Machine Made Lace 

We have already seen that a technical peculiarity in making needlepoint lace is that a single thread and needle are alone used to form the pattern, and that the buttonhole stitch and other loopings which can be worked by means of a needle and thread mark, a distinction between lace made in this manner and lace made on the pillow. For the process of pillow lace making a series of threads are in constant employment, plaited and twisted the one with another. A buttonhole stitch is not producible by it.  The Leavers lace machine does not make either a buttonhole stitch or a plait. An essential principle of this machine made work is that the threads are twisted together as in stocking net. 

The number of threads brought into operation in a Leavers machine is regulated by the pattern to be produced, the threads being of two sorts, beam or warp threads and bobbin or weft threads. Sometimes sixty pieces of lace are used being made simultaneously, each piece requiring 148 threads 100 beam threads and 48 bobbin threads. The ends of both sets of threads are fixed to a cylinder upon which as the manufacture proceeds the lace becomes wound.

The supply of the beam or warp threads is held upon reels, and that of the bobbins or weft threads is held in bobbins. The beam or warp thread reels are arranged in frames or trays beneath the stage, above which and between it and the cylinder the twisting of the bobbin or weft with beam or warp threads containing the bobbin or weft threads are flattened in shape so as to pass conveniently between the stretched beam or warp threads.  The bobbins can be imparted to warp and weft threads as required.  As the bobbins or weft threads pass like pendulums between the warp threads the latter are made to oscillate, thus causing them to become twisted with the bobbin threads. As the twistings take place, combs passing through both warp and weft threads compress the twistings. Thus the texture of the clothing or in machine made lace may generally be detected by its ribbed appearance, due to the compressed twisted threads. 

At the same time the twisting in both these cases arises from the conjunction of movements given. to the two sets of threads, namely, an oscillation or movement from side to side of the beam or warp threads, and the swinging or pendulum-like movement of the bobbin or weft threads between the warp threads.

Pillow Guipure Lace open and clear réseau or net, such as would be made on a coarse machine, and at the same time to keep the pattern fine and solid and standing out well from the net, as is the case with the real lace, which cannot be done by using a coarse gauge machine.

Lace made in the Auvergue is similar "Maltese lace."  Close to it are specimens of lace made by the circular lace machine of Messrs Birkin of Nottingham. This machine although very slow in production actually reproduced the real lace, at a cost slightly below that of the hand made lace. In another branch of lace making by machinery, mechanical ingenuity, combined with chemical treatment, had led to surprising results.  Swiss, German and other manufacturers used machines in which a principle of the sewing machine was involved. A fine silken tissue is thereby enriched with an elaborately raised cotton or thread embroidery. The whole fabric is then treated with chemical mordants which, while dissolving the silky web, do not attack the cotton or thread embroidery. A relief embroidery possessing the appearance of band made raised needlepoint lace is thus produced.collections of hand-made lace chiefly exist in museums and technical institutions, as for instance the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and museums at Lyons, Nuremberg, Berlin, Turin and elsewhere. In such places the opportunity is presented of tracing in chronological sequence the stages of pattern. and texture development.