BABY.--A narrow lace used for edging, and made principally in the English
counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire. These laces
are ordinarily of simple design and specially employed in adorning infants'
caps. Though this fashion went out in Great Britain, the ladies of America
held to the trimmed infants' caps until the breaking out of the Civil War,
and up to that date large quantities of this lace were exported to America.
BASKET.--A lace so woven or plaited as to resemble basket-work. It is
mentioned in inventories of 1580.
BAYEUX.--There are two descriptions of lace known by this name: (a) A
modern pillow lace, made at Bayeux, in Normandy, particularly the variety
made in imitation of Rose point; (b) A black silk lace, popular because
made in unusually large pieces, as for shawls, fichus, etc.
BISETTE.--A narrow, coarse-thread pillow lace of three qualities, formerly
made in the suburbs of Paris by the peasant women, principally for their
own use. The name is now used to signify narrow bordering lace of small
value.
BOBBIN.--Lace made on a pillow, stuffed so as to form a cushion, without
the use of a needle. A stiff piece of parchment is fixed on the pillow, and
after holes are pricked through the parchment so as to form the pattern
small pins are stuck through these holes into the pillow. The threads with
which the lace is formed are wound upon bobbins--small, round pieces of
wood about the size of a pencil, having round their upper ends a deep
groove, so formed as to reduce the bobbin to a thin neck, on which the
thread is wound, a separate bobbin being used for each thread. The ground
of the lace is formed by the twisting and crossing of these threads. The
pattern or figure, technically called "gimp," is made by interweaving a
thread much thicker than that forming the groundwork, according to the
design pricked out on the parchment. This manner of using the pillow in
lacemaking has remained practically the same during more than three
centuries. {29}
[Illustration: Real Irish Applique.]
[Illustration: Imitation Point de Venise.]
{30}
BLONDE.--A lace so-called because, being made from raw silk, it was "fair,"
not white in color. Blonde lace has a "reseau" of the Lille type, made of
fine twisted silk, the "toile" being worked entirely with a broad, flat
strand, producing a very attractive glistening effect. It was made at
Chantilly, in France. At the Revolution the demand for this fabric ceased,
as lacemakers were commonly looked upon as royal proteges. During the First
Empire, however, blonde became fashionable again, and since that time the
popularity of black silk blonde for Spanish mantillas alone has kept the
trade in a flourishing condition. The manufacture is not confined to any
one town, but is carried on throughout the province of Calvados, in
Normandy, and is also made in Spain.
BOBBINET.--A variety of Application lace, in which the pattern is applied
upon a ground of bobbinet or tulle.
BONE POINT.--A lace without a regular mesh ground.
BORDER.--Lace made in long, narrow pieces, with a footing on one side, the
other edge being ordinarily Van Dyked or purled. During the larger part of
the seventeenth century a constant supply of this lace was made at Genoa.
It was commonly called "Collar" lace, from the use to which it was put. In
the pictures of Rubens and Van Dyke it is frequently represented as
trimming the broad falling linen collars, both of men and elderly women. It
can be distinguished from Flemish lace, also employed in the same way, by
its greater boldness of design. {31} Younger women also made use of it as
trimming for the shoulders of their decollete dresses, and also for
sleeves, aprons, etc.
BRIDE.--Lace whose ground is wholly composed of brides or bars, without a
reseau or net.
BRUSSELS.--A celebrated lace, made at and near Brussels, in Belgium; more
particularly, a fine variety of the lace made there whose pattern, as
compared with Alencon, has less relief, and whose fine net ground is
without "picots," the knots or thorns which often decorate "brides," and
also the edge of the pattern. Brussels lace, whose history is one of the
most interesting in the progress of this industry, is now often regarded as
an application lace, by reason of the fact that the laceworkers of that
city, after machine-made net had been perfected by an English invention in
1810, adopted the plan of appliqueing their pillow-made patterns on that
material. Lace so appliqued can be recognized as distinct from that made
with the "vrai reseau," or true network ground, by the fact that the net
ground, though sometimes removed, is often seen to pass behind the lace
pattern, and also by the character of the network. Machine-made net is
composed of diamond-shaped meshes, and is made with two threads only,
tightly twisted and crossed, not plaited, at their junction, and is quite
unlike the Brussels pillow "reseau." Other peculiarities by which Brussels
lace may be recognized are: (a) It is not made in one piece on the pillow,
but the pattern is first made by itself, and the "reseau" ground is worked
in around it afterward. (b) The "reseau" ground, when magnified under a
glass, has a mesh of hexagonal form, of which two sides are made of four
threads plaited four times, and four sides of two threads twisted twice.
(c) Brussels pillow lace has two sorts of "toile," or substance of the
pattern as contrasted with the groundwork; one, the usual woven texture,
resembling that of a piece of cambric; the other, a more open arrangement
of open threads, having very much the appearance of {32} the Fond Champ
"reseau." It remains to be said, in spite of the fact that the
above-mentioned characteristics may always be distinguished, that the
Brussels pillow lace of the present day differs materially from the earlier
forms, having gone through many changes and style in pattern and make.
Among these are Point d'Angleterre, called such for mistaken reasons only,
as it is not point lace nor made in England; and Duchesse, a name of
comparatively recent date, though the style itself is of earlier origin,
and was called "Guipure facon Angleterre." As regards Brussels
needle-point, the earliest made closely resembles that of Alencon, though
not quite so close and firm. There were also other differences, both the
"cordonnet" and the "reseau" being unlike those of Alencon. From the
beginning of the nineteenth century Brussels needle-point underwent changes
analogous to those of pillow lace; it became Point Applique, in which the
needle-lace pattern, instead of having a true net ground, was appliqued on
the machine-made net. But in recent years it has been noted that a return
to the character of the earlier and more beautiful Brussels needle-point is
being sought, the chief evidence of it being the exquisite Point Gaze, made
entirely with the needle and grounded with its own "reseau."
BUCKINGHAM.--A lace originally made in the county of Buckingham, England,
and of two kinds: (a) Buckingham trolley lace, whose pattern is outlined
with a thicker thread, or a flat, narrow border, made up of several such
threads. The ground is usually a double ground, showing hexagonal and
triangular meshes; (b) A lace with a point ground, with the pattern
outlined with thicker threads, these threads being weighted by bobbins
larger and heavier than the rest. In general character and design these
laces strongly resemble those manufactured at Lille.