Hollie Point Lace

18th c Baby Bonnet 1134.2020.26

    Next out of the basket was this cunning little baby cap or bonnet~ hand stitched from a super fine lawn, with insertions of Hollie Point lace. 

  Here it is how it looked next out of the basket~ my hand was drawn to it immediately when I spied the Hollie Point.  After so many years of looking thru attics and old dusty boxes of crumpled up textiles, one gets an eye for spotting things for what they are, not so much how they look at that particular time.  If you see Hollie Point lace on an item of clothing, it's usually going to be a baby item, and it's usually going to be 18th c.

 So just what is Hollie Point lace?   It is an early 18th c origination of  needle made lace. The stitch is somewhat similar to the button hole stitch seen in later needle lace, but this lace's design comes from the holes left between stitches, rather from the stitches themselves.  In this picture above, you can see my thumb there for reference~ always so very fine, just miniscule little stitches. This type of lace was very labor intensive, took many hours to execute a small amount, which is why it is usually reserved for smaller items. Having a blue glove on helps to see the pattern of the lace more clearly. Aside the insertion of lace, there is tiny lines of drawn thread work, and then two rows of scalloped buttonholed loops that stand erect from the surface.

All of the Hollie Point lace on the various items in the basket share this same flower basket pattern.

  The cap back repeats the large flower, with an addition of  a crown flanked by sets of diamonds.  An interesting note on dating baby caps with Hollie Point lace~ if there is a strip up from the nape of the neck, and then this round at the crown, that would be called a 'keyhole' opening, and those usually date to first half 18thc.  The second half 18th c saw the addition of Hollie Point insertion from the crown to the front, which this one does have, dating it to the second half 18th c.

 

I want to show the superior and super fine stitching on this bonnet~ even with my finger here for comparison, it is hard to realize the actual scale of the stitching. Counting in several different areas on the bonnet, with my loupe for magnification, there is at minimum , 39 stitches per inch. 

Please do enlarge the photos to appreciate the details!