There is no souvenir shop in Gozo’s towns or the seaside resorts of Marsalforn and Xlendi that does not advertise handmade Gozo lace.

The Gozitan love affair with lace started over a century ago and, in a short time, Gozo and lace became synonymous. The passion for lacemaking was transferred from mother to daughter, grandmother to granddaughter and aunt to niece.

Maltese upright pillow for bobbin lace, called Trajbu.

This passion and love for lace and lacemaking touched Consiglia Azzopardi in her childhood, and with time it developed into a solid marriage. She designs patterns for lace with precision and creativity, she teaches lacemaking techniques with vigour and love and she produces lace delicately and beautifully.

She has researched its history, its different techniques and its development in various countries, writing many articles, two bestselling books and reading for a PhD on the topic.

Consiglia is currently finalising a book about the history of lace in the Maltese islands, and has herself built up a collection of garments and ornaments made up of, or decorated with, Maltese lace from different times.

On a spring morning, the road from Victoria to Għarb leaps out from an Alice in Wonderland illustration. As one leaves Victoria, the green hill of Gelmus peers from behind the buildings on the right, and the Għar Ilma hill rises in the distance on the left. In a few seconds, one finds oneself passing through the aqueduct arch skirting a line of derelict limestone arches glistening in the sun and watching over the clover flower-dotted green mat at one’s feet.

One of Malta’s most wonderful and impressive collections of lace

A short drive away the road forks: the road to Ta’ Pinu Sanctuary to the right and the road to Għarb straight ahead. At this fork in the road, a large tree shades a solitary house with a statue of Our Lady in a niche adorning the facade. Consiglia was waiting for us at the house’s open door, concealing one of Malta’s most wonderful and impressive collections of lace.

The lace collection is displayed in a large room upstairs, its olive-green walls covered with glass cabi­nets housing the beautiful lace garments. The cabinets are supported by a series of drawers containing fine veils, shawls, doilies and artistic pieces of Gozitan handmade lace. Flat glass showcases exhibiting artistically de­sign­ed lace fans, gloves, mittens, collars, socks, bonnets and bibs divide the room lengthwise.

Black silk lace jacket, Consiglia Azzopardi/Sylvia Curmi, 2011, L-Ixtabi Collection, Għarb, Gozo.

Consiglia’s collection also contains the pattern of an exceedingly long lace table runner decorated with emblems representing each of the different Commonwealth countries, centred on British emblems such as the rose and thistle, lions and unicorns. This template, which was designed by Carmel Gerada from Malta Industries Association Ltd and Ignatio Scicluna of Victoria, was woven with bobbin lace by Gozitan women and mounted onto embroidered linen under the supervision of the lace expert Dolores Pace. It was given as a gift in 1953 to Queen Elizabeth, the Commonwealth’s leader to this day.

Consiglia guided us through her exhibition, passionately relating the stories behind the exhibits, describing methods and techniques of lace making and modifications and changes that were made throughout the years.

Also part of the collection are two types of lace pillows: an elongated one (trajbu) that is still used today, and a shorter, thicker version (romblu) that was used in the past. The former is placed on the wall at the top and the workers lap at the bottom, and it is useful for making long strips of lace, while the latter can be used to work curves by turning the romblu round.

From the time of the presence of the Knights of St John, lace makers in Malta have practised needle lace, which eventually gave way to bobbin lace, and in the 19th century was influenced by Genoese lace makers. Consiglia remarked that the bizzilla made in Malta was different from that worked in Gozo where it is mostly concentrated, and different localities of Gozo had variations of their own. She discovered in her research that a particular table centre with ‘ball motifs’ was found only in lace made by Għarb lace makers.

Typical Maltese fat Moski worked in silk, early 20th century.

From the 1850s to the 1960s, lace making had an important economic value for Malta and even more so in Gozo. Bizzilla was exported and the income was more than what many women’s husbands earned from working the fields or from fishing. Women used to barter their lace with food, clothes or gold from the merchants who sold their lace, often sewing up the strips of lace together into shapes as required to create veils, collars, shawls, doilies, tablecloths, curtains or any other couture requirement.

The economic importance of lace making during the late 19th century cannot be shown more clearly than in a report commissioned by the Maltese government for the British Colonial Office and written by Prof. Nicola Zammit of Siġġiewi in 1886. Zammit showed that the lace industry involved 4,500 women and their combined efforts contributed 45,000 to 50,000 pounds sterling.

The top exhibit of the collection is a two-metre square black silk lace shawl consisting of tens of the typi­cal Maltese cross motifs and floral decorations, very similar to the gold award-winning shawl showed at the Great Exhibition of London in 1862. The event popularised Maltese lace in the UK and colonial countries, and contrib­uted to the origin of Bedfordshire lace.

Section from a design for a large shawl.

Political events and lacemaking are, in fact, curiously intertwined. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries ecclesiastical garments would have the Balla stitch and not the English Stitch (a stitch that looked like the British flag), but the lace ordered by Lord Strickland and his supporters was crafted around the English stitch.

However, on display in the exhibition there is beautiful alb with two feet of lace from mid-thigh downwards based on the English stitch. It had a delicate figure of St Catherine of Alexandria, the symbol of her martyrdom, the broken wheel, clearly discernible, thus placing it among the belongings of a priest from either Żejtun or Żurrieq. How it avoided the bishop’s censors remains a mystery.

Mirroring the history and changes of Maltese society over the past 200 years, this excellent collection, complemented by Consiglia’s infectious enthusiasm, contains intricate and beautiful lace used in ecclesiastical garments, in clothing for special occasions for the less wealthy and worn in everyday life by the rich, making it a must-see for those interested in Maltese crafts, work­manship, art and social history.