Do I call it Needlerun/Limerick or just Embroidered Net?

[Kathleen Minniti]

Please have a look at my wedding veil album.  I called that lace needlerun because that's pretty much what I did - run the needle through the meshes until I had created the design I wanted.  I have not, however, ever taken any classes in "needlerun" or Limerick lace making - I just made it up as I went along, using modified traditional embroidery stitches.  Since this is a mixed lace anyway (it includes crocheted appliques), perhaps just labelling it "Embroidered Net" is more (honest/clear/accurate)?  

This question is inspired, in large part, by looking at the beautiful samples of Needlerun stitches shown in the middle of the first album "stickied" at the top of this sub-forum.  I don't think I used any of them!

[Elizabeth Ligeti]

As there is crochet bits too, Embroidered net might be more appropriate. It becomes a Mixed needlelace piece, I suppose.

I did my daughters wedding veil, too, - but just needlerun in the Limerick style. Actually it was my first piece of needlelace!  Talk about Jumping in the Deep end!!  I had a couple of books with one chapter on each of the needle laces - one by Pat Earnshaw, and the other by Ann Collier, and I took part of a design from on of those books, and went from there! After I got started, my Daughter sent me a copy of Pat Earnshaw's book on Limerick lace. these were the only books available some 20 + years ago! 

I think we sometimes get too hung up on putting labels to laces. Sorry - this has not helped much. Anyway the veil is beautiful - whatever people call the lace!!

[Lorelei Halley Administrator]

I suppose we could limit the use of the name "Limerick" to laces actually made in that locality during the 19th century. And we could use "embroidered net" or "tulle embroidery" as generic descriptions of any kind of lace involving hand embroidery on hexagonal net.  "Needlerun" is another generic descriptive word for that type of lace. Although "needlerun" usually is limited to the kinds that do not involve chain stitch.  The chain stitched varieties, as I understand it, are Coggeshall (for the kind made in that Irish location, or tambour for chain stitched versions made with either a tambour hook or a needle. That is the way I've been using the terms, just for lack of anything else. 

I like the 2nd photo above, especially, because it is easy to see the meshes of the machine lace, and the embroidery stitches.  The only place I have been seeing much lace of this type is at Spanish lace days. Nearly every weekend in warm weather there is a lace day somewhere in Spain. Hundreds of lace makers attend, with their work. They take pictures of each other's work in process. While embroidered net is a small part of what they do (bobbin far outnumbers everything else), there is still enough to see, maybe one or two per lace day. I have a picasa account, and that is where I have seen these laces.

I have enjoyed seeing yours, and hope you will continue with it.