Hairpin lacemaking early 20th century

[threadforager]

My late husband's aunt born in 1900 in Derby did hairpin lace crocheting well into the 1960's when we married. 
It was a hobby the same as knitting etc.
She made several family shawls for our babies.

Hi Wellington66! That's really interesting, and how lovely that you have family shawls made by her! It sounds as though your husband's aunt was making useful things in her hobbies of haipin crocheting and knitting, things that she could give to people and they'd by able to use. I originally thought that my grandmother's hairpin was more of a hobby, but it seems much more decorative and less likely to be something she'd have just been giving to family who lived roundabout - they would have a use for knitted/crocheted clothing, but not really for endless lace-edged hankies! But I have no proof yet...??

[threadforager]

My mother, born April 1896,made lace ,she did it attached to a circle of fine cloth ,she worked small beads into the deep lace edge of the circle.
The beads were to weigh down the lace edged circles.
They were placed over milk jugs and sugar bowls to prevent flies from getting to the milk and sugar.
They also looked nice on cake stands in place of a paper lace d’Oyley.
( named after the Frenchman who invented paper cutting so it looked like lace).
My Mum made them for people and sold them for a shilling or so but they did augment the family budget ,
I have a few but they are not her prettiest , sadly..
More practical than the prettiest.
Viktoria.

Hi Viktoria! I know exactly the things that you mean! I imagine there was a real need for these to protect jugs of milk etc from insects, in days when you wouldn't have had a fridge. I wonder what sort of lace she made - was it crochet, do you know?

[threadforager]

My mother had a crochet hook to make bootees and edging for knitted garments, etc.

She also tatted lace, as shown on this short youtube film.  When she was diagnosed with cancer in the 1970s, she spent time tatting lace attached to ladies fine lawn handkerchiefs for each one of us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Q4_mXrq0g

Hi Rena, I'm so glad that you shared your mother's video, it's amazing, she's so quick and skillful. I have only seen tatting with wool - a friend of my parents showed me a shawl she'd made when I was about twelve, I remember it looking so pretty and delicate. My grandmother was using hairpin for handkerchief edging, so it was obviously something that people were still doing in the early/mid 1900s

[Wellington66]

Sorry a bit of topic but I remember mid sixties and our local wool shop "Bellmans" it might have been called, had a lay-by service and I used to go and fetch a few ounces at a time each week. Couldn't afford to buy it all at once. I thought the shawl was never going to be finished.  It was huge!!!!!!!

[threadforager]

Sorry a bit of topic but I remember mid sixties and our local wool shop "Bellmans" it might have been called, had a lay-by service and I used to go and fetch a few ounces at a time each week. Couldn't afford to buy it all at once. I thought the shawl was never going to be finished.  It was huge!!!!!!!

That's brilliant! Did you wear the shawl?!
What a great way to sell to people, understanding the way they were going to be able to afford to get hold of materials. I know my grandmother was quite an entrepeneur, apparently she drove a van (this would be the 1930s) and sold fruit and veg from her parent's grocery shop, so there's also the chance that she was selling other things too. At one point she was selling second hand clothes.

[threadforager]

I meant to post a photo of the only fragment of my grandmother's hairpin lace that I have! This is what she used for handkerchief edging. She also crocheted (not hairpin) edging for linen tablecloths.

[Wellington66]

Sorry Threadforger,  it was for my baby!  I seem to remember Auntie using beads and pins and her work being spread out on some kind of board. Lots of twisting and turning of the threads to form the patterns. It was a long time ago, maybe I'm thinking of something else so please feel free to correct me. Age does that to us.

[threadforager]

Sorry Threadforger,  it was for my baby!  I seem to remember Auntie using beads and pins and her work being spread out on some kind of board. Lots of twisting and turning of the threads to form the patterns. It was a long time ago, maybe I'm thinking of something else so please feel free to correct me. Age does that to us.

Ah! It sounds like she was making bobbin lace, how wonderful! Not something that I have tried. She was very skillful.   

[Viktoria]

In Belgium it is still quite an industry ,ladies sit outside their homes ,for good light and made lace and still do perhaps in tourist towns like Bruges and
Mechelen( Malines ) , Malines,Bruges and Brussels lace are easily distinguished from one another.
Bobbin lace made on pillows using pins as spacers er ,the rapidity of the lacemakers’ movements is almost quicker than the eye can see .
Not so fine as our Honiton or French Valenciennes .

My mum did use a crochet hook,so fine,I have it still.
I suppose to be authentic it ought to be named crochet but was very dainty
My sister in law moved into a house where much of the previous occupant’s property was left,among which was a book on Tatting .
My s in l taught herself to do it, now that was dainty ,she did me quite a few bookmarks .

I remember choosing a pattern reserving the number of balls of wool you needed ,buying one and then going back for another as you used it up.
We really could not  afford to buy it all at once.
And they think they are hard up nowadays!
(Not knocking the young these days ,it really is so different. )

I can knit ,sew, embroider ,but crochet —— tatting——-

It amazes me that it was seen as wrong for women to have idle hands ,but not men, I have a book with daft inventions in it ,one is a patented foot pedal for rocking a cradle so the mothers’s hands were free to do other things!
Like peeling potatoes with one hand and darning socks with the other .
A woman must never be seen to be doing fewer  than two things at once !
I remember a cartoon ,a woman with all sorts of gadgets strapped to her so she could iron, polish the floor , rock a cradle , and stir food cooking .
Probably Heath Robinson .
Grrrrr.
However ,my Mum and I think other women too liked doing creative things , great satisfaction ,and if it got a little more money in the family purse all to the good.
Pre TV days ,THEN ,the rot set in!

I have three big panels of crochet work ,they were like lace curtains for the front bedroom .Very heavy.Two for the big window and one for the small.

Not sure if young people knit nowadays .
Any chaps out there who remember knitting at school during the war, scarves etc for the Forces ,?My OH did ,a L hander too.
Nice to see some examples of work, thanks.
Viktoria.