Michailov lace
Michailov lace is originally made in area of Mikhaylov, a place in the province Ryazan, southeast of Moscow.
Originally it was freehand lace and was used in the peasants costum of that area. By the use of differenat threadsm, thicker cotton and thinner linen slight color gradations were made in the lace. The lace could also be very colourful, but also then different kinds of materials were used.
In the end of the 19th century the country style became fashionable in Russia. because of this the Michailov lace came from the countryside into the interior of the city houses. Known for instance is, that in the Tchaikovsky house in Klin the dressing-table was decorated with a runner of Michailov lace.
Michailov lace was originally made only in straight pieces. Being a freehand lace it was very difficult to make corners or circles. The patterns consisted mostly of decorative elements. Those elements were of course never completely similar to each other.
Around 1950 Diana Smirnova gave a new impluse to the lace by devoloping a technique, that made it possible to make freehand lace in corners and circles. Unfortunately this is not explained further in the book I read about this, so I can only guess, how it is done. Diana Smirnova also used figures as motives in the lace.
The 14th of October 2000 the NKO (the Dutch Bobbin lace Education) organized a day-class about this colourful lace, which was given by Christa van Schagen and myself. Partly we did the research together with Lia Baumeister quite a while earlier. But nowadays there are new Russian books available in the Netherlands, so we could get a better understanding of the lace. Also in hte newer books the techinque of makeing corners and circles was not explained, at least as far as we could see, because all the books are written in Russian, Above this in these books the lace is published with prickings in stead of as a freehand lace.
The three of us made a booklet with 11 patterns, different in width and difficulty. To make it easier we also made the prickings, although it is quite possible to make te lace as a freehand lace.
When you are interested in the booklet or have questions about Michailov lace, please mail us.
