24 r,

HISTORY OH T.ACE.

sheets with open border of outwork, towels with outwork andwith the king and queen's arms in each corner, blue curtains withoutwork seams,” Ac.

The style of Wadstena lace changed with the times and fashionof the national costume. Those made at present are of the singleor double ground, both black and white, fine, but wanting infirmness. They also make much dentelle torchon, of the lozengepattern, for trimming the bed-linen they so elaborately 7 embroiderin drawn-work.

in 1830, the products in value amounted to 3J,000 rixdollars.They were carried to every part of Sweden, and a small quantityeven to foreign parts. One dealer alone, a Madame Hartruide,now sends her colporteurs hawking Wadstena lace round thecountry. The manufacture, after much depression, has slightlyincreased of late years, having received much encouragement fromtier majesty Queen Louisa. Specimens of Wadstena lace weresent to the great international exhibitions.

llolesom, or outwork, is a favourite employment of Swedishwomen, and is generally taught in the schools. At the variousbathing-places you may see the young ladies working as indus-triously as if for their daily sustenance; they never purchase sucharticles of decoration, but entirely adorn their houses by 7 thelabours of their own hands. It was by a collar of this holesom,worked in silk and gold, that young Gustaf Erikson was nearlybetrayed when working as a labourer in the barn of llankhytta,the property of his old college friend, Anders 1’etersen. A servantgirl observed to her master, “ The new farm-boy can be no peasant;for,” says she, “ his linen is far too fine, and I saw a collar wroughtin silk and gold beneath his kirtle.”

Gold lace was much in vogue in the middle of the sixteenthcentury. Entries of it abound in the inventory of Gustavus Vasa,and his youngest son Magnus.

In an inventory of Eriksholm, 1536, is a pair of laced sheets. Itis the custom in Sweden to sew a broad border of seaming lacebetween the breadths of the sheets, sometimes wove in the linen.Directions, with patterns scarcely changed since the sixteenthcentury, may be found in the “ Weaving Book ” published atStockholm in 1828. 18

Weber, “ BiHerbuch,” Leipzig. 1740 . “Hundbok for ungn Fruatiniiuer,” bv

Kkenmark, Stockholm, 1820-28.