Historical information

This is an example of machine made Torchon lace which is the simplest form of bobbin lace and is also known as Beggars lace; the Dutch call it Stropkant. The thread used is thicker than embroidered laces and was originally worked with linen thread but is now made of cotton. Due to it being relatively less expensive than other laces and its softness, Torchon lace was used mainly by the middle classes as an insert on nightcaps and nightgowns and as a trim on bed linen as well as undergarments. Torchon is usually the first type of lace that a lace maker learns, but since at least the earliest 20th century commercial quantities have been made by machine and were virtually indistinguishable from those that were handmade.

This example would have been made on a Barmen machine which was developed in the 1890s in Germany from a braiding machine. Its bobbins imitate the movement of the bobbins of a handmade lace maker and it makes perfect copies of Torchon and the simpler hand-made laces. It can only make one width at a time and does not have the pattern potential of the Leavers machine.

Significance

The Amess family owned Churchill Island from 1872 to 1929

Physical description

length of lace, machine made, geometric design with two selvaged edges, repeat motif of ovals surrounded by crosses.