Though I have been to Venice several times, I had never visited Burano before. During my visit to Venice last year, I by accident stumbeled over Jesurum, and bought the most beautiful napkins there. During this visit I was determined to visit Burano, the lace island.
There were two things I wanted to do when visiting the small island north in the laguna. See the beautiful coloured houses and feel old lace in my hands.
Finding the special Burano houses was easy. They were everywhere. Finding lace was also easy, but feeling old lace run through my fingers was a more difficult task. Lace was everywhere, but how old was it?
Then we passed the sign to Martina, went in, and I was hooked. And as soon as the shopkeeper understood that we were going to buy some of her lace, she became quite interested as well. She took us up some stairs to a closed museum on the first floor where she showed us the most amazing pieces of old textiles made by generations of women on the island. The very best pieces were made using seven different lace stiches, which again meant that they were made by seven different women, each specializing her own stich.
Today's lace is usually made with fewer stiches, and the table cloth we ended up buying is made by three different ones. Still it is a beautiful piece of art, perfect for the new sofa we purchased a few weeks ago, and the old sofa table made by my father in law in the 1950ies.
Lace was everywhere on the island, and wandering around we even met a few women stiching the oldfashioned way. Both I and Marta ended up with handkerchiefs and other small pieces. I have a basket with my Venetian lace collection in front of me while writing this, and love to feel the texture run through my fingers. Old or not, my fingers love the lace.
