 Antique Round Tablecloth 50" Filet Lace Lovers Horses Deer Farmers US $9.99 
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What is Mercerized Cotton and Nottingham Lace?
I;m looking at heirloom tablecloths and found a beautiful one that costs $339.00. Just wondering why those materials were so expensive.
Mercerized cotton is cotton which has been treated with sodium hydroxide to bring out certain properties first discovered by John Mercer in 1851. In 1890, Horace Lowe added an additional step to the process, and the British cotton industry began to take an interest in mercerized cotton, which is available today in a wide range of incarnations from thread to completed garments. When treated properly, mercerized cottonis stronger, smoother, and shinier than regular cotton. In addition, it takes dye more readily so that manufacturers can create rich color saturation in their cottons.
Mercerization starts with gathering the cotton and spinning it normally. Because cottons with long fibers take better to mercerization, Pima, Egyptian, and Sea Island cotton are usually chosen for the process. The cotton thread is held under tension and submerged in a highly alkaline bath of sodium hydroxide in a percentage which ranges, but usually hovers around 22%. After treatment, the mercerized cotton is placed into an acidic bath to neutralize it. Once this process is complete, the cottoncan be dyed and knitted, woven, or packed as stand-alone spools of thread.
The term "pearl cotton" is also used to refer to Mercerized cotton, because of the deeply lustrous appearance of the finished cotton thread. In addition to having rich color saturation and a shimmering appearance, mercerized cotton is also much stronger than conventional cotton thread. The process shrinks the cotton fibers, tightening and smoothing the grain of the thread. Because the cotton is preshrunk, mercerized cotton also tends not to shrink as much as regular cotton, so consumers can be more confident about the fit of mercerized garments.
Nottingham Lace is the name given to lace made using Nottingham Looms.
Weaving started as a cottage industry in the Irvine Valley in Ayrshire, Scotland around the 16th century. The new immigrants from Europe brought new ideas and advanced methods of weaving on hand looms, which continued until the industrial revolution when the traditional cottage industry gave way to the massive looms in, use today.
Nottingham, in the midlands of England, has long been famous for its lace, though it has always been machine-made rather than hand-made bobbin lace.
Because the lace machine was invented in Nottingham, it became the centre of machine-made lace. In 1589 William Lee of Calverton (a village about 8 miles Northeast of Nottingham), invented a knitting frame that was used to produce hose. The frame and technique were standard for 200 years
Frame workers wished to imitate more closely the twisted pillow laces. John Heathcoat patented the first successful frame, which twisted together threads to from lace net, in 1809. Many different twist frames followed the Heathcoat bobbin net machine, the most important being the Levers machine invented in Nottingham in 1913 by John Levers. The fabrics produced on the Levers machine were called "bobbin lace." This caused some confusion between the hand and machine made laces. Until the 1960's Levers lace making was concentrated in the East Midlands of England, but the area also had a small percentage of plain net and curtain lace making. The largest amount of curtain lace was made in Scotland and continued to be made there until the end of the 20th century.
From the beginnings of the industry until the end of the 20th century, at least 99% of the lace and net made in Britain passed through Nottingham. It was only natural that lace made on machines in Britain came to be called "Nottingham Lace." The largest buyer of Nottingham Lace was North America. In addition to the lace manufactures, a second group promoting Nottingham as the center of the machine-made lace industry was the machine builders. The Nottingham builders built 99% of the world's twist lace machines and many of the warp lace machines. In the USA the lace-curtain machine was simply called "The Nottingham Lace Machine."
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