Schwalm whitework was often combined with lace. The most common was needlelace, but there were also other kinds of lace in the Schwalm.
So far I have found six kinds of lace in Schwalm:
1. needle
2. bobbin
3. machine-made
4. sprang
5. filet
6. Dresden
Sleeve cuff of a traditional Schwalm bodice decorated with needlelace, whitework, and a needleweaving hem.
1. Needlelace was the most commonly used lace in the Schwalm. In combination with Schwalm whitework, it is found at the edges of
bodice sleeve cuffs, at the front edges of dyed to black bodice jackets, at the upper edges of the waistbands of the white aprons, and at the collars, the cuffs, and the necks of men´s shirts.
Needlelace was worked in a wide variety of different patterns.
Needlelace was also worked with coloured thread to embellish garters and cap bands.
Sleeve cuff of a traditional dyed-to-blue Schwalm bodice decorated with bobbin lace, whitework, and Cross stitch initials.
Traditional dyed-to-blue Schwalm decorative handkerchief with bobbin lace, whitework and Cross stitch crowns and initials.
2. Bobbin lace, in combination with Schwalm whitework, is found at the sleeve cuffs of the blue bodices and at the edges of the dyed-to-blue decorative handkerchiefs.
Bobbin lace is also found on bed coverings, door hangings, and at the front edges of the dyed-to-blue communion caps. It is also found on knitted baby caps.
Parade cushion decorated with machine-made lace, Peahole hem and Four-Sided stitch hem, and a crown with the year and initials in Cross stitch.
3. Machine-made lace is found on parade cushions, bed coverings, and door hangings. Most often it is used as an additional edge decoration in combination with Schwalm whitework. Sometimes it is used in combination with needle weaving hems and Schwalm crowns. There are also examples of elaborate and pretty Schwalm whitework borders with machine-made lace as an insertion.
Two parts of a door hanging decorated with Schwalm whitework borders, Peahole hems, a needle weaving hem and sprang.
4. Sprang is found on bed coverings and door hangings.
Bed covering with two different crowns with initials, filet, and a machine-made lace.
5. Filet is found on bed coverings and door hangings.
Very old decorative handkerchief dyed to blue. It is decorated with a Schwalm crown and initials worked with Cross stitches, whitework motifs, and a band with Dresden lace at two edges (and a small bobbin lace band at the remaining two edges – not shown in this picture).
6. Dresden lace was found on a decorative handkerchief.
All of these will be subjects of more detailed articles in the future.
The small table cloth has a diameter of 60 cm (excluding the needlelace edging) and was worked on 16–18/cm thread count old handwoven linen. The needlelace edging was made with four-tier scallop pyramids outlined with Bullion Knot picots.
Very special to this post is that I photographed the filling patterns before laundering the piece. This makes the details of the stitches extremely easy to see.
In the tulip above, a combination of filling pattern No. 447 and Double Back stitches (images 1–12) was worked.
It is going beyond the scope of a blog post to explain all the filling patterns in detail. So, I shall let the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy a close and careful look.
