Flower Bed Cartouche

This colourful little cartouche, filled with flowers and seedbeads can be adapted for yardage, or extended into a bookmark, replacing the seed beads with a 6 pair filling stitch, spider or crossing.

The idea of this piece was to not use white thread.  I mixed colours, makes, materials, and the thickness of the threads.  

The edges used the pin under four (two pair edge) and started by hanging the four pairs around an outer pin, twist one pair twice, cross twist cross and twist twice.  These pairs are now ready to work the passives in either direction.  Lay in the passives by hanging the pairs over a temporary pin just below the starting worker pin.  This edge will be worked in both directions so each pair is laid open, one bobbin going one way, it's partner going the other way.  You can lay different threads next to each other and they will be the same on both sides.  Work the worker pairs a little way and then remove the temporary pin. 

Start the picot circle of the flower, going in one direction, at the right, or left hand petal, not at the top three. Start the picot circle upwards. Hang two picot pairs around a pin, twist once and lay a magic thread in before plaiting to the first single thread picot.  Two picots are used on each outer plait between petals to maintain a curved shape. This leaves enough room to make the tallies, the edge, and to work the tallies after the crossing.  The two picot pairs will finish at this pin, after working through the last exiting tally,  using the magic thread to complete the circle.  The two picot pairs are either tied off and cut, or hidden by whipping them together with the unplaited pairs of a plait, throwing single threads out gradually after each couple of whippings. 

Add the plaited pairs at the inner edge pins, work through the picot circle to start the tally.  Add the variegated pair at this pin, one to work, one to be the center bobbin.  Each tally has two outer threads, one inside thread and one worker.  

The crossing at the center is somewhere we can have fun.  Divide into sets of three bobbins to work an eight pair crossing, this will give a little splash of green at the center of the flower.  Alternatively, make slightly shorter petals, work a half stitch center and make a raised and rolled tally with double threads in the center. 

To make the beaded flowerettes - pin between the two top pairs, add a seed bead to each single pair on each side.  Cloth stitch around the pin through the left and right plaits, add a seed bead to the single pairs on each side.

Flowerette

Work an unpinned roseground stitch with the two plait pairs. Take the plait pairs through the outside edge.  Add seed beads to the single pair.  Alternatively, a spider, a square tally or a simple crossing could be made in the center. 

After the flowerettes have been worked, the extra pairs which were added, just after the tally flower, will need removing by either being tied off, or the threads hidden by whipping them in with the unplaited pairs of a plait and throwing out the extra threads along the length to the next pin. 

Work the edge down where a horizontal tally will start and lay in two pairs with a magic thread around the pin for the picot circle around the tally flower as before.

The two pairs from each of the last four tallies, after they have come out of the picot circle, are taken into the edge.  Cloth stitch with the worker and take one tally pair and work through the passives only, tension and lay aside to cut off later.  Work the worker through the passives and make the stitch with the waiting worker.  Take the remaining tally pair and work through the passives only, tension and lay aside with other tally pair.  Continue with the workers in the usual way.

Thread notes.  I used DMC variegated thread which gives a very gentle change in colour between the palest hue and the main colour.  This gives the tallies a subtle colour variation.  A similar thread, the old Sylco variegated cotton has a shorter but still subtle change of tone which is lovely for tallies.    Gutermann variegatedand other variegated machine quilting threads, by comparison, are much shorter between the hues and tend to have sudden colour changes having big differences between tones and colours within each reel.  This leads to tallies with stripes of contrasting colour.  Hand dyed threads will have their own differences so it is worth checking the graduation of colour along a thread to see what kind of change you will get in your tallies.  

The .pdf is available in the Files tab in

Lesleys Lace facebook group

Tutorial for two versions of the seed bead flowerette on my you tube channel

https://youtu.be/DAvBFwAdeYk

https://youtu.be/6HEan966E5w

Sequinella Mermaid

 This piece felt more like a craft project than bobbin lace because of all the sequins!  

Sitting in my pattern 'to do' pile for nearly 4 years, Sequinella the mermaid finally made it to a pillow of her own when I lost the use of my printer and had no freshly printed patterns to make. 

I started at one end of her hair I worked to the head and back down the other side.  White thread in a simple cloth stitch had short lengths of metallic thick thread running through in gold, blue, green, silver and pink. On the outside of the curves, I added a line of silver seed beads to act as water droplets catching the light. 

The bodice is a simple half stitch in a selection of different colour threads. I did think of using variegated thread, but over larger areas, I find simply winding bobbins with different colours gives a more even blend.  Pale turquoise, pale green, aqua, kingfisher and spring green in Egyptian cotton machine sewing threads.  

The tally petals detail at the waist took care of the excess threads before the honeycomb ground was started.  

A bit fiddley at first, due to making the honeycomb with sequins inside the curls of the hair, I added the sequins on the diagonal row which only uses half the pins.  For the very narrow bit of the tail, I resorted to seed beads in the same colours till the fin was reached.  

The fin comprised several cloth stitch trails with sequins running close together in rows.  I varied the size of sequins in the fin but kept to the same colourway.  

A simple gold micro bead necklace was added as a finish and, after all this time, Sequinella the Mermaid is finally ready to meet all the sea creatures I have made. 

Tiny Dragonfly

A teeny dragonfly, ideal for using up those thread ends and practicing leaf tallies. 

Print at A4

Version 1

The simplest way is to start with two pairs around the first head pin, add a pair at each side at the pins. Cloth stitch to the pin where a tally joins. Put aside these 4 pairs for now.

*Add two pairs at the outside pin of the right hand tally. Work the tally to the pin where the other pairs are waiting. Using each pair as a single bobbin, cloth stitch the tally pairs through the body pairs including the worker (see diagram). Place pin and work the second tally. Close the tally with an overhand knot. Leave 4 inches and cut off the bobbins. *

Repeat * to * for the second pair of wings.

Continue to work the body, throwing out 2 pairs near the end so you are left with just 2 pairs at the pin. Use both pairs as single bobbins, tie an overhand and underhand knot. Cut these threads leaving quarter inch for the claspers.

After removing from the pillow. Take each pair at the end of the tallies in turn and thread a narrow needle. Carefully follow the center vein in the tally and draw the thread through from the tip to the center or so. Trim the excess thread.

More information on Lesleyslace.blogspot.com/

A selection of sizes are shown above, suitable for different size threads. I used Egyptian machine sewing cotton thread, which works at about 28 wraps per centimeter, to make the 2.5cm dragonfly, but will enjoy experimenting with irridescent and glitter threads. 

Version 2

Join two pairs at the body where it meets the first wing.  Tally out to the RH outer wing pin, plait back to the body pin and cross the tally pairs as shown in the diagram.  Tally out to the LH outer wing pin, work the pin and return using a plait as before. Follow the diagram to get to the lower wing body pin and tally out, pin, plait back, repeat as for the upper pair.  This avoids the need to sew the ends in after removing from the pillow. 

  

 

Leaf Tally with Beads

A dip into the world of extreme tally making. 

 

I saw a post about wire bobbin lace making where the tallies had beads inserted into the center of wire tallies.  Using wire gives an engineered stability to lace which thread just cannot copy so a bit of experimentation was called for.    

My first tally was a shy little one, with three tiny seed beads added at three points down the center vein.  A bit more confident second tally took a larger faceted bead which sat very nicely on top of the tally.  Third experiment was three seed beads added on the same thread, I can see issues with these trying to lie sideways and maybe pulling the thread so not my favourite, but would look great in a wide leaf tally as a cat's eye.  The last one was a foil lined bugle bead, this one sat best of all.  The straight sides helped it sit inside the tally and shows well on both sides.

On the whole, I am pleased with my first experiment, will be interesting to see what else I can do with leaf tallies. 

 Video on you tube here-

https://youtu.be/oPlR8A8djJ8