Prickings stitched onto a double piece of cotton with tracing threads for making part of a collar of needle lace

Prickwork for a part of a collar of Venetian needle lace. The needle lace pattern is drawn in ink on blue paper and holes are pricked along the pattern lines. A tracing thread is sewn through these 'prickwork' and the double layer of cotton. When the needle lace stitches are made over and between the tracing threads, the prickwork and the cotton backing can be cut away and removed. Then only the needle lace remains, in this case a part of the collar which can then be worked up with the other parts and the border to form a collar. The design of the collar was made by a person from Belgium who was interned in camp 'Elisabeth-dorp' in Amersfoort during the First World War. Mrs. van Nierop began making the collar and donated the unfinished parts to the Rijksmuseum as study material.