A Brief Explanation of Princess Lace

The 19th century tape laces were often referred to as modern point laces. These were almost exclusively non-professional and non-commercial. Anyone with a "neat hand and patience" could successfully make these laces. Patterns, designs, threads, and machine-woven tapes commonly appeared worldwide in catalogs and ladies magazines from the 1880's through the early 1900's. Hundreds of tape styles were available, allowing one to assimilate many of the popular hand-made lace.

Princess lace is one type of tape lace made popular in Belgium during this time. This technique appeared when common folks wanted to have beautiful lace-like additions to their lives but had neither the time, skills, nor money to afford "handmade" laces. Princess lace hardly merits the label "handmade," but would more correctly be considered as "hand-assembled" from a variety of machine-made elements. The technique requires some time, but certainly less so than hand-made lace-making techniques and well within the range of amateurs with minimal instruction. It is easier than most imitation laces, cleans well, and provides the worker with a wide range of stitches with which it can be adorned. It also provides an opportunity to practice some of the more difficult lace-making methods in a simplified form.

Princess lace employs a combination of characteristic plain and fancy machine-made tapes and its design generally relies upon stylized flowers, scrolls, and medallions worked in imitation of traditional Duchesse or Brussels lace designs. Many examples can be found in old trunks and attics. Many family heirlooms have been properly identified as princess lace upon realizing its definition. One may still obtain an example of princess lace while traveling through Brussels today.

There are myriad possibilities with princess lace to create exciting visual texture. These techniques also may help one to repair old laces, incorporate vintage pieces into new projects, and generally add to one's basket of needlework "tricks." I teach how to set up a tape lace project, manipulate the tapes, appliqué them onto net, and use filling stitches. We use "antique" techniques, materials produced in the same mills they were centuries past, and design styles reminiscent of Victorian England with delightful results.