The Victorians liked "fancy braids" to make tape laces, and lacy
crocheted, knitted, and tatted constructions. That's the sort of thing
rickrack and its variants (in terms of the depth and pointiness of the
"waves") seem to have been made for originally.
I have seen a few original garments dating from circa 1880 to circa 1910
with areas of rackrack lace (yokes, cuffs, whole bodices, wide hem
trims) that did not include any fancy stitches, but which merely had
rickrack sewn in patterns, held with ordinary (hand) whipstitches at the
points. I have an 1880s dress with rickrack wide cuffs and I think some
other sections somewhere in my collection, but I can't find it. The
rickrack was coiled into small circular medallions, and then the
medallions were sewn together. I've also seen it sewn together in
straight designs. It's really quite effective. People who expect
rickrack to be just a few rows machine sewed on a child's dress don't
recognize the rickrack in rickrack work for what it is.
There are obvious geometric possibilities for small square medallions,
straight horizontal or vertical rows, square medallions, and so on. I'd
like to find some original Victorian and Edwardian patterns though. I
mail ordered a 1910s rickrack pattern booklet from a used bookseller
yesterday but I don't know what's in it yet.
BTW, all the examples I've seen so far were white and were on "lingerie"
type dresses or wrappers.
Fran
Lavolta Press
http://www.lavoltapress.com
Carolyn Kayta Barrows wrote:
I don't remember it in either my facsimile of Mrs. Beeton, or Therese
de Dillmont.
Wave braid crocheted together is really big in the 1880s, after Mrs.
Beeton's and M. Dillmont's time. Start looking for it then.
CarolynKayta Barrows
dollmaker, fibre artist, textillian
www.FunStuft.com
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