Closely relate to Alençon Lace but with an Italian Flair.
Name taken from Island Of Burano, near Venice.
It can be differentiated from Alençon by looking at the mesh.
Since Burano lace has been worked more tightly the mesh appears more
square.
Also you see upon very close inspection that the outline stitch is
whip stitched in Burano (buttonholed in Alençon)
Excerpt about Burano and it's lace by Janice Blair
Burano is the home of Museo Del Merletto,
a lace museum
and lace school in operation since 1872. Whilst looking
around the
exhibits I met a Dutch lady who recognized my bobbin lace necklace
purchased at the IOLI convention. We had a long talk about
bobbin lace
and she told me she had known a very old lady in Holland who
had made
lace as a child to help with the family income. She had
to work twelve
hours a day at the age of ten whilst her brothers were allowed
to play.
She negotiated with her mother for one afternoon a week off so
that she
could play by foregoing that evening meal!
As we chatted quietly we could hear in the
distance the lacemakers
talking very loudly, it sounded like a very full room.
When I reached
the end of the building where they were working I was surprised
to see
| only seven ladies making needlelace, but as they worked they chatted.
My Italian is non-existent apart from simple phrases. I
managed to find
one lady, Suzie, who spoke a little English and she told me that
they
each worked parts of the same piece of lace, each one being more
experienced in the different stitches, and that it could take
three
months to make a piece of needlelace. She pointed out that
Venetian
stitch resembled the arched bridges over the canals in Venice
and the
Burano stitch looked to me like a small square talley. |