That lace making pinacle

You may be getting an inkling of my obsession with dragons.  For my mother it is owls and butterflies that fly most often delight her eye.

I make a things for my mother with that in mind.

This lace butterfly is for me the hardest and best piece of lace I have ever made.  It is quite small and required the smallest crochet hook I have ever seen to join some of the sections as it progressed.  

Made with very fine thread the danger of it snapping was a constant threat (which sadly happened more than once, requiring taking out hours of work to join in a new thread) and each picio (that is the loop bits on the edge required one of the working pair of bobbins to be unwound, hooked through, and rewound . 

There were times I though I would never finish and should never have started. 

And when I presented it to my mother, the ultimate compliment, she thought one of the experienced ladies at the lace class had made it! I was so pleased it did not look amateur, it took me months. 

Cushions and spangles

now these are not cushions for sitting on, lying on or even just admiring.  These are the lace making cushions I was referring to in my 'touch of lace' blog.  They are also called pillow by some by you would not want to try sleeping on one.

The larger of my cushions, has a lace edging in production.

Bobbin lace

The card pattern is called a pricking, as you prick out the pattern with a needle (or there are special tools you can get) and the holes tell you where to put the pins as you work.  The pattern is in two pieces, as you finish one section and get about halfway onto the second you take all of the pins out of the first section of lace and move the pattern ready for it to be the third section, and as you work the second second piece of pattern moves to be the fourth.

As you can see I am using a mix of the basic wooden bobbins which I painted with enamel paints,( red on my first set first set and black on the second ) and some turned wood, bone, horn versions I have added over the years.        

Lace bobbins

                                                                            The beads at the ends of the bobbins help stop them rolling about, and they look pretty.  I like to have a small silver charm or a special focal bead at the middle of the loop of beads. The more expensive bobbins tend to get the equivalent quality of focal charm or semi precious stone in their bead loop.

The second smaller cushion I use has sloped edges on three sides this helps with the tension when working the lace and can be used with un-beaded bobbins but it is no good for patterns that turn corners, just small straight designs like book marks or lace cuffs. Indeed the pricking on the pillow pictured is for a bookmark.  
                                                                            

Lace making cushion

Bookmarks, like this one were indeed the most likely product of my lace making.  One similar to this made its way to China as a gift for the wife of a Chinese gentleman who came to my fathers factory for a working visit.  He in turn gifted me with a pack of playing cards from China.  I hope his wife liked it and it has been if some use.

Lace bookmark in three colours

But bookmarks and dollie edgings are not the pinnacle of my lace making to date.

A touch of lace

The  exception to the self, book or friend taught crafts which will appear here is lace making.  I attended a council run "for leisure" adult education class for a few months run by and elderly Belgium lady from Bruges one of the most famous places for the making of lace.  The class was in bobbin lace not sewn lace.  It is made on a pillow of sorts, there are different designs for those. My first one was a big square of heavy polystyrene. 

The type of bobbins used vary depending on the lace making style and the pillow. For example in Malta the main style is for long ribbons of lace made on long thin pillows and the bobbins are very like mini baseball bats in appearance with the weight of the thick end providing tension to the work. For flat pillows which are geared to patterns which turn corners the bobbins are an even shape with a small hole at the end through which a wire onto which beads are attached, this beaded loop at the end of the bobbin stops it rolling and tangling the threads when not in use.  I have heard the beads refereed to as spangles and attaching the beads to spangling the bobbin. Theresa, my teacher never used that term however, she just called it beading.

There are different thicknesses of thread to use depending on the design you are making.  A sampler band was the first thing I did, learning the various combinations of moving the bobbins over and under to make tight sections or filling stitches. The first proper project was the edge for a doily with a fanned edge and corners to navigate.

I was very pleased with the result once it was attached to its linen base with the special cross stitch which added both to the decorative effect and sealed the raw edge of the material.

For my second project I wanted to make a gift for my mother. I shall come back to that and the linked craft of "spangling" later.   

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