Ericka Kammerer posted here recently mentioning something
called Irish crochet.  I didn't know what it was, so I
email'd her asking about it. I thought her response was
interesting enough to post, so I suggested that to her, and
she asked me to do so for her.  So here it is.

Irish crochet sounds like it would produce something really
pretty though with a lot of work...  Now where did I leave
my time to do such things?  ;-)


Date: Wed, 5 Aug 92 17:21:37 EDT From: eek@maestro.mitre.org
(Ericka Kammerer) Message-Id:
<9208052121.AA04258@maestro.mitre.org> To:
liz@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us Subject: Re: crochet cotton

> From: liz@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Liz Allen) > > I'm
curious -- what is Irish Crochet?  I crochet and tat though
I > haven't made crocheted lace at all.  Is Irish Crochet
simply crocheting > lace or is there something more to it?

	Well, here's the situation as I understand it:

        Irish crochet is a set of techniques developed very
early in the 20th century to imitate some of the very
expensive point laces. I have four books from the Dover
needlework series (reproductions of earlier, no longer
available materials).  Two were written in the early 1900s
and discuss the original Irish Crochet techniques.
Basically, one crochets little motifs (flowers, leaves,
stems, etc.).  Many of the stitches are worked over a cord
to give a padded effect.  Then, you baste these motifs to a
piece of cloth imprinted with the pattern you're using (to
hold them still) and crochet a ground pattern to hold them
together and surround with some sort of footing and/or
border.  All kinds of things were made this way--from
edgings to lace to doilies to tablecloths to coats to bags
to you name it.  Usually the cording would be a fairly thick
thread (maybe a size 6 pearl cotton), the motifs would be
crocheted in a medium weight thread (say, size 30-70) and
the ground would be an extremely fine thread (say, size
100-200).  (Oh, and when you're done, you cut the lace away
from the fabric with the pattern, of course.)  There were no
clear directions about how to form the ground.  There are
many different ground patterns, all of which are basically a
net, either plain or with picots, knots, various other
decoration.  You just filled in the available space,
attaching motifs whenever you came into contact with them.

        The other two books I have are facsimiles of
brochures put out by the thread companies in the 30s and
40s.  Apparently, the Irish crochet techniques were (thought
to be) too difficult for some people, so they simplified
things.  They eliminated the cording (instead, they
crocheted over a chain) and clearly spelled out how to work
the ground in rounds. In doing this, they no longer used
three different sized threads.  They

just used the one size for the whole project.  I think this
is where a bunch of the more elaborate doily patterns come
from--I mean the ones with the three-dimensional flowers on
them (this is a classic Irish crochet motif) and other stuff
like that.

        I'm still in the learning process with this.  I
think the older techniques produce much nicer lace.  The
cording provides strength and padding for texture.  The
finer thread for the ground makes the motifs stand out more
and is much more delicate overall.  Also, the general
technique allows for a lot of creativity.  You just decide
what motifs you want and lay them out in a pleasing fashion
and start joining them together with the ground.  It's kind
of like a few motifs from column A, a ground from column B,
a footing from column C, an edging from column D, and you're
off!  On the other hand, having to baste the pieces to a
fabric pattern before crocheting them together is a real
pain.  Also, I'm still trying to figure out how on earth to
join in and drop off the cording neatly.  Some of the
original Irish crochet patterns don't use the cording or the
finer thread for the background--I'm starting with those!
The "newer" books I have contain some less intimidating
patterns.  I think I'm going to try to retro-fit those
patterns to the earlier techniques and hope for the best.
Once you've

seen how beautiful the result from the earlier techniques,
it's really hard to settle for the pale modern imitations!

        This is probably WAY more than you bargained for,
but I hope it helps some.  If you like, I could get you the
bib. information for the Dover paperbacks.  Any good
bookstore should be able to order them for you.

Ericka
