Machine lace

Refers to imitations of hand-made lace created by machines. The term may also refer to lace that is worked by hand on top of machine-made netting. The latter was produced in England beginning in the 1770s. Early machine-made netting is often characterized by looped stitches, which tend to run; machine-made netting dating after 1808 may be characterized by an imitation of the simple twist of Lille lace. Machine-made nets may be decorated by machine with chain stitching or needle-run patterns. Machine lace dating to the 1840s or later may imitate bobbin lace. Machine laces are generally characterized by a lack of the clearly woven structure of bobbin lace.