Point de Gaze (sometimes Point de Gauze) is a

needle lace Needle lace is a type of lace created using a Sewing needle, needle and yarn, thread to stitch up hundreds of small stitches to form the lace itself. In its purest form, the only equipment and materials used are a needle, thread and scissors. T ...

from Belgium named for the

gauze Gauze is a thin, translucent fabric with a loose open weave. In technical terms "gauze" is a weave structure in which the weft yarns are arranged in pairs and are crossed before and after each warp yarn keeping the weft firmly in place. ...

-like appearance of the mesh ground. It was made from the early to mid 1800s to sometime bertween 1914 and the 1930s.

Etymology

The word lace is from

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

, from

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...

las, ''noose'', ''string'', from

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...

*laceum, from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

laqueus, ''noose''; probably akin to lacere, ''to entice'', ''ensnare''. This type of lace takes its name from the fact that its ground mesh is very loose.At one time, the French names of

bobbin A bobbin or spool is a spindle or cylinder, with or without flanges, on which yarn, thread, wire, tape or film is wound. Bobbins are typically found in industrial textile machinery, as well as in sewing machines, fishing reels, tape measure ...

and needle laces were preceded by the word "point."

Characteristics

Point de Gaze is made of open, twisted buttonhole stitches of very fine thread. The buttonholes connect through each other, yielding a light, gauze-like ground fabric. This type of lace uses floral designs, with both garden and wild flowers evident. Also found are ferns and leaves. These floral designs frequently included borders, scrolls, and other non-floral elements. Either

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

linen Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant. Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...

thread can be used to make it. It was used to make clothing (dresses, shawls, and flounces) as well as accessories, such as handkerchiefs, parasols, and fans.

Origins and history

Point de Gaze is a type of needlepoint lace that originated in the area of Brussels, Belgium. It was constructed from the middle of the 19th century until approximately the start of World War I in 1914 or until the 1930s. One source indicates that its manufacture started earlier, in the 1830s. The Schiffli machine, which used net to mimic the gauze-like texture, was able to imitate the production of hand-made Point de Gaze lace.

References

Needle lace Textile arts of Belgium {{textile-arts-stub