A couple of weeks ago I posted some SEM photographs of threads taken from 17th Century needle laces on Instagram and it sparked quite a bit of discussion and many questions, so for this episode of TextileStories I wanted to tell the story of some of the research I have done looking at thread samples taken from 17th century laces.

It is amazing what we can find when we set our preconceptions aside and simply look. I would love to hear from anyone else who has been looking at fibres used to make lace as I think it is definitely research worth continuing!

This episode may be best watched on YouTube as the slides are quite important to follow along. You can find the version with the slides here: https://youtu.be/GbFkj5_HG34

A couple of papers on the subject can be found here: https://www.textilesupport.net/papers-to-download

For more reading about the fashion for Italian lace in France during the 17th Century you can download the "Revolt of the Passements" from the University of Arizona’s digital textile archive via one of the links below:

A great translation of the poem "Revolt of the Passements" can be found here published in 1935 by New York’s famous Needle and Bobbin Club, the original text in French comes first and is followed by the English Translation: https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/books/unk_pass.pdf

Here instead is a copy of one of the Needle and Bobbin Club’s journals where the poem has been illustrated with examples from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/nb30_pas.pdf