CUSHION COVER IN VENISE 196 Pekinese dog; design by M. Allard.
TABLE CENTER IN FLANDERS WITH CENTER AND BORDER OF VENISE 197 Design by Lace Committee; executed in West Flanders by five workers in 15 days.
“THE TOURNEY” BANQUET CLOTH 208 Design reproducing a mediæval painting in Tournai, executed in Venise lace by 10 workers in one month, mounting and embroidery by five workers in one month. Price in Brussels, 1,000 francs.
“ARMS OF ALLIES” CUSHION COVER IN VENISE, WITH DETAILS IN FLANDERS 209
NEEDLE-POINT SCARF EXPRESSING GRATITUDE OF BELGIUM TO HOLLAND. PRESENTED TO H.M. QUEEN WILHELMINA 216–217 Executed by 30 workers in eight months.
BOBBIN LACES 224 Malines; Application, flowers sewn on tulle; Duchesse, with Needle-Point insertion.
APPLICATION DETAILS TO BE SEWED ON TULLE 225 Upper flower shows open spaces left by bobbin worker for needle worker; lower flower shows both bobbin and needle work completed.
WEDDING GIFT OF MR. HOOVER TO MRS. PAGE 240 Executed in Venise and Flanders lace by 30 women working three months. American eagles with outspread wings, protecting the Belgian Lion enchained in the four corners.
VENISE LACE CENTER, BORDER OF VALENCIENNES 241 Lace executed in Flanders by 40 women in two months; embroidery and mounting in Brussels by four women in three months.
FAN IN NEEDLE-POINT 256 Executed by three women in six weeks. “Shields of the Allies,” design drawn by M. Knoff for the Lace Committee.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY MARRIAGE VEIL IN NEEDLE-POINT, BELONGING TO THE COMTESSE ELIZABETH D’OULTREMONT 257 It would take 40 workers about a half year to copy this veil.
AT WORK ON DETAILS OF A NEEDLE-POINT SCARF TO BE PRESENTED TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 268
NEEDLE LACE CLASS-ROOM IN THE TRADE UNION LACE SCHOOL AT ZELE 268
NEEDLE-POINT ILLUSTRATION FOR THE FABLE OF THE FOX AND THE GRAPES 269
IN THE ZELE LACE SCHOOL. JOINING DETAILS OF THE NEEDLE-POINT SCARF PRESENTED TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 269
I entered the lace-world by the grim door of war. For it was the war-time work of the women of the Brussels Lace Committee that opened the way to me.
Long before the war, Queen Elizabeth in Belgium, like Queen Margharita in Italy, had sought means to protect the lace worker, through centuries the victim of an economic injustice, not to say crime, and to rescue and develop an industry threatened from many sides. In 1911 she gave her royal encouragement to a group of prominent Belgian women who organized as “Amies de la Dentelle,” Friends of Lace, and began a lace-saving campaign by trying to remedy the deplorable condition of most of the lace schools, the defective teaching, long hours, and pitiful pay. They could insist in the schools, as they could not elsewhere, on the right to inspect, to grant or refuse patronage. They subsidized worthy institutions, and advocated the establishment of a lace normal school and of a special school of design. Education they felt to be the main road leading out of the prevailing misery, and they were making progress along this road, when suddenly the Invader poured over their borders.