuns work in not synonymous with crochet. Historian Elizabeth Boyle (1971) assigns a much earlier date to crochet in Ireland than can be substantiated, and a route into the country that is entirely speculative. She, like dArcy, assumes it was included in European nuns work from the sixteenth century and suggests (p.20),
78
Possibly its importation into Cork may be attributed to the four first Ursulines, travelling between France and Ireland at a time when quantities of lace were in use. In any case the knowledge of crochet probably reached Cork before 1789, when the French Revolution made it difficult for members of religious orders to travel from France to Ireland. It is supposed to have arrived in Ireland at an early date, and no likely traveller and teacher of a later period has been suggested. At least as soon as the 1830s, when crochet first became really fashionable, the womenfolk of salmon fishers on Corks River Lee were skilled in working it to supplement their husbands earnings [Reference: endnote 4, page 35: information based on personal correspondence to Boyle from Mother M. Ursula of the Ursuline Convent, Blackrock]. Probably their knowledge of net making had helped them to start, but they could never have been commercially successful without professional teaching.
Paludan (1995, p.63), after referencing Boyle, elaborates: There is no doubt about the fact that by the time crochet became fashionable in the 1830s, the wives of salmon fishermen earning their living on the River Lee at Cork were already skilled in crochet and supplemented the livelihood of their men by selling crochet laces. Leslie (2007, p.xviii) writes just as confidently that, In the 1830s, four Irish nuns trained in a French convent introduced crochet to Ireland. A Lacis Museum exhibition catalogue (2005, p.8) seems very confident that Irish Crochet lace originally derived from specimens of Venetian rose point, first brought to Ireland in the 1830s by Ursuline nuns in Blackrock, Cork, from France.
However, there is no evidence that crochet was made in Ireland before the 1840s. Lindsey, much closer in time to the original makers, writes; It is not remembered into whose hands it first came, or in what spot it commenced. He believes that it is from Blackrock in 1845 that we can trace the growth of a great industry that in a few years formed a part of education in almost every convent (1883, p.5).
Susanna Meredith established the Adelaide School for lacemaking in Cork in 1847 and later (1865) wrote about her experiences. John Francis Maguire, lawyer, journalist, MP for twenty years, Mayor of Cork in 1852 and prominent
79
advocate of female suffrage1 wrote about, what he called, the Female Industrial Movement (1853, pp.183-258). His contemporaneous account of lacemaking in Ireland to 1853 is limited to those individuals and groups who submitted work for the 1852 national exhibition in Cork but, because of his proximity in time and place, he, and Mrs Meredith, must be regarded as the most reliable witnesses of the events under scrutiny here.
Although it seems reasonable to believe that relatives of fishermen would make crochet as a development of their skill in netting, Maguire (1853) shows that there is no basis for believing crochet making in Ireland originated with them. He writes:
For many years before the Famine, the peninsula of Blackrock was painfully remarkable for the intense poverty and severe sufferings of its inhabitants The fathers and grown-up sons devoted themselves to [salmon fishing] while the female members of the family remained at home, generally destitute of any useful or profitable occupation. In fact, the female population of that district grew up in almost complete idleness; the only chance of employment afforded them, being service in the families of the local gentry, or in the city of Cork, little more than two miles distant. One would say that an industrial movement would be an inestimable blessing to this district; and so it proved to be, ere long (p.203). [The nuns at Blackrock] fortunately hit upon the plan of adding industrial to purely educational training; and, in the year 1845, they commenced [italics added] that crochet work which has been since brought to the most wonderful perfection, so as to equal, if not surpass, in beauty and delicacy, almost any description of lace (p.204).
Most of the first years sales went to, and might have been commissioned by, a businesswoman, Mrs Dwyer, who paid no less a sum than 50 to the Nuns of the Ursuline Convent, for crotchet work and knitted purses executed in their schools in 1845. To Mrs Dwyers influence, in pushing the sale of this and other descriptions of fancy work in England, is due the first formation of a regular trade in that country (Maguire 1853, p.212).
Webb, A., 1878, A Compendium of Irish Biography, M.H. Gill & Son, Dublin.
80 According to Hall1, most sales were to the English market, some went to America and India, and,
there is a demand for the edgings in Germany, which is very advantageous, as that is the article in which the young beginners are employed. Children not more than six years old contribute by this work to the support of their families (quoted in Maguire 1853, p.210).
Meredith (1865, p.371) quotes an extract of a letter from Mrs Roberts of Kilcullen, that suggests a possible alternative starting place for the first crochet in Ireland. In the letter, Mrs Roberts writes the work originated here but unfortunately, gives no date for the events she describes. What is known is that one of her pupils was sufficiently experienced to go to Clones in 1847 to teach women there. Because more lace was produced in Cork than Kildare, for longer2, and a start year can be attached to it, Cork is widely accepted as the place of origin for all crochet in Ireland. Once established, the industrys expansion was fast and extensive: thirty four industrial schools showed work at the Cork exhibition in 1852, and forty six in Dublin the following year. The decline was similarly rapid, beginning around the mid 1850s. Many industrial schools stopped trading before Mrs Meredith closed hers in 1859 and moved to England3. The first section of her 1865 book had appeared in a publication4 read by those who might be able to revive the industry, and is a straightforward historical and statistical account of the setting up, initial success, and possible reasons for the ultimate
1
Maguire (1853, p.210-211, footnote), reproduces an undated article from Sharpes Magazine, Female Industrial Schools in Cork, that he believes to have been written by Mrs S.C. [Maria] Hall. Mr and Mrs Hall published, in three volumes during the 1840s, an extensive account of their earlier travels throughout Ireland. Although Limerick tambour lace is described in detail and other textile crafts, including knitting, are mentioned, there is no reference to crochet being made anywhere at that time. 2 There were 700 makers in the Kilcullen area in the 1850s but Time works great changes; only a few months since an inquiry was being made in Dublin for a competent person to go into Kildare, to teach the young people how to do crochet work (Lindsey 1883, p.7). 3 To begin the work for which she is best remembered, as a reformer of conditions for women prisoners. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. th http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/ Accessed 10 July 2011. 4 The Englishwomans [sic] Journal. p.xiv. The English Womans Journal, owned, written and managed by women to campaign for political and social justice for women of all classes, was published monthly from 1858 to 1864. http://www.ncse.ac.uk/headnotes/ewj.html Accessed 10th July 2011.
81 collapse of a business enterprise. The second part is faction, three fictitious accounts based on actual people and events of the time, and suited for, according to one reviewer1, even the lightest of readers. Another reviewer writes, The introduction of these stories gives life and variety to the book, and secures for it readers who would have turned away from mere dry statements of fact2: readers whom Mrs Meredith possibly hoped would revive the fashion for Irish lace. In her opinion, Irish point, the highest development of crochet lace, was a very suggestive production, and there existed no reason why it should have been as evanescent as the crisis that gave it birth (1865, p.16).
4.4
Pattern books in Ireland
Information in this section was presented by the author at an international conference3 on the theme of the relationships between texts and images. The argument forwarded was that a type of ekphrasis exists that differs from the generally accepted form. In addition to the norm, where one art is described by another - when a vase is described in words or a sculpture is painted on canvas, for example there is a notational ekphrasis. Unlike the usual form that can be read by almost anyone, in notational ekphrasis another layer of understanding is introduced. It is necessary to understand and translate a specialist code before being able to visualise what is described. Figure 4.n shows a section of a simple, wordy code and illustrates the problems 1840s crocheters would have had before engravings of worked examples were introduced into pattern books as guides to help makers accurately interpret what was being described.
1 2
London Quarterly Review, 1866, Elliot Sock, London, 26, pp 264-5. Vaughan, R., The British Quarterly Review, Jackson, Walford and Hodder, London, 42, p.226. 3 Dr Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes and Dr Karen Brown (Conference Convenors) Displaying Word and Image; Dr Katarzyna Bazarnik, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Convenor for the th th session, Liberature: displaying the meaning of the book, 4 6 June 2010, University of Ulster at Belfast.
82
Early books of lace designs, including Vinciolo (1972 [1587]), do not show technique: the only instructions in Richard Shorleykers A Schole-House for the Needle, published in London in 1623, describes how to use the attached squared paper to rescale patterns. Since specialist craft skills tended to be guarded by communities, the above pattern books were useful only to those who already knew how to make needlepoint lace or lacis, or had enough skill to adapt the patterns to other needlecrafts. The oldest known needlework sampler1 was made in 1598. Early samplers were functional, unlike the decorative pictures, and exercises in stitching alphabets and numbers, that became known as samplers in later centuries. Working samplers, as substitutes for needlework manuals, served as practice grounds, teaching tools, and reference books. By an ekphrasistic process, the strip of cloth could be read as text, providing instruction for a maker with a basic knowledge of technique. Information was conveyed about imagery, colour, threads-per-inch canvas, type and number of strands of thread, appropriate stitches, and how to form the stitches. Qualities that cannot be fully experienced by reading a manual: scale, weight, feel, drape and texture, can also be communicated through cloth.
Today, as in the past, anyone teaching needlecraft techniques almost certainly has worked examples to illustrate processes and someone learning techniques creates worked examples as practice pieces or as memory aids. The system, where an expert maker demonstrates technique to one person or a small group of learners, and illustrates the stages by a series of samples, which the learner then uses for reference while working the copies, has been the preferred way of learning needlecrafts for hundreds of years. This is despite its obvious limitation; being useful only for the few who have access to a personal instructor and can see and touch the samples.
Made by Jane Bostocke and in the collection of the V&A. (T.190-1960).
83 The method follows the route identified by Wood (2006, p.9) who researched the best ways in which to transmit craft knowledge and identified three phases: observational, active and developmental. Following the initial, passive stage, learners participate in a series of supervised activities, unconstrained by making mistakes until, Finally, and most importantly for the tacit element of the skill, the learners must address the development phase where they master the skill through repetition.
An experienced teacher knows that the ideal way to teach a textile craft changes according to the level of expertise of the student, rather than with their age or the time they have spent learning and practicing a skill. Therefore, the appropriateness, as teaching aids, of text, illustration, charts, demonstration and artefacts, is dependent on the level of skill already possessed. The Irish Lace Museum in Bellanaleck, County Fermanagh, has a collection of undated crochet sampler books. The work in the books, in coarser thread than was generally used, suggests that students started with coarse work and by the time they progressed to fine, sellable work they did not need to do practice pieces or have samples for reference. Meredith (1865, p.83) confirms the village schools around Cork that made only plain collars and edgings were instructed by the samples sent to be copied.
In national, government-controlled schools, needlecraft was offered to girls only if a female teacher was available to teach it. A trainee teachers sample book of 1849 (UFTM collection), dated from the cross stitch sampler included in the book, shows crochet similar to that in published pattern books of the period and later Irish sample books, rather than the less coarse, more creative style actually being made at that time by many Irish school-age girls. A teacher-training manual of 1853 (Durcan 1972, p.32) illustrates the needlework expected of National School girls: it is basic and dull compared with the work being made in industrial schools, where most of the school day could be spent making work for sale.
The National School system began in 1831 but schooling was not compulsory until much later (Durcan, 1972). Maguire (1853) shows that
84 school attendance improved when children were able to earn money by spending part of the day making lace, but it is unlikely that many children would have read fluently enough to be able to decipher patterns, or been able to afford the books. Owen (1844) and Riegos magazine (1852 1854) were published in Dublin, and there is an 1852 reference1 to pattern books being available, but all the indications are that these resources were used by recreational makers and not those earning money from crochet.
The reason few pattern books appear to have circulated in Ireland is that they were not needed: the comprehensive industrial school system of personal instruction using, mainly, in-house patterns was very effective and, as Chapter 4.7 will show, bypassed the problem of copyright. In the OBrien school, trainees learn from the most experienced scholars. One good worker teaches six girls (Maguire 1853, p.187). At the Ursuline Convent School in County Cork, The children are trained in a very short time, and exhibit the most wonderful aptitude for learning. A mere child is frequently able to perform her task well in two or three months; and there are but few instances where they have not mastered every difficulty at the end of six months (Maguire 1853, p. 206).
4.5
Sources of design
Meredith (1865, p.6) writes that the founders of the various schools, both secular and religious, developed an extraordinary skill in needlework, and, also, a great commercial aptitude to turn it to a profitable account. The women who initiated the enterprises also accepted responsibility for providing the patterns in the various crafts. In the 1820s, Mrs Grey Porter and Ann Steadman, using lace brought from Italy, designed the first patterns for what
Included in a review of a book on American humour where the author claims that the book would be pre-judged and returned unread to the highly genteel circulating library, with a request, that the Lily and the Bee, and the last work on Crochet collars, may be sent up the moment they come in. The Irish Quarterly Review, 1852, W.B.Kelly, Dublin, p.171, in a review of Traits of American Humour, By native Authors. Edited and adapted by the Author of Sam Slick, Colburn & Co., London.
85 later became Carrickmacross lace ( Clirigh, 1985). Lady OBrien designed for the industrial embroidery school she set up in County Clare: when the business expanded to four hundred children, she procured a work-mistress from the Continent and got patterns and designs from Paris (Maguire 1853, p.185). In 1850, instructors from Belgium and England were invited by the Ladies Irish Industrial Society to teach bobbin lace at the Normal Lace School in Dublin (Meredith 1865, p.78). Lady De Vere taught the mistress of a school on her own demesne at Curragh to copy some lace that she had bought in Brussels (Lindsey 1883, p.4). Mrs Lynam, who taught at the Countess of Ernes school, used Lady Ernes patterns or her own (Boyle 1971, p.61). In Cork the newest designs are got direct from Paris for sprigging (Maguire 1853, p.199), although, for the majority who worked it for Scottish manufacturers, the fabric was delivered to them already printed with the design.
For their experiment in industry, crochet, as an entirely new creation (Meredith 1865, p.8), had neither teachers who could be brought from somewhere else nor a catalogue of available patterns: sources in any other country are not mentioned by Maguire or Meredith. Students at Lady Deanes School, the Adelaide School, and the Convent Schools at Blackrock, Youghal and Kinsale kept their own and other schools supplied with new patterns and stitches, and in Clones, when the Kilcullen teacher left she was replaced by one of the first professionally trained designers (Meredith, 1865). All the indications are that Irish Crochet designs were devised by the makers themselves. Meredith (1865, p.51) writes:
crochet is not imitative in its manipulation, it has had no formula or models to copy from, no foreign forerunners to take pattern by, and yet it took its place in the land; avoiding the small portions of the country where the other sorts of lace prevail and maintaining its distance from sewed muslin
Maguire (1853, p.212) credits Lady Deane for providing some of the first crochet designs, because, although the peculiar stitch was well known in Blackrock in 1845 there was vast room for improvement. Without her valuable assistance, the progress towards perfection would have been
86 much slower than it has been, and the fame of the work less extensive than it now happily is. Mrs Hall (in Maguire 1853, p.210) describes how Lady Deane, who founded an adjoining and successful cottage industry in 1847, began:
Crochet-work, she thought, would not be very difficult; she knew the demand for it was increasing, and that even the earliest executed would bring in some remuneration. She instantly set about learning the stitch and designing patterns for the work, and in less than a fortnight she had her workers employed.
Some nuns had design skills. Maguire (1853, p.207) writes of a berthe of the most sumptuous description, which was designed by the gifted member of the community who conducts the school, and worked by one of the children. Maguire shows that the initiative for designing could come from the young makers themselves, and in a way that seems intuitive and spontaneous.
I should wrong these children if I allowed it [to] be understood that their talent was purely mechanical, such as depended principally upon dexterity and neatness in the execution of a given task. It is nothing of the kind; although this is a most valuable talent in itself, and one that is productive of admirable results. But they exhibit a readiness of invention, and a facility of design, which are truly wonderful; and it is no uncommon thing to see a child of twelve or thirteen years old varying the pattern set before her, and imparting new attractions to her work, by the most delicate and beautiful additions, suggested by her own fancy. Some are so clever, that they use the pattern with the utmost freedom, selecting those portions of it of which their taste approves, and combining the remainder into the most elegant and fanciful designssuch as have frequently excited the astonishment of their delighted teacher (Maguire 1853, p.206).
Meredith agrees that:

those who took to it, generally, in a short time, did what they liked with it, and [produced] the most complicated entanglement of designs, according to the degrees of sophistication of the workers. How they wearied themselves, to find that which was never yet seen under the sun, and how they toiled and laboured, to make out a way in which to express their sense of the beautiful (1865, p.87).
Later, when wholesalers became involved and wanted, for example, hundreds of dozen-yard-pieces of trimmings (p.213) Meredith found there
87 were differences among the makers, related to their background, which caused some to be good at doing repetitive work to order and others to find mechanical work impossible:
Some that took it up among the Anglo-Irish kept it within rules and restrictions, according to the nature of their orderly habits. With them it was a simple matter of imitative necessity, not of genius and spirit; it was to them a stern business effort, not a wild enterprise, and had nothing in it for them but the plain prose of a commonplace work. To the others, it was a poem wrought with passion (1865, pp. 89-90).
Merediths experience of the second group was that:

the nature of the work was adverse to their disposition. It is mechanical, and uncontrollable by fancy, and has a fixed price that cannot be unsettled by any manoeuvring. There are not powers connected with it, whereby a new sudden alteration of pattern may confuse the dealer; and give the maker a temporary advantage (1865, p.216).
Among those who found there was more profit, and pleasure, in making showy, striking looking goods (1865, p.226) was a girl who told Meredith;
theres hope in it. I may get ever so much for what I makes, if I happen to hit on a new stitch, and all the time Im at it, I dont know but I may have a lot of money coming to me; and Im kep in spirits like, to the last moment; but that pillow-work och, tis horrid, maam! youre made sinsible from the beginning that youre only to get the trifle of a price, no more, nor no less, and no thoughts will help you, you must go on with the thing to your ordthers, which is what I wont do, until I cant help it; plase God! (1865, p.374).
Meredith describes the skill of Mary Desmond, her composite lacemaker, as being like a sleight of hand, an art a sort of legerdemain known only to herself, something that she worked, as she said, out of her own head a notion stereotyped in thread (p.213). Marys intuitive perception enabled her to translate rags of old lace into very striking bits (p.223).
The tendency to want to work independently of patterns caused problems in fulfilling orders in Cork until a system of subdivision was devised (p.222). Possibly the idea for specialising in just one part of a multi-task process came from Cork workers earlier unsuccessful attempts at sprigging
88 (Maguire, 1853) where as many as twenty people, including seven or eight different kinds of sewers collaborated in each piece produced (Illustrated Exhibitor 1851, p.174). Possibly, the idea came from seeing a similar system in needlelace or appliqu lace workshops: or the idea might have been the Cork workers own. However it happened, having crocheters make only those parts of a design they were able and willing to do, and then joining the bits later, solved many production problems. It also meant there was work for all levels of ability. When one childs lacemaking earnings enabled her family to come out of the workhouse her mother became a lace washer, one sister a pinner and tacker, and two more made bits and barred (Meredith 1865, p.44). In Cork schools, the system meant production increased, orders were completed on time and designs could not be pirated so easily.
Meredith shows that if the same textile craft were made in different parts of Ireland local variations developed: crochet, after the manner of lace, showed adherence to habitat, and tenacity of type (1865, p.9).
Among the remarkable attributes of this lace were its localization, and the effects of this localization. Stitches settled, pitched, rooted themselves, and they could not be transplanted. The mode of working in one place could not be taught to the girls of another, so as to produce the same effect. This was tried with great energy and perseverance by the importation of workers, but it never succeeded. Each place persistently kept its own stitch; in no other neighbourhood could the identical turn of the thread, and the exactly similar loop, with equal tension or laxity, be procured; and this peculiarity is common to other laces (Meredith 1865, p.90).
In the early years,

It settled into several centres, Cork and Clones becoming the most important of them and these maintained their distinctive characteristics most determinedly (p.9). the recognition of the products of the different districts is well established in the trade (p.10).
In Cork, crochet began as crochet. The style that settled into Clones did not come from Cork and then change: it was different from the beginning because it began in Kilcullen as a needlelace variation. The style then spread to other centres via initiatives set up by the wives of Church of Ireland clergymen. Mrs Roberts letter to Meredith (1865, p.371) describes how
89 crochet began in Kilcullen, not as a way of making edgings but from interpreting old lace using a new technique.
You are aware, I doubt not, the work originated here. I have the original piece, that my deeply-lamented sister-in-law brought from a friend of hers in Dover, of course, most inferior in design, not unlike crabs and spiders in succession, attached to each other. She, at that time, had a flourishing trade among her poor neighbours in Polka knitting; but just at the moment she was suddenly taken from us, the demand for Polkas ceased: I then taught five poor women to copy the crochet spiders, and then lent them different pieces of old lace, and of their own ingenuity they brought it to its present perfection. I distributed twenty-eight teachers of it throughout Ireland.
Mrs Roberts does not say if she, like Lady Deane in Cork, learned crochet in order to teach it to her neighbours but it seems likely that she did, since she had no book of patterns or prior knowledge of any pattern and copied the spiders from the piece of crochet she happened to get from her sister-inlaw. The need to work efficiently using available skills, and limited tools and materials presented a problem that was solved by making a hybrid lace from old specimens. Sennett writes of the process: The capacity to open up a problem draws on intuitive leaps, specifically on its powers to draw unlike domains close to one another and to preserve tacit knowledge in the leap between them (2008, p.279).
The experience of knitting polka jackets undoubtedly helped the neighbours of Mrs Roberts sister-in-law realise the benefits of producing what the market wanted, and quickly. Therefore, the five poor women did not try to copy Mrs Roberts old lace but reinterpreted it in a newly-fashionable, easily-learned, and fast medium. That the source lace included Venetian gros point, or the Spanish version of Venetian raised lace, is suggested by the fact that the known places to which Mrs Roberts sent teachers made a crocheted interpretation of needlelace and not the plain style of crochet that was being made around Cork at that time. Since she sent teachers throughout Ireland it is quite possible that what has become Irish Crochet began when a Kilcullen teacher taught the Venetian style so close to where the Cork style was being made that the two influenced each other. A likeness to the work which bore Mrs. Roberts name is only faintly tracable in that which the
90 districts produce that received her teachers; for each locality soon formed an independent style and retained it (Meredith 1865, p.371). In the Spanish1 version of Venetian raised lace even-weight cords are laid on the surface as gimp, rather than having tapered padding in selective parts of motifs as the Venetian original would have had. The Spanish version, less technically demanding and therefore quicker to make, became the preferred style of lace in the Clones and Roslea area, where Irish Crochet making continued long after it had died out in the other areas influenced by the Kilcullen initiative.
Paludan (1995, p.62) is referring only to the crochet originating in County Kildare when she writes: To begin with, the Italian and Spanish raised needlepoint laces of the late seventeenth century served as models. Meredith (1865, p.16) believes this style, which became known generally as Irish point, was the highest development of crochet lace.
The early specimens of this lace were beautiful pieces of workmanship, comparable to the mediaeval guipures and old points, of continental celebrity; they were, in fact, imitations of them. The attempts to resuscitate their styles, and to rival their reputation, were by no means contemptible. Great aptitude for this revival was displayed (Meredith 1865, p.9).
Marsland (1853, p.v), the English company which traded with Cork, confirms Maguire (1853, p.211) when its manual records that, at the commencement edgings only were attempted. If Cork makers began by doing edgings, the lengths were certainly not like the Kildare raised crochet that was based on needlepoints, and took great skill to make. The edgings must have been simple and flat, probably similar in style to those in British (Chapter 3) and European (Paludan, 1995) books of the period. When a maker refused to do that pillow-work (Meredith 1865, p.374) it is likely that she was referring to the repeat-pattern, easily-made crochet edging that decorates a bed pillow, rather than pillow (bobbin) lace.
1
Pullan (1859, p.99) describes Spanish rose (raised) lace as, very close, elaborate and massive, the edges of the scrolls and ornaments being raised very much.
91
Fig.4.b. Collar (V&A 876-1853) from Ballingarry that shows the diversity in the doily improvisation system. There are eleven variations of a motif from a total of fifteen in the collar. The ground is very like that of 4.c, 4.d and 4.e. Fig.4.c. One of a pair of lappets (V&A 1095a-1854) with the motifs highlighted and isolated to show the development in the doilies. The rose motif is a doily variation but with denser petals than later versions. The raised knots on the thistle are unusual.
92
Fig.4.d. Coraline lace. 16th century Italian. (Pollen 1908, Plate XXXVIII). Fig.4.e. Cuff. Irish. Unknown date. Possible coraline influence. (Authors collection). Fig.4.f. 18th century Mechlin. Variable weight ground. (Pollen 1908, Plate CI, detail) Fig.4.g. Detail of Irish Crochet coat (Harvey, 1912). Later Cork style large motifs and mixed density grounds; possibly showing influence of Mechlin lace style above.
93
Fig.4.h. Section of collar: made in Killeshandra, County Cavan (V&A 1158.1855). Fig.4.i. Section of another Killeshandra collar (V&A 1159.1855). The top collar in particular shows the influence of Venetian raised lace. Comparing the central bow with the bow in Fig.2.g. shows the similarity of source lace for the makers of both reinterpretations and highlights the difference in quality of execution.
94
Fig.4.j. 17th century Spanish version of a Venetian style. (Pollen 1908, Plate LIII). Fig.4.k. A section of a collar of what has become known as Clones lace because the industry continued there for longer than in other areas. The photograph shows an extreme version of a style characterised by a dense arrangement of motifs, smaller than those of Cork, and a ground of knotted brides. Outlining the motifs in a thick worked cord is a feature of Spanish lace (Fig.4.j) but it is possible that the technique was adopted just as a matter of expediency: in crochet it is quicker and easier to do than the tapered cords of the Venetian original. (Authors collection).
95 Although their work began in a less technically challenging way than in Kildare, some makers in Cork soon progressed to making more than basic repetitive lengths when (co-operative) division of labour began. Workers found that making motifs separately with extremely fine thread meant each ovoid foundation row could become leaf-like; each flower-like circle was, in effect, a miniature doily, and just as open to improvisation as British designers had realised when making larger-scale doilies and their variants.
The thinking process of the maker is evident in a collar made in Ballingarry (between Limerick and Cork) and acquired in 1853 by the V&A (876-1853). In Figure 4.b the motifs of the collar have been separated out to show the variety of subtly different constructions of the bits.
Distributing related crochet bits across a piece of work in a, seemingly, random arrangement was an extraordinary way to create lace, but the ground between the motifs was just as remarkable. Chapter 2 showed that Carrickmacross, and related laces, appliqud motifs to net grounds. Often, needlelace motifs were joined by plaited or buttonholed brides. What is unusual about this collar is that the ground seems to have been made, not simply to connect the bits to each other, but in response to a pre-existing lace. Meredith (1865) writes that, by the early 1850s old lace was used as source material in the Cork area and the ground of the Ballingarry collar appears very like coraline lace. Figure 4.d shows a sixteenth century Italian coraline needlepoint example from Pollen (1908, Plate XXXVIII). Figure 4.e is one of a pair of Irish crocheted cuffs, of unknown date, but of remarkably similar style. One of the defining characteristics of Cork style lace is that some areas of ground are differently spaced from other areas (Figure 4.g). It is possible that Mechlin lace (Figure 4.f) was the source of this style: Maguire (1853, p.208) writes that Honiton, Venetian and Mechlin laces were copied in Blackrock, Cork.
Figure 4.c is one of a pair of lappets. The pair was bought by the V&A (1095,1095a-1854) from the Womens Industrial Society in Dublin (Robinson 1860, p.124) in 1854 but may be slightly older since the label on the one on
96 public display dates it to the first half of 19th century. The thinking process of the maker can be traced when one lappet is deconstructed. Figure 4.c shows the small changes made between motifs that led to progressively more complicated work. No place of origin is given but the similarity of the ground to the Ballingarry collar and an analysis of the motifs suggest that, despite parts of it being in raised work, it is connected to Cork-style crochet. The raised areas are unlike Venetian rose or gros point: they do not cover cords but appear to be the result of experimenting with 3-dimensional doilies, repeatedly working groups of stitches into the posts of circles instead of into the edge of the previous row. It is possible that the imagery is based on the Honiton lace rose, shamrock and thistle emblems that had been favourites of lace buyers since their use on Queen Victorias wedding clothes in 1840 (Staniland and Levey, 1983).
In contrast to the crocheted Ballingarry collar and the lappets are two collars Figures 4.h and 4.i, made in Killeshandra1, County Cavan, about twenty miles from Clones and sixty miles from Kilcullen, County Kildare. They show needlepoint crochet closely related to the style initiated by the unnamed five poor women in Kilcullen. The collars, acquired by the V&A in 1855 (11581855 and 1159-1855), and described as Spanish point by Robinson (1860), consist of separately made motifs that were then joined. Unlike Cork, in the areas that adopted the Kilcullen womens method, the same worker usually made an entire piece: motif, filling, ground, and edging (Meredith 1865, p.44): a system that persists to now in the Clones area (Treanor, 2002).
4.6
Stylistic characteristics
Traditional Irish Crochet is always made using thread, never yarn, and the motifs are based on organic, naturalistic sources. Three features in particular characterise the style, although not all three have to be used in combination
Killishandra in V&A records, Killesandra in Lewis (1837).
97 for it to be identified as Irish Crochet. Each characteristic was known in lacemaking before 1845, but was used differently in Irish Crochet. The first, the use of covered cords, not only gives body to the work but also enables a skilful maker to manipulate separate parts of each motif, giving it form. The second is the practice of making lace in parts, to be joined by brides towards the end of the making process. The third feature is the inclusion of raised or 3-dimensional motifs.
Before Irish Crochet existed, Lambert (1842, p.150) crocheted over wool carried at the back of a multicoloured pattern, to pad, and make reversible, the shepherds knitting type of work. Other makers later utilised the technique: Warrens (1848, p.130) card basket was made by crocheting over blind cord and her 1855 book gives patterns for crochet-covered wire arranged three-dimensionally. The source of the Irish technique was not a designer but was, undoubtedly, needlepoint lace. Crocheting over cord is the natural way to mimic needlelace, which is, almost entirely, buttonhole stitch over thread. The Irish makers adaptation of the Spanish way of covering cord was less like the original sculpted Venetian look, but enabled them to work a wide range of malleable motifs more quickly.
The second feature, separate parts, was not of Irish origin. According to Earnshaw (1984a, p.117), appliqud laces, some bobbin laces and, All needlepoint laces, except hollie point, are non-continuous, or, made in sections. Irish workers might have adopted the method after seeing almost any antique lace or the appliqud version of Carrickmacross lace. In Honiton lace, the flowers, or sprigs, are made separately, and sewn on afterwards (Harvey, 1829, p.296). Earnshaw (1985, p.84) writes of the advantage of using the method; a maker all her life might make only one or two designs. This method achieved some semblance of specialization, with increased speed and efficiency of production.
98 Lace manufacturer Ernest Lefbure (1888, p.305) credits Belgian initiative for making lace as separate flowers and bits of ornament, or in segments analogous to those used in the needlepoint lace process. Kraatz (1989, p.120) describes how an earlier Lefbure, August, organised his French workshop:
Lefbure was a man of modern times, for he understood that division of labour was the key to achieving production sufficiently intensive to meet the demand, and sufficiently flexible to respond rapidly to changes of fashion. The young workers were very specialized. Some made only the solid areas of design, others only the decorative fillings or raised outlines, others again the reseau.
Three-dimensional needlelace is most associated with seventeenth century stumpwork, and metal thread shoe roses but the rarity of both in the nineteenth century suggests that they are unlikely sources for the threedimensional elements of Irish Crochet. Warren and Pullan (1855) give a pattern, made some time after the first Irish raised rose, which includes a layered flower that looks similar, but is made differently: progressively smaller rounds are made separately and afterwards the layers are sewed together. The Irish method is more time-efficient, and less fiddly for motifs that might comprise eight layers tapering from 2.5 cm to 1 cm diameter. It is unlikely that the rose shown (in Fig.4.c) could have been visualised in advance of first making it. Almost certainly, it was first made by someone experimenting while crocheting. The first rose probably began as a two layered, petal-doily, increasing over time to become a challenge to fit the greatest number of layers into the smallest space.
Although the styles of crochet that originated in Cork and Kilcullen later adopted elements from each other, work from different areas remains distinguishable. Cork lace tends to have larger motifs, widely spaced on a plain or picoted crochet net ground that can vary in density in different areas (Fig.4.g). Irish Crochet derived from the Kilcullen original is likely to have more, and smaller, motifs that are outlined with cordonnet, and a ground decorated with knots (Fig.4.k). Knotted grounds in lace are unusual but not exclusive to Irish Crochet lace: Palliser (1881, Plate IX) shows a sixteenth or seventeenth century Genoese lace with knotted brides (V&A 611-1853).
99
4.7
Mademoiselle Elonore Riego de la Branchardire
Irish Crochet is probably the most difficult to learn of all the types of crochet and it takes considerable time and aptitude to become proficient at the craft. Using the same pattern, no two makers of Irish Crochet will produce exact replicas of the original design. There will be differences because of variations in thread and tension but mainly because each maker has her own system for adjusting the padding or packing cord (after every few stitches) while making, and this controls how the motif looks and lies when complete. At all stages, the worker must use her own discretion and should not for one moment hesitate to follow her own artistic instinct if she feels inclined to make changes to the given pattern.
Now it is this very freedom, so fascinating to the worker, which creates such difficulties to a writer upon Irish crochet. if minute directions for fillings could be written, they would be so extremely intricate that to attempt to follow them would drive most workers distracted (Harvey, in Priscilla, 1912).
Mlle Riego found that she too had trouble writing instructions for the lace she made that was based on the same source lace as that used by the Kilcullen women. Instructions for making a childs dress, exhibited at the 1851 Great Exhibition, covered more than twenty large, magazine pages1. Directions for Raised Crochet Spanish Point Lace (Figure 4.r), a copy of a valuable specimen (1886, Introduction), that she showed at the 1855 international Paris exhibition, took her five years of spare time to write.
Previous sections have shown that Irish makers did not experience similar problems: they neither recorded patterns as text nor followed written instructions. They learned technique from each other and copied samples that others had made, or devised their own. In 1886, Mlle Riego indirectly acknowledges the design skills of Irish Crochet makers:
The Needle. Published monthly from July 1852 to December 1854. Simpkin, Marshall & Co., Ackerman & Co., London. The instructions for the dress began with Issue 7, Volume II, January 1853, continued in Issues 8-11, and finished in Issue 13, Volume III, July 1853.
100
The Countess of Aberdeen, in her most interesting and practical guide to the Irish womens industries, now on view at the Edinburgh Exhibition remarks: It is impossible to spend even a few weeks in Ireland without being struck by the great ingenuity, the power of adaption, the natural skill in working out designs, and the patience shown in the work itself (1886, Introduction).
Yet, strangely, in the last paragraph of that same page of The Irish Lace Instructor, she writes:
For I may claim that all this class of work owes its origins to my early books, as Crochet Lace did not exist before the publication of my first one on that subject, which appeared in 1846, about the time of the dreadful famine in Ireland. With the help I then gave, the poor of that country soon learnt my new lace as it was then called; schools and classes were formed
Mlle Riegos claim was repeated by Turnbull (1904), and Needlecraft magazine ([c.1910], Issue 21, p.3), referring to Mlle Riego, calls Irish Crochet her invention and Her lace:
The inventor of [crochet lace] was Mademoiselle Riego de la Blanchardiere, [sic] who discovered that a particular kind of antique Spanish needlepoint lace could be most effectively copied in crochet. About the year 1846 she published instructions for a few patterns, which, after the distress caused by the great potato famine, were used by many ladies of high position for teaching the work to classes and schools
That the latter is the source of misinformation for a widely read, highly regarded and often quoted book of Irish Crochet (dArcy, 1984), and others, including Lacis (2005), is revealed by their repeating the inaccuracies of the account, including the misspelling of Mlle Riegos name. This section examines the veracity of Mlle Riegos words because, if it is true that Irish makers based their work on her designs, a core premise of this thesis is weakened. The hypothesis is; early Irish Crochet lace makers did not use printed patterns: they demonstrated that a facility with crochet technique initiated inventiveness (in Kilcullen) and creativity (in Cork). Therefore, this section addresses a critical question; did Mlle Riego invent Irish Crochet?
101 Official documents provide some verifiable information about Mlle Riego. 1851 census records1 show she was born in Paris in 1828 and her mother was born in Kent; not, that she was born in England to an Irish mother (Potter 1955; Paludan 1995; Treanor 2002; Palmer 2004). She was a medal winner at the Exhibitions in London in 18512 and Paris in 1855. In the early 1860s, she took a case to court. When she died in 1887, she left almost 60003 to poor Irish female workers (quoted in Ballantyne 2007b, p.19).
Apart from these facts, most of the rest of what is known about Mlle Riego is revealed by her books of patterns and the magazine that was under her direction. These show that she was an accomplished designer and prolific publisher of patterns on knitting, tatting, crochet, needlepoint and embroidery4. She taught, had a needlework supply business, was a manufacturer of some of her own materials5, endorsed others products (Riego, 1859), printed her own magazine (The Needle, July 1852) and offered to have Lace cleaned, mended and rearranged (The Needle, September 1852). Mlle Riegos 1886 claim, that Crochet Lace did not exist before the publication of my first [book] on that subject, was originally made in 1852:
previous to my publication in 1845 only the plain stitch of crochet was known, and I confidently assert that Crochet and Point Lacet especially owe their invention and advancement to my exertion (The Needle, (1), p.1).
1
The census records show a six year discrepancy in her claimed age. In 1851, her birth year is given as 1828: in 1871, her claimed birth year is 1834. The latter date is unlikely for someone who published a book in 1846, already having had much experience in teaching, and always writing her own directions . th http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ Accessed 10 July 2011. 2 Official Catalogue of the great Exhibition of 1851 p.469. Jury report, Awards for British Lace, Scotch and Irish Embroidery, &c., Riego de la Branchardiere, Eleonore, London, for basket of flowers, [f]rock, berthe, &c., in crotchet-work; very beautiful. 3 6000 is worth 500,000 today if measured against relative Retail Price indices, or about 3 million if Average Earnings in 1887 and 2009 are compared. Lawrence H. Officer, "Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a UK Pound Amount, 1830 to Present," Measuring th Worth, 2010. www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/ Accessed 10 July 2011. 4 Her 1886 book, Orris Lace lists 67 of her books (Potter, 1955): she claimed to have written more than a hundred, although it is possible she included in this number each of the thirty editions of The Needle magazine, since each magazine contained more patterns than many of her books. 5 A pattern in her 1869 Point Lace Book uses Mlle. Riegos Guipure Tape. She also sold her own-label sets of crochet needles.
102
Chapter 3 showed that Mrs Gaugain, Miss Lambert and others had included more than the plain stitch of crochet in the books they wrote that pre-dated Mlle Riegos first book (1846, not 1845 as claimed above). The 1846 books of crochet by Mrs Mee showed stitches engraved accurately enough for them to be read, enabling her to produce patterns that could be described as crochet lace: marking the point at which the nature of crochet changed (Chapter 3.2). Mlle Riegos 1846 needlework book illustrated the crochet patterns with simple graphed charts: there is nothing in her first book to justify her claim that she invented crochet and Irish Crochet.
Contemporaneous authorities within Ireland; Maguire, Meredith and Lindsey, never mention her name. A rare reference to her is in the book published by Marsland, the company who traded with producers around Cork, when they write (1853, p.vi) that their reason for publishing needlework patterns is that designers, - including Mlle Riego who was preoccupied at that time with publishing her monthly magazine - cannot keep up with the demand for patterns from every part of the kingdom. Marsland, unusually, gave permission for these designs to be worked for sale: although there is no evidence that any of them were made in Ireland. If Irish lace makers had wanted to sell work based on the designs of Mlle Riego, or any other person, they would have needed permission, both to print the paper instructions and to attach a registration label to any finished goods. There is no record of either of these things ever happening.
From the earliest days of printed pattern books, plagiarism was a problem; especially, internationally: British copyright law did not cover America, for example. Miss Lamberts experience is typical of many:
Without alluding to numerous petty piracies, the writer cannot refrain from noticing the reprint of this treatise in America as an original work, dedicated to the ladies of the United States: a circumstance she is fain to accept as a compliment, as there is no redress for the substantial wrong. To imitators at home, it may be as well to hint, that all the designs in this volume are copyright (1846, preface).
103 The Philadelphia Library details an extreme example1:

This book is an exact reprint of an anonymous English work called The Lady's Own Book. The publishers claimed it was written by the popular American novelist Ann Stephens in order to obtain U.S. copyright. When identical plates began to appear in Godey's Lady's Book, the magazine was suspected of piracy, but its editors replied that their plates were copied from the English original. In the absence of international copyright, both parties were acting within the law, but neither was entirely honest.
Mlle Riego seems to have been obsessive about copyright infringements and registering her designs2. Sometimes she tactfully warned her readers:
Ladies are respectfully informed that these articles cannot be purchased without the registered mark being affixed; and parties wishing to manufacture them for the purposes of sale, must have the Authoresss permission (1848a);
and sometimes less tactfully: I must direct the attention of those of my readers competent to understand the many plagiarisms ... (1848b, preface). She began publishing in magazine format to counteract wholesale piracy of her work because; In vain do the laws provide the method of redress, when it is impossible to obtain recompense from persons as destitute of means as of principle (The Needle, (1), p.1).
Because of the case of Riego de la Branchardire versus Elvery, a clause in the Art Copyright Act, 1862, was clarified. From then,
Copies of a registered design published in a book for sale need no registration mark, nor is such publication a licence to the purchaser of the book to apply the designs to articles for sale.3
An exhibition label referring to Stephens A. S., 1854. The Ladies' Complete Guide to Crochet, Fancy Knitting, and Needlework, Dick & Fitzgerald, New York. th http://www.librarycompany.org/HookBook/case7labels.htm Accessed 10 July 2011. 2 To the extent that a reviewer of her work at the 1851 Great Exhibition wrote that she cannot quite understand on what principle the lady registers designs of convolvuluses and other flowers, having hitherto believed that Nature alone could claim the monopoly of the invention, and that if two people both attempted to copy the same species of flowers, one or both must be very stupid indeed if they did not accomplish something very much alike. It would be paying the lady a very bad compliment to suppose her flowers were so unlike Nature as to require a registration. Illustrated Exhibitor, (1-8), July September 1851, John Cassell, London, p.331. 3 Copinger, W. A., 1870, The Law of Copyright in Works of Literature and Art, Stevens and Haynes, London, references case 18 L. J. Exc. 381: as recorded in Underdown, E. M., 1863, The Law of Art Copyright, etc. John Crockford, London, p.67
104
Later, after changing to signing her surname in full on her designs to more readily detect fraud she felt she must caution ladies because, she is informed by law it is against the purchaser only she must proceed in case it should be necessary to assert her rights (1867, p.32).
Given that she was rigorous about enforcing rules of copyright and registration, it seems likely that she would have taken action against Irish makers had they been selling work made using her designs. In fact, Irish makers had similar concerns:
new and artistic designs should not only be encouraged by extended patronage, but be specially protected by law. those engaged in the manufacture require some simple protective law to prevent their outlay and expenditure being ruthlessly appropriated. (Lindsey 1883, p.11)
The penalties for infringing copyright and the evidence for Irish ingenuity (Sections 4.5 and 4.6), militate against Irish makers plagiarising Mlle Riegos, or anyones, designs. There are no pattern books by Mlle Riego or her contemporaries in the collection of the National Library of Ireland: of the two Riego books held in Trinity College, Dublin, one was published in 1886, the other in 1887, the year of her bequest. The connection of Mlle Riego with Irish Crochet seems to have begun only in the 1880s; her 1886 Irish Lace Instructor and the bequest appear to be linked to her friendship in the 1880s with Irish lace designer Michael Holland (Ballantyne 2007b); who was asked by her if he could get Irish workers to make copies of the Spanish Point design1 illustrated in Figure 4.r. Evidence presented demonstrates that Mlle Riego did not invent Irish Crochet; but a question remains to be answered: why does some of her work look so like Irish Crochet that the two are mistaken in museum lace collections and in lace experts books?
From a fragment of a letter in the Power Correspondence (U086.11) in Cork City and County Archives.
105
Fig.4.l. Section of parasol classified as Irish Crochet (V&A 162-1892) but which is from Riego (1848c) and displays a Honiton lace influence. Fig.4.m. Section of collar (Riego 1848c) La Rose, which became 4.l. above. The illustration also shows why Riegos books helped popularise crochet in the 1840s: stitches could be read from illustrations instead of text. Fig.4.n. Section (p.15) of 6 pages of text for the above collar. Irish makers never needed to work through text like this. (4.m & 4.n from photographs of Riego 1848c in the collection of the National Art Library, V&A, London (Box 1.43.E)).
106
Fig.4.o. Riego design from The Needle (August 1853) often mistaken for Irish Crochet both as a blouse front (here) and when rearranged as a collar (1853, 13th Series). (Illustration from Turnbull 1904, Trinity College Dublin collection). Fig.4.p. Section from a collar of unknown origin which is neither Irish Crochet nor a Riego design but seems to have links to Honiton lace. (Authors collection).
107
Fig.4.q. Riego (1847, p.20) collar Point dEspagne. Commonly, new patterns were named after famous pre-existing, high value styles even though they bore no resemblance to the original. (Reworked illustration from Antique Pattern Library collection). Fig.4.r. Riegos first design that copies the Irish Crochet makers technique of using a worked cord as gimp. The work won her a medal at the 1855 Paris exhibition, was first published in 1856 and republished in her 1886 Irish Lace Instructor. (Riego 1886, Plate III, National Art Library collection).
108 Chapter 2 showed how in lacemaking it is common practice to base new work on pre-existing styles and to give them the names of high-status laces. Mlle Riego followed in that tradition. In her first all-crochet book (1847, preface) she writes, the patterns are designed from the picturesque costumes of past times ... although, because the technique is so different, they bore little resemblance to the laces after which they were named.
In the first issue of The Needle (July 1852) Mlle Riego expressed her intention that The designs given, will, in many instances, have an historical value as representing Arabian, Turkish, Saracenic, Gothic, Classical, and Medival periods; and more recently the Renaissance, Elizabethan, and Mixed modern styles. It would be difficult to do work that Mlle Riego had not appropriated, and helps explain why she believed her work was being plagiarised or that others had used her work as source material, when, in fact, they had simply gone to the same original source as she had. At the same time, she feels free to use any Mixed modern styles she chooses. She did this extensively and, like most teachers, was able to draw on a wide range of others styles. What is of specific interest here is her use of Honiton lace. Mrs Wheelers (1847) Honiton lace pattern was Honiton in name only. Mrs Warrens (1848, p.372) Honiton collar was closer to the original: sprigs were crocheted separately and sewn to a crocheted or bobbinet base. Earlier that year, Eureka, who lived in Devon, sixteen miles from Honiton, published a pattern for a collar where not only the technique - making sprigs individually but the motifs too, were based on the Honiton style. In the Preface to the first of the two editions, written in February and April 1848, she recommends the laces novelty, As Crochet Lace Sprigs have not hitherto been attempted. It is not known if Mlle Riego saw Eurekas book, but she, soon afterwards, adopted the Honiton technique of making separate sprigs, and the look of Honiton motifs. Although she calls her Crochet Appliqu an entirely new style of crochet, in the Preface (written in June) to her 1848b book, the only differences from what had already been made were that she recommended
109 coloured silk threads be used for her sprigs, and that they should be attached to a solid fabric. The Honiton connection was stated more obviously in her design for a Crochet Honiton collar (1849a): nine cornflower sprigs were to be made separately and applied to net that had a border of joined cornflowers. Another collar in the same book featured the rose, shamrock and thistle emblems, typically associated with Honiton lace.
Geometric eccentricity is a distinguishing feature of the Honiton rose and its appearance among the crochet appliqu sprays (1848b) reveals Mlle Riegos source: (Irish Crochet roses, in contrast, are always symmetrical). Mlle Riego uses a Honiton rose and other distinctive Honiton motifs in the patterns for both collars in her next (1848c) book and many more designs made during the following few years. One of the sprigs in the 1848c book was adapted to suit being made into a parasol cover1 (Fig.4.l) that is now in the Irish Crochet collection of the V&A (162-1892).
If flowers and organic shapes are made as motifs or sprigs in thread crochet it is inevitable that there will be unintentional stylistic similarities by different makers; a point made by the reviewer quoted in the footnote on page 103. A Riego design for a blouse front, (The Needle, August 1853) that was also published as a collar (Riego 1853, [2nd edn. 10,000 copies]), has been mistaken for Irish Crochet by the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum (1975.445) and several lace experts. Neither H. J. Yallop, whose PhD subject was Honiton lace, nor Pat Earnshaw link the lace with Mlle Riego but believe it to be Irish Crochet imitating Honiton. Earnshaw (1984b, Illustration 154), after labelling the work Irish crochet because of the raised roses and picoted brides, writes, here it copies Honiton to some extent. Yallop (1992, Illustration 73), identifies the design as Imitation Honiton Irish crochet.
Unfortunately, Yallop gives no information about Honiton crochet and in the course of this research the author has not seen any other references to it;
1
Shown to the author on 4 September 2010 as part of the museums Irish Crochet collection and described as Irish by Alan S. Cole, 1895, Supplemental Descriptive Catalogue of Specimens of Lace Acquired for the South Kensington Museum Between June 1890 and June 1895, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London.
th
110 suggesting very little was made or, perhaps, that it is being inadvertently stored with Irish Crochet, rather than Honiton, collections. Intriguingly, a collar (Fig.4.o), bought by the author from an American antiques dealer, was described as a bib by Honiton. At first sight, it could be mistaken for Irish Crochet but, despite similarities, it is not like any known Irish Crochet: motifs are different and what appear to be Clones knots are each little hollow bowls. The ground is simply interlocked threads, which, although known in Irish Crochet (Maguire, 1853), is unusual. Expert Irish Crochet maker, Eileen Jones, who has lived in Devon and is familiar with Honiton lace, agrees with the author that the collar feels Honiton.
The apparent overlap between Irish Crochet, Honiton and the work of Mlle Riego reinforces the concept of all lace being interconnected while maintaining unique features. It is possible that some Irish Crochet makers saw Mlle Riegos work and it affected theirs. It is known that some Irish makers copied Honiton (Maguire, 1853) and other lace: Venetian and Spanish are obvious influences, probably, coraline and, possibly, Genoese. There is currently no evidence that Irish women saw Mlle Riegos work, other than the three who were given answers to queries on her Notice to Correspondents pages of The Needle (Issues 2, 4, 17). What one answer reveals is that Mlle Riego was fully aware of Irish makers work. In answer to an unspecified question from Erin she wrote:
The work is not made from any direction, being composed from ovals, rounds, squares, flowers, and leaves, worked in close crochet; these pieces arranged without any design, sewn together, or joined by bars. The best kind made in Ireland, is excellently worked, and has a very good effect, but it is an error to suppose that it is an imitation of old point lace, the chief beauty of which consisted in the artistic character of the designs (Issue No.17, November 1853. p.218).
This answer adds to the argument already presented and confirms that Mlle Riego did not invent Irish Crochet. Given the perfect opportunity to reveal if Irish women were using her designs, she makes it clear that she knew they were working from no patterns (direction).
111 Further, what she wrote tends to support the hypothesis presented in this research. She knows of work that consists of simple shapes joined haphazardly: (Cork crochet). She refers to another kind, (Kilcullen style) the best kind, which is excellently worked and looks good, but which fails to match the original point lace in that the overall layout (design) was not artistically arranged.
It is, perhaps, reasonable to imagine that Mlle Riego decided to make her new style (1855, preface), raised Spanish Point (Figure 4.r), which is artistically well laid out, and in which she crocheted over cord for the first time, after seeing Kilcullen-style Irish Crochet. She clearly associated the design with Ireland; reconfiguring it for publication in the Irish Lace Instructor (1886). It is pure supposition, but tempting, to think that she left her fortune to Irish lace makers when she died in 1887 because she felt indebted to them: the original version of the design helped her win a prize medal at the 1855 Paris exhibition (Riego 1855, advertising 1856, 15th Series).
4.8
The collapse of the industry
A reviewer1 of The Lacemakers by Mrs Meredith (1865) summarises the theme of the book: the founding of lace schools, and why so many failed.
success speedily followed the attempt to supply abundant and constant remunerative employment to those who should be permitted to survive the famine and the pestilence [but,] except in a few solitary cases, the expectations of settled benefit have been disappointed
Many schools closed within a few years of forming: of the twenty private lace schools that employed Normal Lace School teachers between 1844 and 1854, for example, just eight were still operating in 1865 (Meredith 1865, p.374). Lindseys 1883 map (Figure 4.a) shows that lacemaking had already ended in more than half the places (marked by blue dots) where it had existed previously.
1
London Quarterly Review, 1866, Elliot Sock, London, 26, pp. 264-5.
112
One of the reasons Meredith gives for the enterprises failure is her belief that the tedium of lacemaking suited many perseveringly patient English women, and the Anglo Irish, females of more plodding and industrious tempers, but did not suit the Irish temperament. Nor would Irish women compete with women in other countries to make needle and bobbin laces, knowing their contribution was, with machine-made lace, driving down the value of lace in a satiated market1. In Ireland, distaste for doing poorly-paid repetitive work meant, The hands dropped off from the work, before the work dropped off from them (Meredith 1865, p.374).
Another reason given for failure was that merchants who found markets for lace in the early days were joined within a few years by mere speculators, (Meredith 1865, p.11) who, taking advantage of cheap Irish labour and a buoyant market, allowed sub-standard Irish work to threaten the livelihoods of all the makers. Buyers looked elsewhere for better quality lace and Meredith (1865, p.16) predicted that The grotesque-looking coarseness of the fabric with which the fluctuating demand has been supplied, bids fair soon to terminate its own existence. Palliser, who praises many Irish laces, including the finest Valenciennes, made in Lisnaskea, and crochet lacet of great beauty, attributes the depression in the trade to the impossibility of competing with inferior and machine-made lace (1869, p.385). In Merediths opinion (1865, pp.36, 47), the industrys collapse was primarily the fault of the system of education, which gives no special information on the subject of those industrial employments, that are likely to be useful. Others (Cassandra Hand in Meredith, 1865; Riego, November 1853) comment on the high standard of workmanship of Irish lace, but all agree with Meredith that the work was being let down by poor design. Merediths recommendation that the recently
1
English bobbin-lace makers had reduced sales when Irish lace was sold through charitable agencies (Earnshaw, 1985). Tonna (1844, pp. 130-135) describes the dreadful conditions under which Nottingham lacemakers lived: children were given opium to sedate them while mothers and older children slaved. Young women were expected to supplement their meagre wages by prostitution.
113 established Schools of Design offer courses specifically for lace design was later endorsed by Alan Cole1 and James Brenan2.
If making lace were intended to provide permanent, well-paid employment for women then Meredith (1865, p.2) is right in saying some attempts were utter failures, and others but partially successful. If, however, lacemaking were intended to help individuals and communities through famine and its aftermath then lacemaking was very successful. It was no coincidence that The districts in which this movement [to emigrate] was strongest were those in which the lace trade was most active (p.40). Because of it, Ireland was unusual among emigrating nations in having as many women as men leave the country, and a disproportionate number of single women3. The money sent home to relatives by emigrants enabled families to survive. Other families, whose only income was from lacemaking, were protected from hunger and misery by the fingers of the feeble child, and saved from the workhouse by her cheerful and untiring toil (Maguire 1853, p.204). Meredith confirms that When mens hands were useless, little girls fingers, by means of this lace-work, provided for families while the famine lasted (1865, p.17).
For most Irish women lacemaking was a means to an end and, with few exceptions (Maguire 1853, p.199), was abandoned when alternative, more lucrative employment became available in Ireland (Palliser, 1869) and in the countries to which the Irish emigrated. Maguire (1868) traces subsequent events in the lives of the Irish in America and does not mention a single Irish woman then making a living from making lace. For some, lace would be a reminder of the dichotomy in the lives of wearer and maker, others would associate it with a desire to escape poverty and exploitation.
Of the Department of Science and Art, South Kensington. Cole, Alan S., 1888, A Word on the Outlook of Lace-Making in Ireland, Magazine of Art, pp.202-204. Cole, Alan S., 1891, Some Recent Irish Laces, Magazine of Art, pp.211-216. 2 Headmaster of the Crawford School of Art, Cork, who worked closely with Cole on the th development of this Irish lace revival. http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie Accessed 10 July 2011. 3 Between 1849 and 1859, 569,036 women emigrated from Ireland (Meredith 1865, p.39).
114 Chapter 2 showed that Ireland had no real tradition of lacemaking and began making it at the very time machines became increasingly able to produce indistinguishable alternatives to expensive handmade lace. Factors of which most makers would have been unaware, such as the downturn in world trade and conflicts in Prussia and America, had a direct effect on their supply of materials and markets for finished goods (Warden [1864], Appendix). The uncertainty of making a living from volatile employment that was dependent on political decisions, the marketing skills of others, patronage, the vagaries of fashion and competition from other makers and machines, contributed to its early abandonment.
Textiles making has always been an exploitative industry in which people have been little more than machine parts (Tonna, 1844; Topping, 1992). Andharia1 shows that little has changed with time, except location. Her research on the experience of women in India in the 1980s has parallels with Ireland in the 1840s and 1850s.
4.9
The worldwide legacy
In the early years of the twentieth century there were many more people making Irish Crochet outside Ireland than in Ireland. By copying and reinterpreting the early style of Irish Crochet, other countries helped preserve a more artistic version than was made by many in Ireland after the nineteenth century. Much of what was then made in Ireland was the repetitive, stylised form of crochet known as bb. This has characteristics of early Irish Crochet, including the three-dimensional rose, but does not have the individuality of work made in earlier decades.
Andharia, J.B., 1993, Women's experiences of a survival strategy: commoditisation of folk embroidery in Gujarat, India, PhD abstract, University of East Anglia, Norwich.
115 When the fishing catch failed in Brittany from 1903, women made Irish Crochet which became, in a slightly modified form, the traditional lace (Kraatz 1989, p.184). As a famine relief measure, lacemaking helped the community through difficult times, but the fashion for heavy, handmade lace, was short-lived because of overproduction and the need for simpler clothes by the increasing numbers of working women (Kraatz 1989, p.160). During the same decade Irish crochet was the height of fashion in Vienna and among the Czechs (Paludan 1995, p.69):
Among the most fashionable articles of our time is undoubtedly Irish crochet, a form of crochet done for many years in most regions of Erz Gebirge. This kind of crochet has recently reached such a high standard, that Irish crochet made in Austria is in far greater demand than the genuine article indeed, the difference between the two can no longer be distinguished (p.69, caption, quoting the catalogue of an Austrian company that made Irish Crochet).
Crochet lace made in the village of Csetnek in Hungary after 1905, and recently revived, traces its roots back to Irish lace1. In the early twentieth century newly arrived Italian immigrants to America made Irish Crochet to earn a pittance (five cents an hour), until they found more lucrative work2. It was also made later in Asia, in Pakistan and in China (Kraatz 1989, p.185).
Surprisingly, no books of Irish Crochet patterns were published in the nineteenth century although the ten doilies in Mrs Beetons (1870) book resemble the style. Mlle Riegos patterns, even the ones in her Irish Lace Instructor (1886) can be discounted because they were originally published as Spanish Point or laces derived from non-Irish sources, were not used by the Irish makers and do not resemble the hybrid style then being made that subsequently came to be known as Irish Crochet. It was the revival of interest in point dIrlande by Paris fashion designers in the early twentieth century that seems to have prompted the publication of the first Irish Crochet pattern books: Madame Hardouins six volumes (n.d. but c.1905) and the DMC book edited by Thrse de Dillmont (n.d but c.1905). A plethora of similar
1 2
http://www.csetnekicsipke.hu/en/indexen.htm Accessed 10th July 2011. th Where Irish Lace Comes From, New York Times, 19 May 1912.
116 publications followed in England and America. Needlecraft (c.1910), Hadley (1911), Priscilla (Harvey, 1912; Taylor, 1912), Klickmann (c.1912) and Brown (1913), appeared during the following decade. These publications contain a mix of pre-existing Irish Crochet motifs and newly designed variations, and have not only affected what is perceived to be traditional Irish Crochet but have contributed significantly to the success of the current revival of interest in the craft. Regular communal online crochet-alongs are based on motifs from the books, freely downloadable, via the internet1. Today, a few large companies produce nearly all the worlds lace2, or rather, reproduce, since most resembles pre-existing machine-made lace. Fashion designers will periodically feature lace: John Rochas collection for Spring/Summer 2010, for example, incorporated rigid crochet; but it was Pradas use of Venetian-style lace in their Fall/Winter 2008 collection that seems to have revived interest in lace as a fashion fabric 3. There is a collectors market in old lace4. The tourist industry promotes hand lacemaking in areas that once had a thriving lace industry: Burano and Malta, for example. In Clones, government support and the enthusiasm of a few local women have helped rejuvenate the craft (Treanor, 2002).
Designs in the regular Irish Crochet special editions of the Russian-language Duplet5 and Mod6 magazines are taken directly from the out-of-copyright 1912 Priscilla publications. Ukrainian makers Antonina Kuznetsova7 and Miroslava Gorokhovich8 are just two makers who are showing the creative potential of early twentieth century Irish Crochet patterns; combining them with the vivid colours and tape laces associated with the traditional crafts of Eastern Europe. The exuberance of early Irish Crochet is evident in their
1 2
http://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/html/warm/main.htm Accessed 10th July 2011. www.sakae-lace.co.jp/en Accessed 10th July 2011. 3 Article by Christina Binkley, New Life for the Historic Art of Lace-Making. Wall Street th Journal, 5 April 2011, p.8. http://online.wsj.com Accessed 10th July 2011. 4 http://www.mendes.co.uk/index.html and others, including eBay. Accessed 10th July 2011. 5 http://www.etsy.com/shop/lado http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGguJG1pbU8 Accessed 10th July 2011. 6 th http://www.etsy.com/shop/lado?section_id=5114437 Accessed 10 July 2011. 7 th http://www.crochetinsider.com/interview/antonina-kuznetsova Accessed 10 July 2011. 8 th http://www.flickr.com/photos/34932897@N07 Accessed 10 July 2011.
117 work rather than the designed symmetry of the 1880s and later. The creative freedom allowed by the Cork technique appeals to freeformers1, while its attraction to others is crochets facility to visually express the mathematical concepts inherent in hyperbolic geometry2. The latter group use crochet to either create 3-dimensional shapes that can be visualised but are difficult to describe in text or mathematical notation, or use it to create previously unimagined shapes that evolve during the making process. They have recently begun doing, in effect, what the first Irish Crochet makers did in the mid nineteenth century; with the advantage that modern makers have fewer material and colour constraints and no obligation that the finished work be functional or sellable.
This thesis proposes: had Irish lace been professionally designed in the 1840s and 1850s, it would have resembled Lefbures too perfect lace, the imitations of Irish crochet [that] were among the first burnt-out laces made by the Schiffli machine (Earnshaw 1986, illustrations, p.248), or the beautifully designed but soulless lace of Alice Jacob (NMI 1900.79) and others, that was made after the recommendations of Cole and Brenan were implemented. The naivety and unselfconsciousness of untrained designers is what gave Irish Crochet its individuality, its life, a signature: the quality that is lost when the designer is not the maker or the making process is mechanistic. Today, online communities are preserving, teaching and extending interest in the traditional Irish Crochet for which patterns were published in the early twentieth century. It is makers such as those in Ukraine and the ones creating the unique, crocheted, hyperbolic coral reef3, who have captured the essence of Irish Crochets contribution to textile innovation.
1 2
http://www.freeformcrochet.com/2009/Pages/main.html Accessed 10 July 2011. th http://theiff.org/lectures/05a.html Accessed 10 July 2011.. 3 th http://www.sciencegallery.com/crochetcoralreef Accessed 10 July 2011
th
118
Chapter 5. Research-led practice

5.1 5.2 Introduction Protocol for practice
5.2.1 Materials and techniques 5.2.2 Technology 5.2.2.1 Machines 5.2.2.2 Software 5.2.3 Cultural and historical links 123 124 125 120 119
5.3

Illustrations 5.3.1 First series repetition 5.3.1.1 Punched paper 5.3.1.2 Twisted paper 5.3.1.3 Rolled linen paper 5.3.1.4 Irish-machining 5.3.1.5 Digitally embroidered motifs 5.3.2 Second series controlled chance Prints from lace sources 5.3.3 Third series hybridity 5.3.3.1 Non-continuous lace 5.3.3.2 Documentation of two completed works
127 128 161 162 164 164 164 166
168 170 171 172
5.4
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5.1
Introduction
The exegetic art documented in this chapter performs two functions. Firstly, it demonstrates that it is possible to achieve phenomenological insights into why previous makers work was made the way it was: that mimicking some of the working methods of early Irish Crochet makers releases information not apparent from contemporaneous texts, illustrations and artefacts. Secondly, producing art that replicates aspects of the experience of early Irish Crochet makers helps determine whether experimental design freedom, tempered by the restriction of experiential knowledge, leads to creative outcomes that develop during, and not prior to, the making process.
Although this thesis establishes that early makers provide a paradigm for contemporary application, it is not suggesting that designing during the making process is exclusive to mid nineteenth century Irish Crochet makers. Secondo (in Greenhalgh 2002, p.122) gives instances of designers who craft materials as an exploratory process during the working out of their designs. Furniture maker, Ross Menuez, for example, describes a screen that was not what I started out to make. Its construction was just the hinge of another screen. The only thing I liked was the hinge. From that starting point, The final colour, patterning and configuration, as well as the basic mechanics [that included using fourteen hundred steel hinges] were arrived at during the making process. For their furniture, Fernando and Humberto Campana do not create preliminary studies or drawings; they rely on the spontaneous discoveries that happen in the making process (Greenhalgh 2002, p.124).
Unlike these makers, early Irish Crocheters had neither a background in design nor experience of seeing many designed objects: Meredith (1865) describes the sense of wonder apparent in one young maker seeing wallpaper and soft furnishings for the first time. Design naivety seems to have contributed to the artistic boldness of early makers, in the same way that young children are artistically daring until they become inhibited after realising their art is expected to represent something. The early makers
120 experience is closer to that of County Down guitar maker George Lowden 1, whose customers include Eric Clapton and Snow Patrol. Lowden had no design expertise when he first made guitars, making adjustments by a process of trial and error, until he was satisfied with the look, sound and durability of the prototype. Asked if he then changed his method of making when he later discovered that guitars internal structure was traditionally configured differently from the way he had devised, he replied; No. Other makers adopted my method.2
5.2
Protocol for practice

5.2.1 Materials and techniques
Rosy Greenlees, Executive Director of the Crafts Council, defines craft as an intellectual and physical activity where the maker explores the infinite possibilities of materials and processes to produce unique objects; for artist Caroline Broadhead it is an exchange with materials3. Hotchner4 and McFadden5 write about engagement with materials and process being at the core of creative activity.
Although precious metal threads were sometimes used, the majority of the enormous variety of fabrics made before the twentieth century derived from linen, wool, cotton or silk. The Foundling Museums collection, of more than five thousand eighteenth century scraps of textiles worn by Londons poor, records many that might otherwise be unknown; for example, paduasoy silk, camblet, susy, cherryderry and calamanco. Nineteenth century pattern books reveal numerous textile materials that are little-known now. Pullan (1859,
1 2
http://www.georgelowden.com/ Accessed 10 July 2011. th From a conversation with George Lowden in Bangor, County Down, 25 August 2010. 3 http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/contemporary/crafts/what_is_craft/index.html th Accessed 10 July 2011. 4 Holly Hotchner, Director, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, (in McFadden 2007, p.6).
5
th
David Revere McFadden of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, at http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/contemporary/crafts/what_is_craft/index.html th Accessed 10 July 2011.
121 p.169) describes cannetille, for example; A very fine wire, covered with white or green cotton, used for crochet flowers and bourdon, which is a gold or silver covered cord meant to glint at intervals between the silk threads worked over it. Less usual lace materials include tree bark, asbestos (Palliser 1865, p.426) and human hair1.
In addition to having access to countless textiles newly manufactured during the twentieth century (Handley, 1997), some makers develop new ways of using known materials. Arai, for example, updated traditional Japanese slit film by creating a type of thread made by applying vacuum deposit of aluminum onto material which is then coated with lacquer and slit into thin strips (McCarty & McQuaid 1998, p.116).
Artists who give textile qualities to non-textile materials include sculptor El Anatsui, who has made metal drape and wrap like fabric by linking together small pieces of flat metal using metal wire as thread. He says the process was subverting the stereotype of metal as a stiff, rigid medium and rather showing it as a soft, pliable, almost sensuous material2. Some Cloth Clinic3 fabrics use metal thread warps of stainless steel, copper, bronze, brass or nickel and wefts of metal or textile yarn; a technique that enables them to be patterned using lasers and ultrasound. Barbara Laynes work on wearable computers includes weaving LED-carrying wires with yarns to create programmable light emitting textiles (Clarke & OMahony, 2005).
Sophie Roet, who makes fabrics for Hussein Chalayan, Alexander McQueen and other fashion houses, weaves unlikely material hybrids including combinations of steel, polyamide and paper yarn 4. Although rarely used in other countries for outer garments, paper has been made as fabric for many centuries in Japan. Shifu is a Japanese cloth woven from threads formed from tightly-rolled paper strips, in a method reminiscent of the way a potter
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V&A. T.150-1963. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O10701/band-of-lace/ th Accessed 10 July 2011. 2 Lush life, Selvedge magazine, London, (17), 2007, pp.44-46. 3 th http://www.clothclinic.co.uk/ Accessed 10 July 2011. 4 Weaving a Bright New World, Embroidery magazine, Embroiderers Guild, July/August 2005. pp. 31-33.
122 rolls clay coils (Leitner, 2005). Danish artist, Grethe Wittrock, produces modern, sculptural work using Japanese paper, as if it were linen or cotton1.
Two types of paper were used for much of the art in this thesis. The first came from a recycling centre and was chosen mainly because of its strength: it does not tear easily and can withstand machining without disintegrating as readily as other cellulose papers. The second type of paper used was made by the author in the 1990s. Sheets of paper, ten centimetres square, were produced from woven linen, using an industrial Hollander beater and a custom-made mould and deckle. It seemed appropriate to use this paper for the current art because of its association with slow making and because of the non-uniformity of each sheet: primarily a result of varying the drying process. The fact that it is 100% linen emphasises how process can affect materials and raises the question: at what point did the linen change from textile to non textile?
Crochet is ideal for anyone starting lacemaking because, in its simplest form, it can be an easily-learned process that needs only a simple tool. In this research, needlepunching was chosen for the same reasons. Here, barbed needles were used as one alternative to a hook so that a deliberately different outcome was inevitable.
When objects in practice needed to be machine stitched, lockstitch was used. Previous chapters showed great variation in textile outcomes made by relatively small differences in process. Looping thread with a hook (crochet) or pointed needles (knitting), or through fabric (tambouring), or pulling loops through fabric with an eyed needle (Cornely embroidery) or over taut threads (needlelace), all produce a chain stitch but, usually, entirely different effects. Machine lockstitch, where top thread is synchronised to interlock with a bottom, bobbin thread, most often joins fabric pieces or, if variably zigzagged, creates surface embroidery. In this chapter, some samples show changes
Wonderful Wall Paper, Embroidery magazine, Embroiderers Guild, September/October 2007, pp.16-19.
123 that can be effected by using machine lockstitch for needlelace instead of a looping chain (buttonhole) stitch.
5.2.2. Technology 5.2.2.1. Machines
The use of machinery is sometimes opposed in textile craft because of the semiotic association of handworked textile decoration with concepts of femininity and an idealised home life. Quilt maker Michael James, for example, raised hackles in some circles because his revised way of working was difficult to reconcile with the notion of the quilt as symbol of the value of handwork1. Justifying has choice of tools, James writes, digital technology does not a designer make. No amount of equipment or cutting edge software will conceal a lack of visual design acumen and skills2.
Among professional makers the use of digital machinery is less contentious and, for some, is a distinguishing feature of their art. Annet Couwenberg, who has stitched through holes drilled in MDF panelling (Monem 2008, p.124), included sixty two digitised embroideries3 in 2003s Dressed to Kill. Much of Michael Brennand-Woods textile art incorporates motifs made using a digital embroidery machine4.
Five textile machines were used to make the artwork presented in this thesis. The first three are analogue and the last two are digitally controlled
Bernina 850 industrial lockstitch machine Singer 20UX 143 industrial (Irish) lockstitch machine with a throw of 12mm Pfaff 350p (embellisher) needlepuncher Toyota ESP 9000 embroidery machine FB 1500 CO2 laser cutter & engraver
Brown, G. R., Michael James: Interference and Innovation", Surface Design Journal, 31, (1), 2006. 2 James, M., The Digital Quilt Fiberarts, November/December 2003. 3 th http://www.annetcouwenberg.com/. Accessed 10 July 2011. 4 Pretty Deadly. New Work by Michael Brennand-Wood, Exhibition, Curated by Joseph th th McBrinn, 16 October 8 November 2009, Naughton Gallery, Belfast.
1
124 Crochet has been reproducible by industrial machinery from the late nineteenth century (Earnshaw, 1986; 1995) and the machines listed could create Irish Crochet variations. Primarily, practice is undertaken to understand the motivation and interpret the working methods of makers, not to remake their style of lace. For that reason, the visual elements of the contemporary textile art produced are only loosely based on the imagery of early Irish Crochet.
5.2.2.2. Software
Dedicated software for the laser cutter is ApS-Ethos, and for the Toyota ESP 9000 machine CorelDraws Embroidery Studio e2.
Graphics software used was mainly Adobe Photoshop 7 for photo-editing. Corel Painter Pro 4 Essentials was useful for several painterly effects not available in Photoshop 7. Macromedia Flash converted bitmap files to vector files and experimentally animated some images.
Photographs were taken at maximum resolution with either a 12.2 megapixel Canon EOS 450D single lens reflex camera or an 8.2 megapixel Fuji Finepix J15fd, and imported to a Dell computer to be saved and worked as psd files. Only psd files were graphically manipulated, to prevent the loss of quality experienced each time jpeg files are saved, and to enable layers to be maintained for possible future use. After psd manipulation, a copy of the final version of each image was saved as a (universal format) jpeg file for compatibility with Powerpoint and other software. Original photographic quality was retained for images of museum artefacts because electronic zooming on a computer screen enables details to be seen that are not always visible to normal eyesight. Manipulated images were saved at a print resolution of 300dpi to maintain adequate print quality while keeping byte size within reasonable limits for a document that has more than 80 images. Final version files were also saved as pdf documents to reduce byte size, allowing fast electronic transference of data.
125 5.2.3 Cultural and historical links
The first chapter of this thesis suggested ways in which contemporary and historical textiles intersect. Todays efforts to extend, for sound ecological and ethical reasons, a system of local hand craft making in place of mass production and consumerism, recalls similar nineteenth century attempts. Contemporaneously with, but separate from the Arts and Crafts Movement, a system of equitable coexistence existed for some years between machine and handmade lace. Social change means that period can never be recreated, but it is possible to extract elements from a past experiment in industry (Meredith 1865, p.8) to enhance the practice of current makers both artisanal and those whose primary motivation is to create artistic difference.
While carrying out cultural and historical research, potentially significant contributions to practice were marked, as described by Hanrahan and Rust (Page 26). Some of those set aside for use in future practice, because they were not entirely apposite to the present research, included: the Irish being forbidden from using (lichen dyed) yellow fabric and from wearing shirts that used 8 ells (about 10 metres) of fabric; and, the connection between the decimation of the Irish woollen industry and the lacelike appearance of the internal structure of the long bones of sheep. Significant aspects of the research documented in previous chapters that were marked in order to be integrated into practice included:
The circularity of past practice; apparent in the willingness of former makers to appropriate previously-made work and either copy or hybridise it, depending on expediency. In practice, this translated into developing a system of working that was circular a sample became a print that was made as a textile; the textile was graphically manipulated to become a print that was recreated as a textile that seemed to have little in common with the first textile even though both were from the same source. The final work, in particular, utilises this theme.
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Women wearing combinations of antique and contemporaneous lace, related but seemingly incongruous materials, translated into the use of textiles, paper and the material described above that is paper-linen.
Textiles perishability and the mania for lace that led to its being plundered from tombs and battlefield corpses converted into the idea that the lace made in practice should be fragile and in a state of disintegration; an antidote to Lefbures and Coles too perfect lace.
Practice was to reflect the work of those for whom making was repetitive, the plain prose of a commonplace work, and the creativity of those whose own ingenuity turned their work into a notion stereotyped in thread (Meredith 1865, pp.90, 371).
Rust (2007) proposes that, rather than presenting explicit contributions to knowledge in artworks, viewers themselves can complete unstated meanings. Similarly, it is intended that art produced in practice, although explained in words in this chapter as part of the research requirement, should, when exhibited, be self-contained and read in whatever ways viewers experiences suggest. This is in keeping with the practice of early Irish Crochet makers who, unlike British designers, neither named nor recorded their patterns. Notational ekphrasis (page 81) serves a useful purpose but more interesting responses can often be had when that extra layer of explanation is missing: it is quite possible that, had needlework manuals been commonplace in Ireland in the 1840s, workers would have copied others patterns and Irish Crochet would not have come into being.
On a practical level, work references historical techniques that distinguish Irish Crochet: covered cords, non-continuity, 3-dimensional motifs, variable spacing of grounds and the chance arrangement of motifs. In an even more direct connection to the past, photographs of concrete historical lace were the starting points for the second series of work.
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5.3
Practice was in three parts: two experimental series and one set of textilederived art pieces. All were devised to determine if, and in what ways, insights into historical working processes can be revealed through contemporary art practice; and thus help answer the question of how girls and women, without art training, were able to develop a new style of lace.
The first of the three interpreted the making process of early Cork trainee workers who had to produce repeatedly the same dozen-yard pieces of trimmings (Meredith 1865, p.213) and noted strategies adopted to cope with monotonous work. For the contemporary interpretation of the process, repetitive tasks that demand comparable levels of skill and concentration were substituted for crochet. Differences introduced to ensure that the source lace was reinterpreted and not simply recreated were: using barbed needles instead of a hook; using machine overlock stitch instead of the loop stitch of crochet and needlelace; and, for some, using paper as the primary material. To begin, paper was simply needlepunched (Figure 5.a), twisted (Figure 5.b) or rolled (Figure 5.c). Then, long lengths of cane were mechanically wrapped (Figure 5.d). Finally, stitched versions of three early Irish Crochet motifs were replicated using the digital embroidery machine (Figure 5.g.2, Page 152). The second series demonstrates choreographed serendipity in practice and relates to the period when, after mastering the skill, it was found that early makers worked more efficiently when given the freedom to make only those parts of lace that suited their ability and inclination: a strategy that contributed to the invention of new motifs by some. Crochet technique allows easy experimentation: little time and no material are wasted in the process. For the contemporary interpretation of early makers method, computer software which offers equal ease and no loss of material - was used. Some of the images produced while working through the experiment are shown as Slides 1-150 and Figure 5.e.1-36, Pages 130-147).
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Fig.5.a. Punched paper (Section 5.3.1.1) Fig.5.b. Twisted paper (Section 5.3.1.2)
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Fig.5.c. Rolled paper (Section 5.3.1.3) Fig.5.d. Machined cane (Section 5.3.1.4)
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Fig.5.e.1-36. Prints from Section 5.3.2 Fig.5.e.1. 19th century Burano lace Fig.5.e.2. Ballingarry collar
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Fig.5.e.3 & 4. Ballingarry collar
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Fig.5.e.9 & 10. 1854 lappet
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Fig.5.e.11 & 12. 1854 lapp
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Fig.5.e.13 & 14. Killeshandra collar
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Fig.5.e.25 & 26. From 1883 Lindsey & Biddle illustration
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Fig.5.e.27a,b & 28a,b. Cork-style strip
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Fig.5.e.29 & 30. Cork-style strip
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Fig.5.e.31 & 32. Clones style collar
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Fig.5.f.1-6. Section 5.3.3.1 Non-continuous lace Fig.5.f.1. Silk and paper motifs. 120cm x 80cm. Fig.5.f.2. Motifs rearranged with brides. 120cm x 80cm.
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Fig.5.f.3 & 4. Prints from unformed silk and paper strips
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Fig.5.f.5 & 6. Prints from Figure 5 f.2.
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Fig.5.g.1 & 2. Section 5.3.3.1. Non-continuous lace Fig.5.g.1. Rolled paper Fig.5.g.2. Rolled paper, laser-cutting and digital printing
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Fig.5.h.1-4. Section 5.3.3.2. Hybrid stitched textile art Fig.5.h.1. Rings1 Fig.5.h.2. Tokens
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Fig.5.h.3 & 4. Rings 1
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Fig.5.i.1-10. Section 5.3.3.2. Hybrid stitched textile art Fig.5.i.1 & 2. Source - 2cm Irish-machined rings, and manipulated prints
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Fig.5.i.3 & 4. Irish-machined rings
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Fig.5.j.1-4 Section 5.3.3.2. Hybrid stitched textile art Fig.5.j.1. Tencel fibre shapes from Figures 5.i.5-10 Fig.5.j.2. Rings 2
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Fig.5.j.3 & 4. Prints at end of one cycle and beginning of another
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The final, hybrid, series (Pages 148 to p.160) references the crossover of two distinct styles into the generic form that became known as Irish Crochet which, in the tradition of lacemaking (Chapter 2), is a unique amalgam of preexisting techniques and styles of lace. Elements, including worked samples from the first series and information gathered from working the second series, were combined to create art that demonstrates the impact of relatively small, but continuous, developments in technique, tools and material. The final work illustrates, as does the whole history of lacemaking, how small systematic changes between stages of the process effect considerable difference when the first, middle and last images are compared with each other.
5.3.1 First series repetition
Mainly analogue machine and manual processes that mimic the constancy of having to repeat a simple task for long periods were undertaken, in order to understand something of the tedium experienced by trainees making Cork lace. Wood (2006, p.9) and Sennett (2008, p.20) stress the link between tacit knowledge and repetition of process: it is a necessary part of becoming expert. A difficulty arises when someone who has mastered basic skills and wants to develop further is not given the opportunity. Various studies show that as skill progresses, it becomes more problem-attuned (Sennett 2008, p.20). When makers become bored it is generally because they are obliged to repeat tasks indefinitely, even after they have solved the problems connected with them and are able to perform them perfectly. This is not true for all workers; some enjoy predictability. Palliser (1881) describes Honiton makers, unlike Merediths Mary Desmond (1865, p.223), who became emotionally attached to making familiar parts of designs and refused to try anything different. Kilcullen makers, who produced in six months some admirable specimens (Lindsey 1883, p.10), are unlikely to have become bored because of the variety of tasks involved in making complicated lace in its entirety. The plain
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(Lindsey, 1883) crochet of Cork could be mastered by a mere child in half that time (Maguire, p.206) so boredom must have been an issue in many workrooms. One girls solution, to crochet during other school lessons (Maguire, 1853), might have been commonplace.
5.3.1.1 Punched paper
Narrow widths of torn industrially-made paper needlepunched using the Pfaff 350p analogue machine were chosen for one contemporary interpretation of the original repetitive work of Cork crochet makers, because the work demands similarly low levels of skill and concentration as their plain work. Jackson (1900, p.59) suggests that lacemakers thoughts can be read from their work. Looking at the patient work of half a lifetime that was made by women as a gift to the Church she imagines the thoughts of piety and devotion that were worked in with stitches visible still as miracles of patience. The text below is taken from the authors notes written during extended periods of needlepunching. At these times, consciously focusing on how rhythmic making affects thinking processes led to speculation about what the first Irish Crocheters might have been thinking as they worked.
Needlepunched three strips simultaneously the maximum the machine could cope with without breaking needles or straining the motor. Strips made by slicing paper. Cutting - too sharp an edge. Tearing - against the grain - too raggedy. Strips - length of the available sheet 5ft 4in. Machine repeats movements speed varies. Not entirely repetitive work for hours. Want all edges to be different. Decisions about the number of times the machine goes back and forth over any single area, to change the wear some edges sharp, others falling apart. Pleasant activity needed attention - or needle broke because speed of drawing paper through feed dog did not match motor speed or, if too much punching in one place, the paper jammed in the needle plate and had to be tugged out and the debris picked out using tweezers. Concentration needed but not undivided attention.
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Thought about the reason for spending hours punching holes in paper and the inanity of the process the difference between doing repetitive, tedious work for artistic reasons and, because this was being done to explain an idea and not strictly art, how evident that would be in the final work. Whether it had any hope of being progressed because the motivation for making it was not artistic. Does it matter? Does motivation for making show to a stranger looking at a made object? Seeing a single example of someones work, it is impossible to tell seeing a range of work it becomes possible to tell if the primary motivation is artistic, to enhance reputation, or financial. Primary motivation of early Irish Crochet makers was financial. Making length after length for five shillings a dozen (Meredith 1865, p.216). A weeks wage was five shillings sometimes. Depended on market wide fluctuations in wages. How many times five shillings bought a steerage passage to America [4 - 7], or Australia [15-20], for a child [half price if less than thirteen years old, full price if the ship was oversubscribed]? Did they eat anything other than the one pound [half a pound for children] of bread provided each day?1 Wondered what became of the bundle of rags2 and the entrepreneurial girls3. Decided to make the edges especially ragged, so that it would be difficult to join strips. Joining the less-worked centre strips would reduce dimensions of the work but create raised lines of fuzzy edges. What if, when joining, gaps were left unseamed or loops created? What if lichen-coloured silk threads were punched through? What about a large sheet of paper with the pattern drawn in different coloured punched silk threads? strips of punched paper bent into raised organic shapes separated by knots? or bending aluminium slats from a commercial Venetian blind, secured with nuts and pliable threaded wire to create a self supporting screen? cords with embedded magnets to allow multiple reconfiguring of shapes?
http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/fares/1847.htm and th http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/fares/1849.htm Accessed 10 July 2011. 2 Meredith (1865, pp.42-44) A small bundle of dark cloth, dripping wet turned up in a school, handed in a begged penny and demanded to be taught crochet. Her work, in time, enabled her family to escape the workhouse. 3 Maguire (1853, p.219) describes how a girl of sixteen, the sole support of her family, in a miserable room set up a school with a considerable number of very young children, whom she had herself taught. Another, also very young, employs no fewer than thirty girls.
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5.3.1.2 Twisted paper
Very narrow strips of paper were manually twisted. The low level of skill required meant technique became mechanical, the mind wandered further from the task in hand than in the previous trial and was not engaged enough to consider creative interpretations. Playing with already-twisted strips tying, and knotting them in different combinations - led to ways of seeing developmental potential: an experience that parallels the usual design process where possible outcomes are first visualised and sketched out, with alternatives, on paper.
5.3.1.3 Rolled linen paper
Ten centimetre square sheets of handmade linen paper were torn into strips about 3-4mm wide, - or cut when they were too tough to tear, - and then rolled. The thinking process was the same as it was when twisting paper: if the pieces were simply rolled then ways to use them came when handling them after they were made, not during the rolling process. If they were rolled and then slightly altered by bending or unrolling a section to create a leaf-like shape on a stalk, the process demanded more thought. The small difference in level of concentration engaged the mind sufficiently that ways of using the rolls - mainly as jewellery, because of their delicacy - suggested themselves.
5.3.1.4 Irish-machining
Covering or buttonholing cord is common in needlelace but rare in crochet. That it is normal practice in Irish Crochet is an indication of Irish Crochets needlelace heritage. This experiment began by covering cane instead of cord to induce a novel outcome and, because a machine was used, two types or colours of thread could be used, on top and in the bobbin. In this task full concentration was needed the whole time. It was difficult to think of anything other than covering the cane: any lapse in concentration and the needle
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could hit the cane and break; especially when lumpy areas of concentrated stitching were being made. The many hours spent on the work seemed analogous to the period when trainees had to focus so intently on learning technique and improving the look of the lace that creative thinking would have been impossible.
Later, when not Irish machining, variations of the covered cord technique suggested themselves. With the machined cane in Figure 5.d are short lengths that have been fed through the spaces in a high-tech military camouflage fabric; a black warp knitted fabric used to protect tanks from radar detection1. In another variation, bundles of optical fibre of varying lengths were covered to see the effect when tiny spots of light from a central source appeared along the machined cord. The result was disappointing and the idea was not pursued but, serendipitously, led to experiments where, instead of cane, hollow tubing and straws were covered with Irish machine stitching. Cord or wire was then fed through some of the straws and the stitches pushed off the straws and onto the cords, which were then joined end to end to create rings. It was intended that a great number of these buttony-like rings would be joined to create a lace fabric. The fabric would be unusual in that each motif could have two colours and threads of varying weights (because of being made using an interlocking machine), and be variably raised in a way that is impossible for a machine stitching onto a substrate. However, when one small group of rings was made, instead of physically repeating the ringmaking process, several of the rings were digitally repeated on screen. This sent the work in a completely different direction; corresponding to the way that early Irish workers used small scraps of lace as the basis for work that evolved into something quite different from the original. The stages of progression are described in Section 5.3.3.2 as part of the second completed work Rings 2.
1
Developed by Palmhive technical textiles company and given by Marie OMahony. The 3dimensional work made using it was exhibited in the TechnoThreads exhibition in Dublin April to July 2008.
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5.3.1.5 Digitally embroidered motifs
For this experiment three simple Irish Crochet motifs, a ring, a spiral and a leaf, were drawn on paper, digitally scanned and saved as jpeg files. The jpegs were then imported to dedicated graphics software (that communicated with the software linked to the manufacturing hardware), and multiple repeats of the motifs were digitally machine stitched onto a range of substrates.
In this work the fully engaged period was at the start when drawing shapes and digitising the electronic graphics version for transference via the Stitch Manager to the Toyota ESP 9000. Seeing the computer animate the stitching sequence and watching the machine stitch was more interesting than the work made. The machine could cope best with fine rayon top thread and polyester bobbin thread, rather than cotton, which resulted in very flat embroidery that did not have the body of the source lace even when areas had up to five layers of thread. Machining on a stretch fabric was tried in the hope that, when released from the frame holding it taut for embroidering, the base fabric would contract, throwing the machined areas into relief; but the stitching was so dense that it remained flat, while the areas between stitches wrinkled. Attempts to use the machined motifs, alone and in combination with other work, were rarely successful. As with the linen paper made in the 1990s, this work will stay as it is until the time is right to use it.
Experimental work with the digital embroidery machine led to the conclusion that it has neither the ease of use nor the capacity for improvisation of analogue machines: the Irish machine, for example, copes well with a wide range of top and bobbin threads. It became clear while using the Toyota ESP 9000 why handmade lace and individually made examples of analoguemachined chemical lace are generally valued more than industrially produced machine lace. It is not just that the former take much more time at the making stage and are, consequently, more expensive, it is because they have a life that the digital machine on the occasions described here could not match.
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Constant decision-making is an integral part of the creative process and is evident when a skilled maker simultaneously controls and is constrained by hand and analogue tools. The capacity to respond immediately to transitory conditions is what is lost when a mechanised or digital version of a machine physically separates a maker from materials and tools. This synaptic transference of response and control is what can be read from works of art as thinking process or personality. It is this that constitutes a form of the earlier discussed (Section 1.1.2.3) signature of a human hand (Hoffmann 1991, p.165), and enables an artist to be identified by, or their intentions imagined from seeing, their created object. In philosopher Walter Benjamins essay (1973, [1936]) pp.214-215) on the related topic of what is gained and lost by mechanically reproducing unique artworks, he expresses the view that there is a continuum of separation from a source; that process reproduction is more independent of the original than manual reproduction. For Benjamin, what is, in this thesis, termed life, is bound up with a work of arts most sensitive nucleus namely, its authenticity or life history and, together, they constitute its aura. Benjamin believes that while technical reproduction enables the original to meet the beholder halfway [by making copied versions physically accessible to a greater number of people], authenticity is outside technical reproducibility, and consequently, that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.
By avoiding mechanistic work some of the art interpretations presented here might even fit into the category of sloppy craft, a descriptor coined by the artist Anne Wilson, for whom The concept is the goal1 in making. In a panel conversation2 about craft based technique in conceptual practice, she expresses the view that there is No inherent value in sloppiness or
1
Quoted by Glenn Adamson in When Craft Gets Sloppy, Crafts magazine, Crafts Council, London, (211), March/April 2008, pp.36-41. 2 The non-perfect approach, at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Conversation downloadable as an MP3 from http://criticalpinkelephant.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/sloppyth craft/ Accessed 10 July 2011.
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perfection. A fellow panellist thinks sloppiness in making is more of an issue in the craft than the art world, and believes that you have to make the materials look the way you want them to mean. Personally, the author tends to hold an animist view - that art controls the artist and chooses the way that is right for it to be.
5.3.2 Second series controlled chance Prints from lace sources The author has designed and made stitched textiles for many years but has little experience of making Irish Crochet: the opposite of most early makers who were expert at their craft but had no art and design background. An experiment, to test the hypothesis that facility with technique enabled early makers to become creative, had to be devised that catered for the disparity in the skill sets of the early makers and the author. A computer process offered a contemporary equivalent which most closely paralleled the creative experience of both. This is because a reactive, rather than directive, process is a characteristic common to both the inventive crochet of early Cork makers and experimental work with graphics software.
Historically, laces were worked from a predetermined pattern makers were led by a design specialist who was not, necessarily, skilled in making lace. Early Cork crochet was unusual in that it was possible, while crocheting, to improvise parts of patterns that could not be anticipated during a visualisation stage: in computer technology, a dynamic, on the fly response. In this section, empirical research attempted to resolve whether software or the artist had the dominant role in controlling chance effects produced by photomanipulation software, when creating imagery with potential for interpretation as textile art. The question was; when unanticipated creative results appear during the process of making is the artist leading, or simply following predetermined outcomes devised by the software designer?
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To discover which took precedence, photographs of seven historical laces were digitally manipulated: Appendix 1 details the sources of each of them. Slides 001 to 150 on the accompanying CD show the sequential changes made to each of the sets. The graphics software was used for several hundred hours in order to parallel the level of skill of Irish workers, and get to the point where experiential knowledge and chance, i.e. the contribution of the artist and the software developer, could contribute equally to the results.
Eventually, it became possible to anticipate effects and to direct the process towards producing work that had a potential textile art interpretation, although it never became possible to control it completely. Some of the changes remained unpredictable: Image/Adjustments/Color Balance or Curves plus a filter, for example, could put unexpected colour into monochromatic images and completely different colours into two similar-looking images. At this stage the same 10% (approximately) of filters and commands tended to be used to the exclusion of the rest, and control tended to dominate the chance element. To prevent the process from becoming too controlled, images were switched from Photoshop to Painter 4 and back again, but the results were much the same in both packages.
Just as change tends to happen subtly and incrementally with Irish Crochet, so too, some of the images in the slides are very similar to immediately preceding ones. They have been retained for one of two reasons: either they show an intermediary stage of development, comparable to stopping a frame in a Flash morphing sequence, or they suggest an entirely different textile interpretation from the ones surrounding them. Examples of ones that could be immediately translated into mixed media art are shown as prints on Pages 130 to 147, although, how they are translated depends mainly on the viewer. The dots on Figure 5.e.14 on Page 136, for example, which the author visualises as knots surrounded by lines of appliqud cords, stitched textiles expert Karen Fleming saw as sequins; whereas, Paul Turnbull (Managing Director of Turnbull Prints, Lancashire) imagined the print being reproduced in vibrant earthy colours with the dots corresponding to marks made in aboriginal Australian art.
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What the experiment demonstrated was that tacit experiential knowledge was an essential preliminary when inventing new designs during the process of making. For the author, who was able to visualise immediately how the image on screen would translate into a stitched textile or mixed-media art outcome there was a constant ripping back any time an image appeared that had no developmental potential. The more time spent using the software the less backtracking occurred. It seems likely that early Irish Crochet makers would have had a similar experience. Because there are so many variables in the technique, tacit knowledge would have enabled them to visualise just one step ahead while attempting something new. If the result looked wrong, it would be ripped back and remade differently. Only if it worked out well, even if not as expected, could the next step be visualised, and only in relation to the work just completed.
Although the line of enquiry was not developed, experiments were tried using animation software (Flash). Interesting effects appeared when the files were converted from bitmaps to vectors to enable them to be animated. Unpredictable imagery that had a pronounced 3-dimensional bias, which could be translated into textile art, emerged during shape-morphing sequences when one Irish Crochet motif changed over approximately 60 frames into another motif.
5.3.3 Third series hybridity
This series emphasises the circularity of lacemaking through the centuries, where process and imagery have constantly been modified to produce hybrid variations. Worked pieces from previous series are rearranged,
supplemented or developed, and constitute a body of art appropriate for exhibition.
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5.3.3.1 Non-continuous lace
The first section comprises examples of art based on non-continuous lace; lace made as bits that could be rearranged at will until they were eventually grounded. Among Irish Crochet makers there was a rapid turnover of the best workers because of emigration, so that it was a matter of chance whether anyone was available to arrange the bits skilfully. The art here reflects the impermanency of the process of arranging, or rearranging, the design: an advantage of Irish Crochet over continuous laces is that as bits wear out, or when fashions (and figures) change, parts can be replaced or reworked. Here, individual components remain unjoined, so that the work will be laid out differently every time it is shown. How it looks will depend on who is available to handle it, the space allocated, and other chance events. If bits need to be attached to each other or another piece of art, it will be done in such a way that the process can be reversed.
Figure 5.f.1-2 (Page 148), shows arrangements of organic, Irish Crochet style shapes made from narrow strips of paper that have had silk punched along their lengths. Like its source (5.3.1.1), this work required attention but not full concentration and possibilities for alternative interpretations suggested themselves while making it. The paper strips that were tightly twisted for 5.3.1.2 are shown knotted (Figure 5.b, Page 128); as picoted grounds would have been. Unlike the previous work, twisting paper was found to require so little concentration that the mind simply wandered. Ways of using the cords came when playing with them after they were made. They could be further twisted to produce compacted growths which would then suggest further interpretations, but, for now, they look best simply as bundles of cords.
Numerous strips of linen paper were rolled for the experiment described at 5.3.1.3 and helped with the realisation that many forms of textile-making are passive reflective, or meditative, activities. Some of the rolls are shown laid as a collar (Figure 5.c, Page 129), because collars are well featured in Irish
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Crochet. Others are simply laid in rows (Figure 5.g.1, Page 151), so that the subtlety in the difference between each tiny component can be appreciated. Figure 5.g.2 shows a digitally altered example of how the rolls combine with other objects; here, a circle of rolls was photographed with polyester fabric that was laser cut using the spiral motif of Irish Crochet as a repeat pattern.
5.3.3.2 Documentation of two completed works
In this section two finished artworks are documented to detail how practice represents a contemporary interpretation of recurring motifs in the text of the thesis. Key historical and cultural references (listed on Pages 125, 126) are condensed to the descriptive words: circular, incongruous, perishable, repetitive, creative and evocative, and should be similar to the words that come to mind in someone looking at the completed work, if the art accurately interprets its roots
Rings 1. Padded rings are a distinguishing feature of Irish Crochet: they are often superimposed on motifs to create a relief effect or clustered together to represent bunches of grapes. Rings have been part of the authors practice since seeing a Victorian petticoat hem, about 30 cm deep, decorated with broderie anglaise eyelets so densely packed that the work was lacelike. What was fascinating was that hundreds of hours had been spent making something by hand just a few years before machines became able to replicate the work, and the fact that it is quite possible that no-one but the maker ever saw the petticoat during her lifetime because it was made for a bottom drawer and was never worn. Strangely, the words circular, repetitive and evocative would also have fitted that work. In the authors imagination, children in a mid nineteenth century workshop wind their 12 yards lengths of plain crochet into rings and then hang them on a row of coat pegs that are child height from the ground, where the work
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waits to be valued before being sorted and packed for shipping. Because a child was paid according to the number of lengths she made in a set time, each needed a way of distinguishing her work. In a textile workroom bundles are often tied with discarded trial pieces. Although there is no record of identifying tags being used, it is possible that the makers had personal identifying tags or tokens that young, and sometimes illiterate, girls would have preferred to written labels. The identifying tags also reference the symbolism of the Foundling Hospital tokens described on Page 20.
When long lengths of paper were punched as described at Section 5.2.1.1, it seemed right, holding one end, to wind them from the hand to the elbow along the length of the forearm, creating rings. For the first completed work the rings have been tied with scraps that were made as samples, during the course of the research, to practice techniques or try out ideas and machinery but which then seemed to have no further use. When exhibited, rings of varying numbers of 12 yard lengths, tied with tokens (Fig.5.h, 1-2, Page 152), will be hung on a row of old school hooks a metre from the ground.
Referencing the circularity of lacemaking involved repeating the digital manipulation process described in Section 5.3.2. A photograph of one paper ring became the images at Figures 5.h, 3-4 (Page 153). Translating these images into textiles or mixed media sculpture would create objects completely unlike their source, and the process could be repeated indefinitely, resulting in cycles of dissimilar prints and textile art outcomes.
Rings 2. The process just described; of textile > print > textile > print is central to the second completed work, along with the fact that Irish design was often based on just scraps of pre-existing lace. Cole (in Pollen 1908, p.vii), for example, writes that peasant laces indeterminate design and distortion of forms was due to the workers navet in misunderstanding the parent design, the historical lace they were imitating, because they only ever saw a small piece of the original. This thesis contends that navet in crafted art, historical and
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contemporary, can appeal in ways inaccessible to perfect design. In this final example of textile art, the starting point was a trial piece, scraps of Irish machined rings, each about 2 cm in diameter, described in Section 5.3.1.4 and shown at the top right of Slide 174 and Figure 5.i.1, Page 154. In this exercise, rather than the work being directed towards a predetermined outcome, process and technique led the way.
The manipulation record for this set of images is included in Appendix 2 to show the steps taken to effect change. Figures 5.i. 1-10 (Pages 154-158) and Slides 175 to 190 show how the original image morphed into something less tangible. The nebulous, floating nature of the imagery suggested that, when translated into textile art the shapes should be made of fibre, rather than fabric. Silk, bamboo, milk and other fibres were tried before tencel was chosen; not so much for its eco claims as for the fact that it held together better, when needlepunched, than the others. The red rings, cut from woven silk, added interest but were a necessary device punched in to support the structure.
Laying the shapes in a circle with twisted paper and digitally embroidered rings (Figure 5.j.2) suggests a necklace and this line of enquiry could have been developed by seeing what happens when other, more substantial materials are substituted for the tencel. Instead the necklace was photographed, manipulated and produced an image (Figure 5.j.3) that could be interpreted as a heavy, ruched, layered fabric and another that is complete as a print (Figure 5.j.4). If the images at Slides 191 to 195, also derived from the Irish-machined scraps, had been developed instead of the floating shapes, the concrete interpretation would have taken the work in a completely different direction: echoing the chance element in early makers and graphics software assisted decision-making.
Other hybrid textile art produced in support of the thesis could be similarly manipulated, and myriad variations created: in much the same way that accumulating a range of lace bits before deciding on their permanent arrangement offered a multitude of potential combinations.
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5.4
Consciously focusing on thinking processes while working at tasks that paralleled those carried out by early Irish Crochet makers, led to the following, unanticipated, conclusions.
When a task demands full concentration, (Irish machining over cane or when learning a skill, for example), no creative thinking is likely. Once a skill has been mastered, repetition of the task tends to lead to a state of reflection that can be either passive or active. Passive reflection happens when a repetitive task demands little concentration. Thoughts might centre on the long-term goal that will be realised through making the work: in the case of the author, it was a consideration of how a given piece would contribute to the PhD thesis. For the many women, taught by the author during more than twenty years, who enjoy repetitive textile techniques cross stitch and canvaswork in particular the goal, usually, was either anticipating the pleasure of the person for whom the gift was being made, or the pride they would feel when their home-displayed work was admired by others. Talking can be an alternative to a passive-reflective or mind-wandering state: singing while making lace was encouraged in continental workrooms to counteract gossiping (Jackson, 1900).
Making can serve the purpose described by Turney (2007), whose conference paper emphasises the expression of rhythmic and repetitive
activity as a means of transcending the physical to a cathartic and/or alternative state of being. For early Irish makers the likelihood is that a large part of their passive reflective time was spent imagining what life was like for those who had emigrated and planning how they would spend their wages. The girl who made pillow-work, and found no thoughts will help you, you must go on with the thing (Meredith 1865, p.374), seems to have hated it so much that she could not, even mentally, escape the tedium.
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For the author, when machining, in between passive reflection and full concentration there was a state where the mind was active and at its most creative. It was during this time of optimal engagement, when the mind was focused, but not fully occupied, that it was easy to visualise numerous directions for and variations of the work being made (Sections 5.3.1.1.& 5.3.2, for example). Extrapolating this observation to the Irish Crochet makers experience, it seems possible that the design innovation sometimes evident in historic examples of their work began during a preliminary rhythmic stage of repetitive movement. How the ideas conceived during that time developed, however, would have depended on how they looked at each stage of the work in progress, (as described on Page 170, para.1).
The response of other artists to what seems to be the same reflective state can be emotional rather than cerebral. Michael Brennand-Woods experience (in Kettle & McKeating 2010, p.122), for example, was that the mechanised rhythmic nature of the sewing machine can induce a sensory engagement such that You become one with the machine, the finished work reflecting within the stitchery the emotional energy used to render the image.
Overall, while it was intended that practice should produce outcomes that stand alone as art, its primary functions were to stimulate phenomenological insights not available from text and artefacts, and observe whether creativity is possible during, rather than in advance of, making. The insights revealed by practice suggest that it is likely that early Irish Crochet makers experienced states of passive and active response to their work. While in an active response period, it is possible for someone with the right experiential background to produce creative outcomes; even if they have had no prior knowledge of, or training in, the design process.
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Chapter 6. Conclusion
6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Contribution to knowledge Limitations Future work Closing comments
178 180 182 185
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6.1
Contribution to knowledge
Making a new synthesis of existing data is included in Brewers (2007, p.6) list of what constitutes an original contribution to knowledge. The research presented in the text of this thesis has drawn together historical information from primary and other sources that contributes to textile history in the following ways:
Widely-held misconceptions are challenged:
Crochet was not made in convents from medieval times. All available evidence suggests that crochet in Britain began in the late 1830s and in Ireland in the 1840s. .
The first makers of Irish Crochet did not, necessarily, have tacit knowledge of textiles. There is no evidence that the netting skills of fishermens families, or flax spinning expertise, played any part in the success of the industry.
New evidence is produced that extends the proposals of other researchers:
In Britain, two styles of crochet developed simultaneously and independently; one derived from shepherds knitting and the other from tambouring (Paludan, 1995).
Mlle Riegos contribution to Irish Crochet is less significant than is generally believed (Ballantyne, 2007b). Irish Crochet started and evolved without any input from Mlle Riego. This research challenges widely held beliefs: that Mlle Riego created Irish Crochet (Riego, 1886; Turnbull, 1904; Needlecraft, c.1910, (21); dArcy, 1984) and that Irish makers used her patterns (Treanor, 2002).
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Evidence is presented in support of original hypotheses: Shepherds knitting and netting were leading crochet in directions that changed when illustrations became the norm in 1840s pattern books. Had illustrated resource material not been published from the 1840s, crochet would have remained knitting and netting variations, except in Ireland which retained the older method of transmitting textile craft knowledge by personal instruction. A demonstrable stylistic connection, attributable to commonality of technique and accessing the same sources, exists between Honiton lace, Irish Crochet and some of the work of Mlle Riego. Irish Crochet did not originate in Cork from Venetian lace and spread from there to the whole of Ireland (dArcy, 1984). Irish Crochet is a hybrid of two styles that developed simultaneously and independently in the 1840s: the Kilcullen style derived from Venetian gros point, and Cork lace developed from crochet technique.
Conducting new empirical work is another way in which research contributes to knowledge (Brewer 2007, p.6). Through practice the empirical element of this thesis demonstrates concretely that:
of the two styles of crochet that combined to become Irish Crochet, the Cork version, which required less initial design and craft skill, is the one with the greater artistic potential.
Making artwork that replicated the processes of early Cork lacemakers confirmed the theory proposed in Chapter 1: craft skill can generate creative outcomes during making; outcomes that cannot be visualised during a preliminary design stage, and which are inaccessible to generic designers who have not reached the same level of skill in that craft. This is why some girls, untrained in art and design, were able to produce lace that rivalled the work of professional designers.
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The research findings suggest that the gap between design and making is narrower than pattern-producers would have artisanal makers believe. Most people underestimate their creative ability: with the right craft technique, embedded tacit skills, and motivation, many more could produce creative work.
Practice also revealed two qualifications to the theory.
The theory is only true for some craft techniques: it fits for Cork lace, but is not true for early Kilcullen lace where the technique was so like the Venetian needlepoint original that the design of individual motifs not the layout or joining - needed to be planned in advance of making. Later, when the two laces mixed, it became possible for more parts of Kilcullen lace to be designed while being made.
The creative process does not begin, necessarily, while attempting to make a novel object: it can be carried over from a previous stage. Repetitive work that demands attention, but not full concentration, stimulates an active reflective mental state that generates creative visualisation of potential interpretations. The process is comparable to a trained designers thumbnail sketching stage.
6.2. Limitations
Adopting a bricoleur approach, combining parts of the methodological systems of three disciplines, had advantages and disadvantages.
Using grounded theory practices and gathering a lot of information before sifting the information to help form theory proved useful but was extremely time-consuming. Because it was impossible to know what information was going to prove significant, more was gathered than was needed; and, when the important information was isolated, it was necessary to gather more specific information to develop those parts. This means that, while the theory
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led to a resolution, time constraints caused the conclusions to be based on the experience of the author alone, and have prevented the findings from being tested further afield.
In the historical part of this research, it is impossible to know what original makers were thinking. Yet, the decision to apply heuristic forms of phenomenological methods, to note what happened when attempting to imagine what the early makers were thinking, proved profitable; leading to the theory that passive or active levels of reflection exist during the repetition of tacitly known tasks. This third methodological strand - tacit knowledge awareness - was useful in helping with the realisation that it is when tacit knowledge becomes embedded a maker can switch from having to concentrate fully on process when creativity is hampered to a reflective state that facilitates creativity, if the task is not mundane but engaging.
On a practical level, the shortage of contemporaneous artefactual and textual material was a limiting factor in definitively evidencing the proposition that two styles of Irish Crochet developed independently. Inferences are drawn from relatively few securely dated examples from the period. Fortunately, an example of work of a known date immediately after the period researched 1, and a reasonably verifiable example from the period2, both support the proposed theory and, to date, nothing has come to light that refutes it.
Because many of the books used during the research are so old, they are held in libraries Rare Books sections and can only be consulted in person. Websites that make out of copyright books available were an invaluable help3, and meant that much less time was spent in London, in the British Library and the National Art Library, than would otherwise have been necessary. Just a few books and documents that might have affected some details in the text remained unobtainable.
1 2
The 1858 altar cloth at the Mary Aikenhead Heritage Centre, Dublin. A bodice and skirt in the collection of Armagh Museum dated, from documentary evidence, to 1847-1848 (162.1956). 3 In particular, the websites of the Antique Pattern Library, http://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/html/warm/main.htm and the University of Arizona, th http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/lace.html. Accessed 10 July 2011.
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6.3. Future work

Work is required to test the hypothesis that there are passive and active states in reflection caused by the mental state induced by rhythmic, textilecrafting processes. A quantitative approach would scientifically measure the physical changes in the brain induced by the relative prevalence of alpha, beta and theta brain waves in each state1. A qualitative inquiry would involve interviewing makers; incorporating aspects of the heuristics-based
phenomenological methodology attempted in this thesis. The value of rhythmic repetitive acts as meditation has been researched (Turney 2007), but the extent of their contribution to cognitive creative decision making is unknown, as is their effect on stimulating an emotional response that might be incorporated into a work of art.
Research
revealed
differences
in
approach
between
communities:
potentially, a subject for further research by educationalists. Although Ragged schools are known to have put pressure on pupils to adopt Protestant religious practices, Maguire (1853) reports there was no such pressure in lace schools and women from all classes and religious backgrounds worked well together. Significantly, Kilcullen style lace, which was less inventive and demanded disciplined skill to perfect, originated with, clergymens wives. Convent schools more relaxed, unconventional approach is reflected in their Cork style of work. Mrs Merediths initial difficulty - coping with Cork girls who had had an informal education, or none, and who refused to have rules imposed on them - faded when they adopted the bits system that suited their temperament. Further research into any single decades textile pattern books would reveal a wealth of information that has contemporary application. In the course of the current research a vast amount of information has emerged about textile techniques (knotting, drizzling ) and objects (polkas, brioches ).
1
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100319210631.htm Accessed 10 July 2011
th
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The speed and extent of womens enterprise during the 1840s is of potential interest to those who study business models or social groups (including cross-community reconciliation groups). Women networking to find markets, non-competitive co-operatives that refused to impinge on others ventures, and co-design, were all in evidence during the experiment in industry (Meredith 1865, p.6).
Whether painful past experiences should be resurrected, even in the name of community reconciliation, is debatable. Photographer and writer Susan Sontag believes that To make peace is to forget. To reconcile, it is necessary that memory be faulty and limited and history gives contradictory signals about the value of remembering in the much longer span of a collective history (Sontag 2003, p.103). The creative work made because of the Irish famine during the 1840s deserves to be known and celebrated. A dilemma is: if it were to be exhibited how should it be presented? Vergo (1989, pp.48, 49) makes a distinction between aesthetic exhibitions where objects are presented as art with no background information and contextual exhibitions where material is informative, comparative and explicative, much of it in written form. To present an aesthetic exhibition of Irish lace that separates it from its role as a famine relief measure would be controversial; People want the weight of witnessing [atrocity] without the taint of artistry, which is equated with insincerity or mere contrivance (Sontag 2003, p.23). To exhibit mid nineteenth century Irish lace at the contextual end of the spectrum would raise issues of exploitation of sentiment (Sontag 2003, p.71). People want to weep. Pathos, in the form of a narrative, does not wear out (p.74) but risks opening old wounds and, in Northern Ireland, political wounds; a subject discussed in academic literature by historian Elizabeth Crooke (2000; 2001).
An immediate problem, before an exhibition of historical Irish lace could be shown, is how to identify early work. Dating the artefacts in collections of historical Irish Crochet is the area of research that the author intends pursuing. Work has already begun on creating an illustrated database of
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textual and positively dated artefactual evidence to provide a resource against which to compare undated examples of work. Irish Crochet pattern books from the early twentieth century are a mix of pre-existing and new bits and separating the two sets of motifs will help to date many objects in museum collections, at least to earliest possible date. Eventually, stylistic features could be differentiated and individual pieces fitted into a chronological and geographical framework.
Meredith gives a fascinating insight into identifying different styles. It is unlikely that such precise discrimination would ever be possible, but it would be fascinating to try to find some truth in her belief that:
There are stitches in use in many continental localities, which remain firmly fixed in districts, and are not transmissible; and the same sort of adhesiveness is perceptible also in regard to any designs that are developed by untutored workers. Crochet was topographical, and described its birthplace with surprising accuracy. That produced in the boggy districts was full of minute fibrous interlacery, and the specimens from the mountainous, rocky place had a peculiar style, which displayed some notion of cubic proportions, while the pieces fabricated in the soft, damp, watery places of the green, fresh, vegetative south were overrun with flowers and foliage of the most luxuriant variety (1865, pp. 91-92).
The importance of historical lace collections was recognised by the 2006 award of substantial funding by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to Dr Amanda Briggs-Goode at Nottingham Trent University, for a project which developed the Universitys Nottingham Lace Collection through a pilot digital database using novel and design led search criteria1. If accessible, this work may be useful for the authors planned Irish Crochet lace database.
Alongside further research into identifying historic Irish Crochet lace, extant examples of past makers work will be incorporated into the authors contemporary practice in a way that is impermanent and reversible. Art made for this thesis has initiated a body of work that is being further developed for exhibition.
1
http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/Profiles/49893-1-5/Dr_Amanda_Briggs-Goode.aspx th Accessed 10 July 2011.
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6.4. Closing comments

This thesis has advocated the value of hand craft skills for the benefits they bring to the possessors of such skills and the wider community. Early makers of Irish Crochet pioneered work which became a means of livelihood for tens of thousands of women and, inadvertently, developed a stylistically unique lace. Researching the work of that group of makers has demonstrated benefits that were not immediately obvious, even to the makers themselves.
The spontaneous artistic sensibility evident in the work of mid nineteenth century Irish Crochet makers, and the design freedom allowed by the style, contributed to their making distinctive and, often, idiosyncratic, variations of crochet and needlelace rather than working prescribed patterns. It is this attitude, identified as the essence of their craft, that was tested in this thesis and found to be appropriate for interpretation in contemporary textile art practice. If, to survive, craft needs to evolve to suit contemporary circumstances, the case study presented here has demonstrated one possible way: the art element of a traditional craft was identified and reconfigured as crafted art.
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Appendix 1
PowerPoint slides from numbers 1 to 150 on the accompanying CD show the results of manipulating digital images of historical lace (for Section 5.3.2). The three oldest, positively dated examples of Irish Crochet (V&A collection from 1853 - 1855) are included. Slides 151 to 200 relate to Section 5.3.3. Slides 001-003 Detail and variations of a 19th century Burano lace insertion for a table cover - identified by Clare Browne of the V&A. (Authors collection). Collar and variations. Irish Crochet from Ballingarry. (V&A, 8761853. Bought with a pair of matching Sleeve ruffles, 875-1853 & 875a-1853). One of a matching pair of lappets and variations. (V&A, 10951854). Slides 71 81 are based on the raised rose motif. Collar from Killeshandra, County Cavan, and variations (V&A, 1158-1855). Illustration from Lindsey (1883) and variations. Detail of Cork-style strip and variations. (Undated. Authors collection). Clones-style Spanish collar and variations . (Undated. Authors collection).
004-052
053-081 082-119 120-128 129-137 138-150
Slides 151 152-158 159-164 165-169 170-173 174-195 196-200 Needlepunched silk thread in woven, punched silk (left). Needlepunched woven polyester into paper (right). Repetitive work: twisted, rolled, laser cut and Irish-machined. From lengths of paper worked for shapes in Slides 165-167. Example and prints from Section 5.3.3.1, non-continuous lace. 12 yard lengths, Tokens & prints from Sections 5.3.1.1 and 5.3.3.2, Rings 1. Prints from Irish-machined rings. Sections 5.3.1.4 and 5.3.3.2. Textiles & prints from Slides 174-190. Section 5.3.3.2, Rings 2.
201
Appendix 2
A typical manipulation record. This one details 16 images made from changing some of the Irish-machined rings on Slide 174, and shows the digital progression to amorphous shapes that were interpreted as textiles (Slides 196 & 198 and Section 5.3.3.2 Rings 2). 174 Rings made with close zigzag lockstitches (0.5 length, 8mm wide) over hollow plastic tube using Irish machine as described in Section 5.2.1.4. Slide 174 section, Separate parts to layers. Vary transparency levels. Group of 3 rings from top right of Slide 174. Individual rings cloned and pasted on separate layers to overlap then layers merged. Slide 176. Filter/Sketch/Graphic Pen. Replace while with F5F29B. Slide 177 + Background DDDFAB. Clone to remove strong lines and gaps. Slide 176 section. Parts cloned and pasted to cover ring outlines. Slide 179 + Image/Adjustments/Hue.Saturation to force colour change. Clone.Stamp to alter position and appearance of some parts. Slide 180 + change background colour. Select parts. Delete. Re-Fill. Slide 181. Darken background. Filter/Brush.Strokes/Spatter. Slide 182. Color.Range. Replace part of background with white fill. Slide 183 + Change white layer to black. Slide 179 +Image/Adjustments/Hue.Saturation to force colour change. Slide 179 + Filter/Stylize/Glowing.Edges (Settings -2,5,6) Slide 179 + Image/Adjustments/ Hue.Saturation (-94,+26) Filter/Stylize/Find Edges. Slide 187 + Dark.Strokes (5,8,2). Clone edges with soft brush, 95% opacity. Slide 184 + Image/Adjustments/Hue.Saturation to force colour change. Color.Balance (-43 Cyan, +39 Magenta). Hue/Saturation. Curves (138, 165) Solarize. Find Edges . Dark Strokes (3,4,2). Slide 189. Color.Balance (+ 41 Cyan), + Clone Stamp to reduce black area.
175 176
177 178 179 180
181 182 183 184 185 186 187
188 189
190

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Hybrid stitched textile art: contemporary interpretations of mid nineteenth century Irish Crochet lace making

Heather Castles BA (Hons), MA

Faculty of Art, Design and the Built Environment University of Ulster

Chapter 1. Context and methodology

Historical styles and techniques

Chapter 3. British crochet to 1855

Pattern books 1840 1855

Chapter 4. Irish Crochet to 1855

4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9

Chapter 5. Research-led practice

Interpretation of historical references

168 170 171 172 175

177 178 180 182 185 186 200

70 91 91 92 92 92 92 93 93 94 94 105 105 105 106 106 107 107

Notes on the text

Chapter 1. Context and methodology

1.1. Contextual review

1.1.2 Contemporary movements within textiles 1.1.2.1 Slow and Pro-Am

1.1.2.2 Technology and tradition

1.1.2.3 Crafted art Difference

http://www.berzowska.com/ Accessed 10 July 2011.

Pyes definition of craftsmanship is:

Accessed 10 July 2011.

http://www.lindsayalker.com Accessed 10 July 2011.

1.2. Research methodology

28 scrutinised were revealing themselves. Sullivans second practice

Historical styles and techniques

The interconnectivity of all lace types.

Difficulties in historical lace research

According to Alex Ward, Assistant Keeper, National Museum of Ireland, Dublin.

Anne Wilson. Topologies. http://www.annewilsonartist.com/walkthrough.html th Accessed 10 July 2011

2.3. Historical styles and techniques

Figures 2.c & 2.d

Figures 2.e & 2.f

Figures 2.h. & 2.i.

National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin. Exhibit caption.

http://www.csetnekicsipke.hu/en/indexen.htm Accessed 10 July 2011

49 2.3.2 Irish lace 2.3.2.1 Background

However, Warden (1864, [1967 edn] p.391) believes:

Chapter 3. British crochet to 1855

Pattern books 1840 1855

3.1.1 Nuns work

Alford (1886, p.324) confirms:

3.1.2 Shepherds knitting

3.1.5 Needlelace connection

3.1.6 Crossover in materials and patterns

Pattern books 1840 1855

Chapter 4. Irish Crochet to 1855

The research dates Parallels with British crochet

4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9

The research dates

Parallels with British crochet

Origins of Irish crochet

Pattern books in Ireland

Made by Jane Bostocke and in the collection of the V&A. (T.190-1960).

Meredith agrees that:

Merediths experience of the second group was that:

In the early years,

Killishandra in V&A records, Killesandra in Lewis (1837).

Mademoiselle Elonore Riego de la Branchardire

103 The Philadelphia Library details an extreme example1:

The collapse of the industry