English Royal Cluny Lace Cotton Edging Dress Dentelle Encajes Algodon Pizzi Ecru

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In this auction I have a fabulous Cotton lace edging which is Champagne or ecru / natural in colour. The piece measures 4 metres long with a very pretty floral pattern design. We were delighted to have our lace used on the dresses of the Royal Wedding including the bridesmaids dresses - it was a real boost to a family run firm of English lace makers. (this is one of the laces used on the train of the dress) It is made with quality fine / medium gauge cotton. This lace is 2 3/4" inches wide with a bottom scalloped edge and a top straight sewing edge. This lace is perfect for all occasions - wedding dresses, casual dresses, as an insertion in lingerie and also incorporated into nightwear This lace and all my laces are very 'vintage' in style .They are made on these old machines and it is the closest you will ever get to handmade cotton lace - made in such a way as to simulate the old fashioned handmade lace. You can see if you look closely in the picture the lace is not completely 'flat' as the pattern, in this case, the flowers, it is outlined on the surface of the lace. This is the same in all my laces. So, there are two sides to all my laces with the 'outlined' side always being sewn uppermost on the object or garment. We are very proud of the laces we still make today and I don't think you will find any better cotton laces in the world. ( Please note this is NOT flimsy nylon lace but good quality fine / medium gauge Cotton Leavers Lace ) All the laces I have listed are still made in England today - by my family of lace manufacturers - Cluny Lace Our company- the last manufacturers of cotton leavers laces in the UK, is owned and managed by the eighth and ninth generations of my family – we were already framework knitters and flax dressers by the 1730s and started making lace when this fabric was first produced by machines in the 1760s, at the start of the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the last one hundred and fifty years our company Cluny Lace has continued to build up a data bank of hundreds of lace patterns. By combining the best of old traditions with new technology we are still able to produce in a wide range of exquisite designs of Leavers Cluny style lace allovers, edgings and insertions and Leavers Fine Cotton Valenciennes style lace allovers, edgings, galloons and insertions. Many of the lace patterns still used today were designed and draughted by the sixth and seventh generations of the family. No other manufacturer in the world produces the same range of patterns and these patterns are unique to us. A Leavers machine is in fact two machines; a wide machine working on the principle invented by Mr. John Leavers in Nottingham, England in 1813, twists together the threads to form a fast net, and a jacquard machine, adapted for use on the Leavers machines between 1836 and 1841, puts in the patterns. The machine weighs 17 tons and twists 10,000 threads simultaneously to make this beautiful lace. The Leavers machine is said to be the most complicated textile machine in the world. When the laces are made on these huge old machines the resulting lace comes off the machine in a colour we call 'greige'. This is the raw undyed cotton which is also fairly dirty from the black lead which is used in making the machines run smoothly. In order to dye the lace to whites (of which there are 120 different shades!) / ecru or any other colour the lace has to go through a rigorous process of scouring, dyeing and finishing in extreme temperatures and is stretched on large looms to pull the cotton laces back into shape and to set the width. All the laces have a 3 to 5 % composite which is not cotton - usually nylon and occasionally polyester to help the cotton hold in the dyeing process and cope with modern washing machines which would ruin the lace without it! In the 'trade' strictly speaking a garment or fabric can be called cotton as long as it has at least 95% cotton composition - which all our laces have. N.B I WI... read more

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