Bobbins? What bobbins?

How to make your bobbins disappear.

These any size two fold bobbin books hide themselves away in bookshelves.  

I couldn't resist this tapestry book fabric and had just the right place to use it.  These newly aquired painted Geoff Mudge bobbins needed a little case of their own and they will be used for metallic and sparkly threads.  This will leave my working bobbins free of those thread ends which tie up bobbins till that thread is needed again.  

I made the case to fit the pattern, with plenty of easement for the spangles and heads to not be squashed.  Well padded, they will come to no harm among my lace books.  

Have a look at the bobbin holder opening in the video here  Bobbins? What bobbins? You tube video

Daffodil Frieze

A little play on words to start with - freize and freeze with these bright, joyful flowers often appearing through the frost and snow. 

We live in a sheltered valley in the warmest bit of the country, so warm that back in Victorian times, early railways were used to get the flowers and soft fruits to London at speed.  

The growing season here is up to a month earlier than other parts of the country and daffodils were such an intensive crop, that hillsides were covered in them. 

The hillsides have been now taken over by the same woodlands which were destroyed to make room for these crops.  The daffodils grow at the foot of the trees, still in rows, making a woodland walk quite magical.  

During the wars, all non essential crops were abandoned to turn the land over to growing food for the nation.  Flowers were not a priority so the bulbs were dug up and thrown to the sides of the fields.  

Our old Cornish fields are surrounded, not by fences and walls, but by Cornish hedges. * These are wide, angled stone plinths running for several miles sometimes, infilled with soil, often covered completely with wild growth, sometimes full trees are growing up from them.  A haven for wildlife and rare plants.  Having been thrown to the sides, the daffodil bulbs just carried on growing, even from the depths of these hedges, and soon they bloomed, cross pollinated and now liven up the Cornish hedges with their yellow nodding heads. 

This design is really only one daffodil, set back to back with it's mirror image.  I do love art nouveau design and I was delighted to see that this flower lends itself to a repeat pattern in a similar style. 

This design only takes a few bobbins because it is made in sections.  The leaves are cloth stitch with a few lines of twisted worker to create veining along the leaf.  Use up odd bits of green thread to give the leaves a bit of depth.  I chose orange for the frill on the trumpet but there are so many colourways and shapes in the daffodils I see around where I live that there is no need to be particular, anything from white to yellow to deep coral can be used for the flower.  The petals are often a different colour to the trumpet. 

I made the daffodil wrong side up, so I made the small leaf first so that it was on top of the larger leaf when the piece is turned over.  There is no need to work from the back, it only depends on how you choose to join the sections, and if you want to work any sections with a rolled edge.  

This pattern was originally printed in the Lace Guild Magazine as a new pattern. Each Easter, I think 'is anyone making my daffodil?' so, after a few years, I decided to release it again.

This is designed to be printed at A4.  If you would prefer the .pdf, it is in the Files section of my Lesley's Lace Facebook page.    https://www.facebook.com/groups/907516516997481/

Old Cornish Hedge

Daffodils at the foot of a gnarly old tree growing out of a Cornish Hedge. 

* from the Cornwall Council webpage   "A Cornish hedge is a boundary structure distinctive to Cornwall. They are typically two independent stone walls to either side of a rab and earth core. Traditionally the stone used to construct these hedges relates to the geology of the local area. This is what makes them so locally distinctive. There are over 30,000 miles of Cornish hedges across Cornwall forming our largest semi-natural habitat. The majority are medieval in origin, and some were first laid out in prehistory."

Colour Plait Motif

Time to play about with a pattern again.  This little motif has been sitting in the wings, waiting for it's turn to get some attention.  There is a gap of a couple of years between making the two pieces, just long enough to find I had too many bobbins with coloured thread ends still attached which had reduced the number of useable bobbins.  

The same pattern was used for both, but I chose to start some plaits in different places, miss out some picots, and change colour of some tallies.  Instead of running the threads through the cloth stitch trails to throw them out, which leaves a small streak of colour, I tied the thrown out threads off.  Where I needed to throw a plait out, I hid it in the tally where I could, or hid different colours inside a whipped stitch, throwing single threads out as needed.

This gifted pattern is shown in several different guises along with the full motif shown in the photo.  A small center motif with a smooth edge, an edge only motif which could be used as a photo frame, or to put your own center inside, and a combined 9 pin edge and center motif. 

I used mostly Empress Mills 29 wraps per centimeter thread (they have 56 colours!) but I suspect some bobbins may have contained Dewhurst's Sylco thread, maybe even a bit of DMC Broder Machine 30.  They are all 100% cotton, practically the same thickness, so work well

I would love to see this made all in one colour, or even in white, which is what I prefer to use for a first time working a design.  The full motif takes about 52 pairs working both sides at once from top to toe.

Splash Butterfly

I was having a good sort out of my bobbin cases and found several scattered pairs of part used metallic thread wound bobbins that I needed to get back into work.  In future, I shall use one small set of bobbins purely for metallics, this way, I can wind plenty and just grab and go when I want a bit of sparkle.  

The colours I chose this time are Gutermann purple and green sparkly thread which echo the colours of the Suffragette movement around the Edwardian era.  Amethyst for loyalty, Peridot for hope and white Pearls for purity used together as a  symbol of the fight for women's right to vote.

Threads also used were an unnamed gold thread, and for the chevron edges, unnamed crochet threads, possibly a perle 8 size and of course, my favourite, Empress Egyptian cotton. 

Starting at the antennae as per usual, I added a pair of double thread picots after the leaf tally to see if it looked a bit more feathery. I may try a little run of 3 or more on the next butterfly, just to see the effect.  Once started with picots, I continued them all around the wings for a change, making the edges look more delicate and a little ethereal. 

This butterfly is 18.5 cm wide, and I think it used about 40 pairs, less if the wings are made with edges first then infilled.  

The tallies were harder to make using the sparkly Gutermann thread because the thread has a rough feel to it which tries to grab, and so is more difficult to slide into place.  The gold thread on the half stitch splashes really should have had a cloth stitch edge to better define their shape.  The plaits coming in and going out still worked well with just using the half stitch.  I did plan to add an overlaid tally, or even a sequin as an eye in the gold spashes but I forgot. 

I tied the metallic threads off as soon as the tallies were made, I didn't want the colour carrying on into the plaits.   One bobbin of the metallic pair was wound with only just enough thread to hold, sometimes tied to a bit of a thread end already on the bobbin, it only needed enough thread for the length of the tally and the knot on one of the pair. 

The splashes started with a gold worker added at the narrow start.  These pairs had one bobbin with just enough to hold onto the bobbin, and the other had plenty wound on so it could be reused.  Some of the splashes were finished off and the gold pair used for another splash which avoided having to have lots of gold wound bobbins.  

I love drawing butterflies, and making them, but not so keen on making the second side of wings which often feels like I am making the thing twice!