Hand made

Hand made lace is a highly skilled and time-consuming process. The most of lace makers are and have always been women. Intricate fine pieces of lace can take an entire day to make. Lace is made by looping and twisting threads by applying a set of bobbins or a needle. True hand made lace is also created without the use of any woven fabric.

Delicate lace-trimmed handloom linen and hand-made dresses are made in Nagercoil in the district of Kanyakumari, India. The region is well-known for its hand-woven lace work as the designs are pure magic and the filigree finish is world class. The diocese, under which these products are created, The Church of South India, is the hub of this veritable industry with 700 women working together creating precious handkerchiefs, bed linen, table cloths, napkins and household knick-knacks. Likewise, in India and China and in many other countries hand-made lace is produced according to their geographical style and designs.

Machine made

Suppliers of lace trimming in China and India are installing the latest manufacturing equipment and adding more production lines for satisfying the increasing demand brought on by lifting of WTO textile quotas earlier this year.

Recently many India suppliers have invested money to upgrades production facilities and to improve the product quality and design capability. Locally made and second hand equipments have been now substituted by the latest machinery from Germany and Italy. In India, most of the producers are using imported equipment such as Raschel machines from Germany and Jacob Muller machines from Switzerland.

China suppliers are also increasing their production capacity and minimizing waste by investing in imported equipment.

Most of Indian suppliers of stretch lace fabrics utilize nylon yarn blended with spandex or Lycra. Models with polyester and rayon yarns are also made in small lots. Such designs give two or four way stretch, with spandex yarns blended at a ratio of 3 to 30 percent. Majority of makers use azo-free dyes.

Stretch lace fabric suppliers from China provide designs in cotton, rayon and polyester blended with spandex. With an increase in the competitiveness, the companies are trying to tune with the latest trends in colors and designs for women's clothing and undergarments, so that they can use these styles on their fabrics. At present pure stretch lace is well-accepted as are jacquard, mesh, embroidered and beaded models.