On October 1st, I had the pleasure of attending the New York Nineteenth Century Society’s monthly handwork circle. This month’s theme was Victorian crochet lace, with a lecture and demonstration presented by Eva from Circa 1850!

Eva has been blowing my mind with amazing recreations of antique crochet lace trims that she’s creating to trim her handsewn petticoats. The crochet hooks are so tiny, it’s a bit hard to fathom! (Really, when you get to a size 14 or so, it just ends up looking like a tiny ballpoint needle…).

Lucky for you, Eva has recorded her lecture in full so you can check it out on her blog. It was interesting to hear about women in Ireland in the 19th century, many of whom supported their families during the Great Famine by creating unbelievably complex crochet lace that was exported around the globe. I’m sure that some of my Irish-American friends here in the ‘States have crochet geniuses in their family ancestry.

Incredibly complex three dimensional Irish crochet lace (image from Wikipedia).

Eva demonstrates guipure crochet lace for the circle (image from Circa 1850).

Another treat of this month’s Handwork Circle was the amazing building that we met in, the Ottendorfer Library on the Lower East Side. Built in 1883 with funds gifted to the city by Anna Ottendorfer, a newspaper publisher and prominent member of the lower east side’s German immigrant community, the Library is the oldest lending library in the city to occupy its original building. It was designed by the architect William Schickel, and is gorgeously ornate — perfect to host a Victorian needlework group.

Some photos I took of the Ottendorfer Library in the East Village.

This part of the library was actually a hospital serving New York’s German-speaking community in the 1880s.

To get you inspired, here’s an image of Eva’s crochet guipure lace trim that she’s just finished. See what I mean? — it looks just like an antique! 

Click the photo to check out Eva’s other crochet projects on her blog (image from Circa 1850). 

For anyone interested in Victorian needlework and living in the NYC area, the Handwork Circle is ongoing. Feel free to contact me for details if you’d like to stop by!

Finally, here are some decent shots of the black dress in action! Below, I am presenting a lecture/demonstration on gaiters at the first-ever New York Nineteenth Century Society’s Handwork and Hand-Sewing Circle:

The Handwork Circle was a lot of fun. It was great meeting other NY-area folks with an interest in Victorian needlework. Plenty of different projects were being worked on by attendees: handmade buttons, tiny Victorian crochet, beautiful tatting, and super-intricate needlepoint. What a great group! I can’t wait until our next circle in May (see the 19th C. Society website for more details).

Speaking of needlework, I’ve been thinking more and more about the vintage netting lace I used as the (temporary) collar to the black dress. It has inspired me to take up whitework embroidery again. Right now I’m just practicing marking initials on some handkerchiefs, but it would be wonderful to try some netting embroidery at some point! Look forward to that in a future post.

I’ll leave you with a long shot of the dress, from during the lecture. Apologies for my not-very-1850s hairstyle. I am definitely not a reenactor — just a historic textiles fan!

All photos (c) 2011 Eva Ulz, all rights reserved. Now go check out her awesome blog!