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Descriptions of Different Kinds of Vintage Lace

Attics, estate sales and yard sales often turn up boxes of old fabrics, tablecloths and scraps that look to be destined for the trash collector. Upon closer examination, such trash might hold treasured handmade laces from a bygone era worth up to hundreds of dollars. The trick is knowing how to identify antique lace patterns.

Cutwork
- One method of making lace involves making holes in fabric. In making Broderie Anglaise lace, the 19th-century lace maker cut holes in fabric and made tiny stitches around the holes to keep fabric threads from fraying. The lace maker made varied patterns of punched holes. Lace makers often pulled threads from woven fabric to leave holes.
Lacy White Work
- Fine white fabric contained cut work as well as threads drawn together to form holes known as drawn work. White embroidery over the top added to the richness of this lace.
Needle Woven Laces
- Buratto is a type of needle woven lace where the lace maker weaves threads on a square grid work of lace. Designs include animals, birds and human figures.
  
  Needle woven laces show rich, fancy minute needle stitches sewn into a handmade mesh background. Alencon lace, which grew out of the mid 1700s, is a needle woven, stylized floral lace with complex designs. Tiny stitches and knots figure into the hand stitching.
  
  Pointe de Venise is a family of 17th-century Italian needle laces. They consist of elaborate, flowing and intricate designs with repetitive motifs. Individual stitches are difficult to distinguish and include small decorative stitches in the cloth work. Fine bars covered with buttonhole stitches add texture to this lace. Collectors often need magnifying glasses to identify sometimes minute stitches.
Battenberg Tape Laces
- Easy to recognize, Battenberg lace grew out of 17th-century Mezzo Punto, wherein loosely woven tapes served as a background for holding stitches. Lace makers gathered threads or strings and attached them, in looping patterns, to the tape. The tape, when sewn to other fabrics, could wind without puckering into various swirls and patterns.
Decorated Machine-Made Nets
- With the invention of machine net around 1800, all types of motifs were sewn in to decorate mesh netting. Buttonhole stitches, chain stitches, filled-in bar stitches and all types of intricate stitches might decorate machine-made vintage lace nets.
Knotted Needle Lace
- Armenian Lace, a design of round, petaled florets and diamond-shaped leaves, uses this distinctive style made with knotted stitches. It might be tightly worked or more open, depending on the spacing of the stitches. Single, geometric designs often appear in this type of lace.

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