Dear Clay,
The ebay bedspread is pretty but not Alencon. Alencon is needle lace with
specific construction trademarks. This ebay lace has none of them. The ebay
lace is machine made in the style that department stores call alencon.It has
no relation to Alencon by design or construction. It is labeled in the
manner fabric stores label "linen-look" for a piece of polyester cloth,
hoping that someone will buy it as actual linen fiber. That is marketing for
you.
The seller of the ebay bedspread knows it is not real Alencon. She knows it
is machine made and marketing-mislabeled. She knows that there are buyers
who will purchase it as alencon (with the small a) and not reeeeally care
that it is the machine made version.... she can still tell her friends that
it is alencon... and they won't know the difference, because alencon and
Alencon sound exactly the same. And oooo its French!!! so be impressed. On
the other hand, this bedspread is a well made and well designed piece of
machine work that will not be found in current department stores. It is
vintage. It could even be officially antique, but it is not handmade and it
is not Alencon. Most of the laces sold on ebay are mislabeled. The ebay
seller is marketing a bedspread, not selling fine handmade Alencon lace. Its
a fine line.
Real Alencon is made of 100% buttonhole stitches in super fine linen thread.
The stitches are extremely tiny due to the size of the thread used, so that
the motifs are miniscule, not huge birds. Alencon ground is double worked.
It starts the same as Point d Gaz with "widely" spaced buttonhole stitches
which are then worked over with a return thread that makes the individual
meshes stronger and more square. The outlines are padded with several
threads tightly cram packed with buttonhole stitches, not a single gimp
thread as in bobbin laces. There is no airspace between these stitches as
can be found in Point d Gaz. Picots in Alencon are so tiny that pins cannot
be used. They are made around a fine fine fine horsehair which is left in.
It takes a magnifier or scanner to see it. Alencon is tiny. Machine alencon
can be huge like a bedspread. The ebay alencon is made by Leavers mill.
Kate Henry
Indiana USA
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <lace@arachne.com>
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 7:59 PM
Subject: [lace] Alencon lace on eBay...
There is an impressive and large piece of lace on eBay currently, and it
is described as Alencon. It is item number 360052393378.
I know "next-to-nothing" about Alencon. But these pictures are extremely
detailed and the overall design is lovely. Could someone who knows this
lace kindly comment on this for us?
Thank you very much!!
Clay
--
Clay Blackwell
Lynchburg, VA USA
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