Needle lace is a type of lace

Lace

Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric. Lace-making is an ancient craft. True lace was...

 created using a needle

Sewing needle

A sewing needle is a long slender tool with a pointed tip. The first needles were made of bone or wood; modern ones are manufactured from high carbon steel wire, nickel- or 18K gold plated for corrosion resistance. The highest quality embroidery needles are plated with two-thirds platinum and...

 and thread

Yarn

Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...

 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. This form of lace making originated in Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

 where there is evidence of a lace making

Armenian needlelace

Armenian needlelace is a pure form of needle lace made using only a needle, thread and pair of scissors.-History:...

 tradition dating back to the pre-Christian era. Turkish needlelace is also very popular around the world. This form however arose separately from what is usually termed needlelace and is generally referred to as knotted lace. Such lace is very durable and will not unravel if one or more loops are broken.

Beginning in the 17th century in Italy, a variety of styles developed where the work is started by securing heavier guiding threads onto a stiff background (such as thick paper) with stitches that can later be removed.
The work is then built up using a variety of stitches - the most basic being a variety of buttonhole

Buttonhole stitch

Buttonhole stitch and the related blanket stitch are hand-sewing stitches used in tailoring, embroidery, and needle lace-making.Holy Buttons stitches catch a loop of the thread on the surface of the fabric and needle is returned to the back of the fabric at a right angle to the original start of...

 or blanket stitch

Blanket stitch

The blanket stitch is a stitch used to reinforce the edge of thick materials. Depending on circumstances, it may also be called a whip stitch or a crochet stitch. It is defined as "A decorative stitch used to finish an unhemmed blanket...

. When the entire area is covered with the stitching, the stay-stitches are released and the lace comes away from the paper. See reticella

Reticella

Reticella is a needle lace dating from the 15th century and remaining popular into the first quarter of the 17th century....

.

Needle lace is also used to create the fillings or insertions in cutwork

Cutwork

Cutwork or cut work is a needlework technique in which portions of a textile are cut away and the resulting "hole" is reinforced and filled with embroidery or needle lace.Cutwork is a related to drawn thread work...

.

External links

• Virtual Museum of Textile Arts
• Kenmare Lace And other forms of Irish Lace
• Needlelace - Lace Identification and Types