Sign in with FacebookK Elisabethlaan 12, Bruges, 8000, Belgium
Check Rates and Availability
Feeding time
Jean Moust Art,Brugge,West Flanders,Belgium.
Riding a Bruges Canal Tour in Belgium
Madonna and Child by Michelangelo
I got great advice on the bike rental question...Thought I'd ask one more...
I know nothing about lace.
Reading about it on VT has left me with a question.
How can you tell hand-made lace from machine-made?
Yes, I know that hand-made is more expensive...But is another way to tell.
Can anyone recommend a lace shop in town that sells only hand-made items.
Thanks again for the help,
Doug
(alemaker)
Generally, with most hand-done embroidery or stitchery or lace, if you turn it over and see that the ends are tied rather than tucked, that's a sign that it's been hand-made. If it was done by someone who really knew what they were doing though, it can be really hard to tell sometimes.
I can't offer any advice but you might want to go to the Lace Museum in Brugge - it is interesting and someone there might be able to give you really good advice. It is behind the Jerusalem Church, which is also worth a visit.
Here is the web page for the lace center in Brugge
http://www.bruggekantstad.com/
let's say that if you mean hand made lace by Belgians in Belgium... it is very costly.
I know in the Stoofstraat in Bruges, at the side of the chocolate store and close by, there is a little shop and the lady of the shop does make the lace herself. She sometimes get "orders" to make this or that design.
Maybe you should stop there and ask her should you visit Bruges?
I think lots of lace in the shops are machine made (you can see that by the price) or they are possible imported handmake lace (might be lesser quality then the Belgian ones).
On top of that... there are very different kind of laces.
To my opinion I thought the lace museum in the Carolus Boromeus church in Antwerp was much more interesting then the one in Bruges.
The eldest signs of lace production is found in the archives of Plantijn Moretus museum (16th century) as they handled also in lace. For long time about 1 on 2 ppl living in Antwerp made lace for a handful of rich families.
When our harbour grew, the people didn't wanted to do that low paid job anymore and earned much more in the harbour. Bruges, which harbour had sanded after 16th century and who's economy was turned down, took over the lace production somewhere in 19th century.
You have also a small lace museum in Lier near Antwerp where they have the typical Lier lace, you also can have Mechel's lace and I guess Brussels as well.
it is just a different style.
well you might still not now how to recognize the handmade from the machine made but you know a little more about the lace now :)
I could recommend you to visit one of the lace museums on your trip :)
If you visit anywhere in Belgium I would simply go to Brugge. It's probably one of the nicest cities in Europe. This picture is from our room. This country is very clean, Brussels aside. I was only sixteen, and there for only two days, but I remember the beer, it was good and the seafood fresh.
This lake has a very romantic name, but definitely not so romantic purpose. The river Reie was canalized so it could run through the city, the lake was used as a water pool to control the water level in the canals.
But the view is indeed romantic, the lake is "surrounded" by a park on one side and the Beguinage on the other. Swans seem to like the lake as well, so you'll find many of them there. The castle-like restaurant by the lake completes the perfect picture. It has a nice terrace facing the lake, so you can enjoy some famous belgian beers.
Just walking around brugge it an experience, every time you walk down a street, you find another building of beauty and something that moves you, the riverside walk is wonderful although the cobbled streets did get to my feet after a while :-)
This is the type of lace they make in Bruges.
You have different kind of methods of making lace.
The lace industry became popular in Bruges in the 19th century.
At that time the production in Antwerp collapsed because people could get better paid jobs at the expanding harbour in Antwerp.
You need a lot of patience to make a small piece of lace.
Handmade lace is therefore very expensive.
You can imagine that the ones that are sold in the shops at low prices are machine made lace.
If you're looking for some cheap things to bring home to friends, or just love sifting through thrift shops check this out. It's called Kringloopwinkel, open Tues-Sat. Located near intersection of Bapamestr. and Peperstraat, it's a little out of the way, but way worth a visit! You can find old records and books, as well as tons of pint glasses and random odd things!
Sponsored Links
Similar to Hotel Bethune
Near Hotel Bethune
Cheapest in Brugge
Great Hotels for Less
Sponsored Links
Latest Brugge hotel reviews
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Check Rates and Availability (from our partners)
