ANTIQUE CHRISTENING DRESSES AND BELGIAN LACES

I was recently in the fabulous town of Brugge Belgium, or Bruges in English, also known as the "Venice of the north" due to the many canals and little water ways that run through out the city.  It is a town filled with wonderful restaurants, lovely architecture dating back to the 13th and 14th century, shops of homemade chocolates that fill the air with their sweet scent, and shop after shop of gorgous Belgian laces.  Ah, now those are the shops that really caught my eye, and captured my heart!  Laces and chocolates, could there be anything more divine then an entire town filled with two of my favorite things!!  One shop in particular turned out be my favorite since it offered antique laces, and it is where I discovered these gorgous antique christening gowns.  They are from the 1700's, are in pristine condition, and are created with handmade laces.  The first one is made with the finest softest Needle lace or Brussels lace and took 12 years to make, the second one with Bobbin lace and a mere 3 years of work to create it.  They both were exquisite, and I timidly asked the price of both.....hoping, just hoping that perhaps the shop owner would quote a price that I might just be able to handle.  But alas, they were too much for my budget.  At $3700 each, I knew that I would have to be happy with just a photo of them!  Not able to take one of them home with me  (would I have been able to choose between them anyway???), I decided I must have a yard or two of old lace.  I found a gorgous Brussels lace, (sorry, couldn't get a picture of it), made with little 3 dimentional flowers that had tiny bits of cotton padding tucked inside of them.  Gorgous, lovely, beautiful beyond description!!  But again, too much for my pocket.  At $790 per yard, I had to leave it behind and simply let it be something that dreams are made of !