Back in the heyday of handmade lace, it was an extremely valuable commodity. There were also sumptuary laws which stopped people of certain classes wearing lace, plus wearing lace from a foreign country was often banned. In A History of Lace, Fanny Bury Palliser writes: “…When a deceased clergyman was conveyed from the Low Countries for internment, …
Above: Gemma Khawaja’s version of The Bone Lace Weaver To get experimenting with test scenes using my quickly made prototype puppets, I painted a backdrop of the interior of the lacemaker’s house in order to try out some of the dialogue written by Ulysses Black. He has gone for rhyming verse to reflect a fairytale …
Saint Catherine According to the legend, St Catherine of Alexandria was a virgin martyr who converted to Christianity and was imprisoned tortured, sent to be broken on the wheel (which shattered at her touch) and eventually beheaded. Because of her association with the wheel, she is the patron saint of wheelwrights and other crafts people, …
Here is a legend about the origin of lace in Venice, found in a newspaper called the Placer Herald in 1899. The article reads: A Legend of Lace-Making. Many are the myths banded down in relation to the origin of lace-making and of the number one has to select her choice and pin her faith …
In my quest for legends and folktales about lace making and lace makers, I have noticed that many of the legends involve the Virgin Mary. In fact, it would appear that these various legends are actually different versions of the same legend. I found them on the website Lace In Context, an extensive lace research …