Two Mats

These two mats (shown at 75% of actual size) were given me by a fellow member of Glasgow Lace Group who had found several of them in a charity shop. After I’d made my butterfly handkerchief someone told me that patterns like that came from the Eastern Mediterranean. Could this butterfly mat be a holiday souvenir from that area, perhaps from Crete or Cyprus? If you’ve seen mats like these for sale in either of those islands, please let me know. Neither mat is particularly well made, and the finishing is coming apart in places.

Although the outer edges of the two mats look the same, the triangles of cloth stitch between the Spanish fans are worked differently. I have a pattern from an old Anna magazine (published in Germany) in which the outer edge is worked as in the second mat.

Details showing the cloth-stitch areas on the two mats — the butterfly mat is on the left.