Sequin Seahorse

I experimented with adding as many sequins as I could on my 'Adventurous Seahorse' design which is part of the 'Adventurous Aquarium' series of gifted patterns.

The idea for this collection of seaweed, fish, seahorses etc was to create pieces to follow on from the famous 'Springetts Snake' which introduces a selection of techniques in a wriggley snake shape.

When I think of a new technique, or fun way to bring lace to young person's attention as a form of art, I try to make the things that would have got my attention as an enthusiastic youngling crafter.  There is no right or wrong in the finished piece, only enjoyment and a hope that by encouraging young and new bobbin lace makers, lace can take it's place as a more mainstream craft, protecting it for the years to come.

For the pattern, see earlier posts on this blog, or visit my Lesley's Lace Group on facebook where the patterns are under the 'Files' tab. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/907516516997481/

'N'

 Another letter for my lace alphabet.  This one is heavy on the seed beading. 

Rather than make the long center bar in Milanese, which was my original intention, I used white pearl seed beads.  Initially only intended to make the center line in seed beads but as the bar widened, I kept adding more lines of beads.  Unfortunately, adding this many beads has weighted and warped the lace and there is no way of regaining the smooth lines of when it was still pinned to the pillow.  I doubt I could iron it, or even spray it because of the beads. 

To allow for sewing into the bars of the edge with the green thread, I reversed the pattern. I also experimented with different scroll techniques which I really need to practice!  

The beaded netting section proved tricky, had to feed four threads of the plait through the bead to join with the connecting plait. I used a 0.35 crochet hook. 

So far I have made A, B, S, O and N.  Wish I had chosen letters which would have made up a word!  Only another 21 letters to go. 

Celtic Art Nouveau

Mixing art styles as well as lace techniques, this design features Honiton 4 and 5 pin holes and Blossom ground.  A little sprinkle of Bedfordshire tally sprays and spiders, a touch of Muaiga magic and that's all there is to it!

A beautifully grained black walnut bowl provides the background, even though it does distort the lace a bit, well worth showing off such a lovely thing. 

 

This piece was made with six groups of bobbins, each of the three leaf tips started working in both directions.  For this I used a white Empress Egyptian machine quilting thread at around 28 wraps per centimeter, similar to DMC 80.

There were a lot of throwing out and throwing back in threads, so very hard to estimate the number of bobbins used in total, used around a caseful and a bit, so maybe about the 70 to 80 pair region.

The amount of over and underlaid crossings was fiddley, a lot of fine crochet hook work.  I used a non rotating pillow for a change and really missed being able to turn the pillow a bit to get the tensions under control a bit better.  

This is my original design which I painted onto slate quite a few years ago.  The crossings were much easier to paint than to make in lace!

Wriggley Ribbon

Although originally designed as more seaweed for the Adventurous Aquarium series, I  found this pattern was very handy for experimenting with in little sections of the ribbon like design to test colours, adding other craft materials and making demo videos.

The gentle wriggle of this design makes it ideal for Christmas decorations, long streamers in silver and sequins for a tree, little sparkly wriggles for festive earrings, little petals and leaves for flowers, a little versatile pattern designed to have fun with.  One of the wriggles is left blank for you to draw in your own choice of lace filling.  Ideal to test out a new stitch or different edging on a small sample piece.

 

Tally making for painful hands.

A question from a lacemaker who was struggling to learn how to make tallies because of the arthritis in her hands made me think about how I sometimes have to alter my way of making them when my poor old hands are too painful to use.  

Holding the spread of the passives under tension is key to shaping the tally when working on a flat pillow with Midlands (spangled) bobbins.  The 'roll in hand' method using continental bobbins on bolster pillows may be easier but I use neither of these.

This little video shows how I alternate with using the side of each hand with only one hand tensioning the worker and it's partner.  This method rests each hand in turn and does make tallies that little bit less painful.

Of course, once the warmer weather kicks in, and old bones warm up and respond more eagerly to lace making, tallies are added to the menu again and I jump back into making my favourite Cluny and Bedfordshire laces which are often full of tallies.

 Link to YouTube video of Tally making for Painful Hands