In the year 1840, Nuns of County Cork Ireland had a secret. Behind closed doors, they were not praying on their rosary, but crocheting beautiful lace and sewing it on pillow cases, collars, cuffs, underskirts, and bed spreads. They designed a 3-D rose, padded leaves, against a delicate diamond background with little loops called picots. The nuns would share their beautiful lace of crochet, tatting, knitting with other nuns in another area of Ireland.

In 1845, the potato crop failed in County Cork , Ireland. Poor people were eating grass. These nuns took compassion on on the poor people. They asked themselves, “What can we do to help them?”. The nuns decided to reveal their secret, and brought out their beautiful lace for sale. With the money, they gave it to the poor people so they could buy food. Once the crochet, tatting, and knitted designed were shown, the weavers copied the lace.
Irish Crochet uses a foundation cord to crochet over, so the lace is thick. The cord is pulled to tighten and curve the stitches.

A smaller crochet hook is used to make the background design used in Irish Crochet.

Dresses, blouses, shawls, collars, cuffs were made with Irish Crochet. The motifs often looked like flowers, or shamrocks, leaves, padded circles and were pinned on to material cut to the shape of the item. Then the background was crocheted
around the motifs and connected to the next motif.
I make Irish crochet roses and leaves and sew them on velvet pillows.

Needlework has become a hobby for me as a retired music and kindergarten teacher from Springfield, Illinois. Now I live in Winter Garden, Florida.