Meet the people behind many lace styles

You never know to whom lace will lead

We've invited Jeane Hutchins, the editor ofPieceWork here today to tell you aboutPieceWork'sfifth annual issue all about lace.

_Jeane Hutchins: _Lace is center stage once again in PieceWork’s fifth annual issue. Learning about some of the people from the past who encouraged the development of various types of lace or depended on it for their livelihood helps bring these laces into perspective.

Bucks Point Bobbin-Lace Edging by Jo Ann Eurell.
Russian Triangular Butterfly Shawl by Inna Voltchkova.

Here are just a few of the intriguing people you’ll meet in this issue:

• Born in Germany in 1881, Margarete Naumann spent her life designing and promoting her remarkable handknotted lace that she named Margaretenspitze (Margarete’s lace). 

• Sir Henry Borlase established a bobbin-lacemaking school for young girls in 1626 in Buckinghamshire, England; this was the genesis of Bucks Point Lace.   

• Tessie Leonard, who at eighty-nine still crochets by the window every day, remembers as a child making the clock embellishment in the water-lily motifs that her family worked in Clones Irish Crochet.

• World War I veteran Chester Ross Bentz, Sr., learned to tat at a Red Cross facility in Europe while awaiting transport back home after the Armistice. Tatting became a lifelong passion for Bentz, who designed and tatted a bedspread for each of his four sons.

You’ll also discover reticella (Italian for “little net”), one of the oldest forms of needle lace; Depression Lace, cross-stitch embroidery worked on a gingham ground fabric with a wrapping technique borrowed from needle weaving that creates a lacy appearance; and knitted lace. That the traditions of each technique continue into the twenty-first century is due to the dedication and persistence of lacemakers around the world who have found them worth preserving. We owe them our undying gratitude.

Enjoy this May/June 2012 special issue of <a href="https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/needlework/needlework-magazines/needlework-piecework" target="blank">PieceWork_. It’s all about lace!

Best,