Art Nouveau Butterfly Challenge

This design is inspired by a brooch made by Boucheron around 1900. Originally made in enamels, precious and semi precious gems and gold, it has been a favourite of mine for a long time.

This bobbin lace version was created by lacing over a drawing I made with the restrictions of bobbin lace in mind. I sized this design to fit a 28 cm disc block on my block pillow, this allowed for the size of the thread I wanted to use, and the stitches I planned. It only just fitted! From wing tip to end of scroll on one side is 24cm.

I like to use my favourite white Egyptian cotton thread with a wraps per centimeter of 28 for all the first time makings of new designs. This helps me to judge the pinholes and how many bobbins I need to fill spaces.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any gemstones or gold lying about, so I used sequins, beads and sparkly thread.

The stitches I planned on my original drawing had to be changed as I worked through the piece. This can happen if I need to un-lace a section because I am not happy with the result. Pinholes often get moved during this process, and this means that the pricking, when taken off the pillow, is of little use in creating a new pricking to remake the piece because of all the abandoned pinholes.

I worked the antennae first, using the same threads to work down the body, adding sequin eyes, and rows of seed beads down the abdomen. As I worked the sides of the body, I added magic threads around the edge pins, this made it easier to add the wing pairs later. Previously, before I knew about magic threads, I would hang all the bobbins down both sides of butterflies, and work with a pile of waiting bobbins on one side of the pillow!

Once a side is completed, the second side is worked as a mirror image of the first, I can see what stitches to use, and I make little notes for myself on the card about adding twists, pairs, how many passives etc.

This design used several different lace techniques, taken from different styles of lace. It could have been made in simple cloth stitch in different shades to recreate the original more faithfully, but this presented an opportunity to go a little bit over the top.

The old favourites, half and cloth stitch are used of course, a pin under 4 edge for smooth sides, the antennae and swirls used a pin under 4 combined with a turning stitch. All the edges had a thick glitter passive added to give a central vein of sparkle.

The body features a chevron made with thick glitter thread and a thick white thread, this gave a line of dotted 'v' shapes inside the passive pairs along the edges.

I used little trails to recreate the sections of the enamel on the original, filling each little section with sequins, spiders, roseground, tallies, half stitch and Slincas filled with large seed beads.

The challenge in this design, was to see the paths of the threads as they were needed for different stitches and to see how the pairs from different sections could be worked in parallel to avoid lots of knotting into those narrow trails.

Most of the techniques are in my Youtube channel as little tutorials, so the video for this design is of it being unpinned.

My video here

https://youtu.be/A5rX-Jyu-bE

.pdf is available on my facebook page

Multicolour Leaf Tallies

Multicoloured leaf tallies open up a whole world of floral delight by giving tallies different colour edges, 

I have always liked the look of leaf tallies with different coloured edges so I had to have a go at making them along with Mayu Saaritsa from my online bobbin lace group. Mayu improved the management of all the different threads needed, by introducing two extra pins to hold the side threads away from the center tally, where they waited to be used. This made a big difference when using an angled pillow, to keep the shape of the tally. I call these the 'Mayu' pins as they serve a different purpose to temporary or pricking pins. In the video, you can see how useful they are to make the extra threads behave.

YouTube video here - https://youtu.be/irTW1yb-KzA

No doubt, after more than making these first six tallies, I will get better at them!  I didn't notice much difference if I wrapped the outer thread around the thick and spare side threads clockwise or anticlockwise, as long as the wrap is consistant.  Two wraps around the side bundle seemed to work well, maybe different threads will need different numbers of wraps.

The center tally worker was quite happy to do the work of tensioning for all the threads, drawing the side ones in nicely.  

To alter colours when making a series of tallies, it may be necessary to add quite a few different pairs into the bundles, in which case, add a few to work along with the center tally three passives.  This will help make the center tally larger, and if you like, bundle some in with the center thread to make a more pronounced spine.

Fine threads with thick thread pair added to sides

To close around the pin, or windmill cross with another pair, some of the colours may show through, if you choose a colour to wrap (like we did with the edges) the threads into two very short bundles, this will keep the mix of colours covered.    It takes time but the end result is worth it.  

Perle threads

These are my first five made with Perle threads so I could see what I was doing, I found it easier to make them in my preferred, finer thread.  The thick thread I used for the outer edge can be replaced with a few bobbins with different colours so you can really go to town and swap the colours all over the place!

 

Foggy 'Forget Me Not'

It was the Forget Me Not season, a soft low cloud of delicate, soft blue, Forget Me Not (Myosotis) flowers had been left to grow wild where they always do every year, spreading a little more each year as their seeds strayed out of the flower beds into the gravel.  The early morning dew gave the first rays of sunlight a chance to sparkle across the damp leaves and petals.  

A flower named for rememberance, for love and loyalty, gave me a suitable name for this little elephant, being  covered in flowers and sweetness.  With Forget Me Not blue around the face, roses on the forehead, mayflowers, like pajama pants, leaves and vines down the trunk and honeycomb patterning the ears, 'Foggy Forget Me Not' would make a lovely gift.

This pattern uses several grounds, all worked in curved spaces so pairs will need to be added and taken out as needed.  I often advise printing out a large version and using different colour pens to see where the threads will work out best.  The face and trunk are made first.  The ears are started from the top of the head, working outward to the sides. 

Work the leg with any pairs to be thrown out towards the outside edge where they can be taken into the edge trail. The second leg is made with the ground pairs sewn to the edge of the trunk, sorted into fours and plaited to lay on top of the trunk, sewn to the lower edge of the trunk where they revert to being ground pairs to finish the leg.  You could also just continue the ground, working over the trunk and sew at each side of the trunk, or even make the trunk last, sewing it to the trail edges as you progress. 

Of course, there are many ways to make this piece, I give you the way I made it.  The amount of pairs needed will depend on how you work the sections, unfortunately I neglected to count the pairs as I was adding and removing throughout. I guess at about 60 to 70 pairs, maybe more if you work the legs/trunk at the same time. 

The thread used for this is a single perle 8 thread paired with a single standard thread to give the blue line to the trail.  If I made this again, I would be tempted to add more colour, but the adding and throwing out means the order of the trail pairs often change and the colours can get moved side to side within the trails. 

A two pair edge is used throughout to allow for sewings, if you wish, you could make 3 or 4 little tallies along the trail at the bottom of the feet to look like little toes. 

'Remember me, for without your memories, I am gone'.

Print at A4

Pincushion Jungle

In a moment of madness, I bought this set of napkin holders at a local antique market.  I don't even own a napkin, and neither do I entertain at home so have no need of things like this.  My idea was to turn them into a set of pincushions.  

They languished in the 'crafts to do' box for quite a while till the fancy took me to do something different.  The challenge of securing the two cushions for the pins at either side took some thinking about, finally settling on a cotton lined velvet mini bolster.  

The elephant and tiger were easy to identify, the hippo identified by its teeth, but still not sure about the last one, possibly a warthog, or rhino, or something else.   They lined up for a photo and then the question of where do I keep them, how many pincushions so I really need?  

I tested how much pin weight it took before they fell over, more than I thought, thanks to the density of the wood. 

A few weeks later, I found a fifth napkin holder, another elephant, but carved by a very different hand.  I decided to make this one into my own pincushion and let the others go to a new home.  

Onto the next project!

Beginners - 1. The First Stitch

The first steps in bobbin lace are the most important.  The first two techniques - cross and twist - are the staples of bobbin lace making and will be used in all the stitches and styles of bobbin lace.

Video is available here on my youtube channel

https://youtu.be/Rond_FBjcbY?si=yATYUQusGnauFI1O

  

One of the first things you get told is to look at the threads, not the bobbins.  But, you have spent ages, and possibly lots of money getting a set of bobbins, why wouldn't you want to look at them all the time?  Because it is what happens at the end of the threads, the bit on the pillow, that is actually where the lace is being made.  A glance to make sure your bobbins are in the right place, sure, that helps, but when you have the same colour thread on 50 pairs of bobbins, how do you tell from looking at the bobbins if one has jumped over another and mixed up the threads?  You can't, you look at  the other end of the thread, on the pillow, see if a twist is missing, a pin in the wrong place, tension gone a bit awry, which is the next pin, the bobbins can't tell you this.  Look at the lace. 

But don't worry about that yet.  That will come in time.  First, have a go at a little bit of weaving, get used to handling the bobbins, get yourself so familiar with the basics that you don't need to even think about them because your hand/eye/bobbin movement will be second nature. 

A cloth stitch, (a simple weave made of just three movements, a cross, a twist and a cross), works side to side with one pair of bobbins.  This incredibly versatile stitch may look simple to do, but combining  twists and crosses makes it into many different stitches and patterns.  

The half stitch is the other simple stitch, made of just two movements, (a cross and a twist, which splits up the pairs of bobbins on the pillow).  Half stitch is often combined with cloth stitch to create even more stitches.   

The first of these easy going videos shows twists and crosses,  cloth and half stitch, explains pins, tensions and bobbin hitches at an absolute beginner level.