Lacis
Also: filet lace, darned netting
Lacis, also called filet lace, is lace made by darning a pattern with thread into a net of small knotted square meshes.
Lacis is lace made in two stages. First a net of square meshes is knotted, like a fine fishing net; then a pattern is darned into it with a needle, filling chosen meshes and leaving the rest open. The French word filet means net, which is why the same work is also called filet lace.
Where was it used?
Lacis was used for borders, covers and household linen, and it appears in the earliest printed lace pattern books. Federico de Vinciolo’s pattern book, first published in Paris in 1587, has a whole section of lacis designs drawn on a grid in which each printed square stands for one mesh of the net.
How do you recognise it?
Look for a regular square grid of knotted thread behind the pattern. Museum catalogues describe the darning as worked in one direction or in two directions across the mesh. Its look is imitated by filet crochet.
Sources
- Cloth with Winged and Two-Tailed Animals, 1933.303. The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Lacemaking pattern book. Folger Shakespeare Library, The Collation
- Filet crochet pamphlet by Hugo Kirchmaier and Anna Wijerfel Brown (1912), scan. Antique Pattern Library
- Les Singuliers et Nouveaux Portraicts… page 64 (recto), 1588. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
See also
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