Pillow made lace is built upon no substructure
corresponding with a skeleton thread pattern. such as is used for
needlepoint lace, but is the representation of a pattern obtained by
twisting and plaiting threads.
These patterns were never so strictly geometric in style as those
adopted for the earliest point lace making from the antecedent cut linen
and drawn thread embroideries. Curved forms, almost at the outset of
pillow lace, 
seem to have been found easy of execution. Its texture was
less crisp and
wiry in appearance than that of contemporary needle made lace. The early
twisted and plaited thread laces, which had the appearance of small
cords merging into one another, were soon succeeded by laces of similar
make but with flattened and broader lines more like fine braids or tapes
. But pillow laces of this tape like character must not be confused with laces in which actual tape or braid
is used. That peculiar class of lace-work does not arise until after the
beginning of the 17th century when the weaving of tape is said to have
commenced in Flanders. In England this sort of tape lace dates no
farther back than 1747, when two Dutchmen named Lanfort were invited by
an English firm to set up tape looms in. Manchester.
The process by which lace is made on the pillow is roughly and
briefly as follows. A pattern is first drawn upon a piece of paper or parchment. It is then
pricked with
holes by a skilled "pattern pricker," who determines
where the principal pins shall be stuck for guiding the threads. This
pricked pattern is then fastened to the pillow. The pillow or cushion
varies in shape in different countries. Some lace makers use a circular
pad, backed with a flat board, in order that it may be placed upon a
table and easily moved. Other lace workers use a well stuffed rounding pillow or short bolster,
flattened at the two ends, so that they may hold it conveniently on
their laps. From the upper part of pillows with the pattern fastened on
it hang the threads from the bobbins. The bobbin threads thus hang
across the pattern. The compact portion in a pillow
lace has a woven appearance.
About the middle of the 17th century pillow lace of formal scroll
patterns somewhat in imitation of those for point lace was
made, chiefly in Flanders. The earlier of these had grounds of ties or brides and
was often called point de Flandres in contradiction
to scroll patterns with a mesh ground, which were called point d’
Angleterre . Into Spain and France much lace from Venice
and Flanders was imported as well as into England, where from the 16th
century the manufacture of the simple pattern "bone lace" by peasants
in the midland and southern counties was still being carried on. In
Charles II's time its manufacture was threatened with extinction by the preference given to the more artistic and finer
Flemish laces. The importation of the latter was accordingly prohibited.
Dealers in Flemish lace sought to evade the prohibitions by calling
certain of their laces point d’Angleterre, and smuggling them into England.
But smuggling was made so difficult
that English dealers were glad to obtain the services of Flemish lace
makers and to induce them to settle in England. It is from some
such cause that the better 17th and 18th century in the style of a design of the latter part of the 18th
century.
As skill in the European
lace making developed soon after the middle
of the 17th century, patterns and particular plaitings came to be identified with certain localities. Mechlin,. for
instance, enjoyed a high reputation for her productions. The chief
technical features of this pillow lace lie in the plaiting of the
meshes, and the outlining of the clothing with a thread
cordonnet. The ordinary Mechlin mesh is hexagonal in shape. Four of the sides are of double twisted
threads, two are of four threads plaited three times.
In Brussels pillow lace, which has greater variety of
design, the
mesh is also hexagonal; but in contrast with the Mechlin mesh; four of its sides are of
double twisted threads the other two are of
four threads plaited four times grace with which the botanical forms in many of its patterns
are
rendered. These are mainly reproductions or
adaptations of designs for point d’Alencon, and the soft quality
imparted to them in the texture of pillow made lace contrasts with the
harder and more crisp appearance in needlepoint lace.
In the Brussels pillow lace a delicate modeling effect is often imparted to the close textures of the flowers by means of
pressing them with a bone instrument which gives concave shapes to
petals and leaves, the edges of which consist in part of slightly raised
cordonnet of compact plaited work.
In real Flemish Valenciennes lace there are no twisted sides
to the mesh; all are closely plaited and as a rule the shape of the mesh
is diamond but without the openings. Besides these distinctive classes of
pillow like laces, there are others
in which equal care in plaiting and twisting threads is displayed, though the character of the
design is comparatively simple, as for instance in ordinary pillow laces
from Italy, from the Auvergne, from Buckinghamshire, or rude and
primitive as in laces from Crete, southern Spain and Russia. Uniformity in simple character of design
may also be observed in many Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, Swedish and
Russian pillow laces.