16th century lace edgings with a fringe

As is well known, Italy was the birthplace of lace in the late 15th/early 16th century (an short history of lace can be found here). It appears that it is a very good place to find lace for your 16th century costumes too. I bought this in Bologna, because I had a memory of having seen Italian lace with a fringe, or small tassels at the edge. And because Dr Lena Dahrén, a good friend, lacemaker and expert on renaissance lace said that it looked okay, for a modern machine made lace - it is always good to have one of the leading experts in a field with you when you go shopping for haberdashery ;)

I put it aside when I got hoem (this was last September), because, as you might have noticed, I am currently only making stuff from ca 1250-1330.

But just because I'm not actually sewing stuff from 16th century Italy doesn't mean that I'm not doing research for further use, and this week I have been looking at Italian lace, mainly from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has an excellent collection of early lace. And see: fringes and tassels!

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I don't really know what I'll make with my lace yet, but it may end up on an apron with lace insertions and this lace at the edge, or a towel, like this 16th century Italian one, also from the Met.

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