Historical information

This is a fine example of tamboured net executed in the Limerick style but it is very difficult to assess if it is handmade or machine made. Typically, machine made motifs were identical, and while these motifs do have some variation this could be due to the age and storage conditions of the piece. At 13.4cm in width it would be an elegant trim for bed linen or lingerie. Tambour lace is so called as it is made with the net stretched over a circle (tambour or drum) and the lace made by hand using a very fine crochet hook, or it could have been machine made on a Bonnaz machine from the 1890s onwards or the Schiffli machine.

Significance

Churchill Island has a large lace collection, which was added to by three successive generations of the Amess family - Jane, Janet, and Unity. The Amess family owned Churchill Island from 1872 to 1929. Jane was wife of Samuel Amess, who was the first Samuel Amess to own Churchill Island. The examples of lace are notable for their variety, and provide respresentative examples of techniques from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries.

Physical description

Length of tamboured net limerick lace with repeating motifs of foliage and branches primarily concentrated to one edge. Some distortion of the motifs due to either stretching or style.