What If? lace experiment continues

I've ended up with 24 pairs of bobbins and a bit of guesswork but it should be interesting to see if the lace ground shows the distortion clearly once completed. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment!!

Still it keeps me busy and stops me from stressing about the day job.

I must admit that I am looking forward to a weekend at home so I can sort out the house a bit as at the moment it is full of wet tent and sleeping bags.

Fun with my camera

guzzisue's Crashes
Originally uploaded by BIKER LIFE CRASH TEST DUMMY

I also belong to a flickr group called Biker LIfe and we have a photo competition every two weeks or so. Up to now I had managed 2nd and 3rd place.Today I logged on and saw this..........

"what if" bobbin lace experiments continue

I hope you can see this! its a basic pattern for torchon ground in lace making, in other words regular dots. Each dot is where you would put a pin and the finished result would be a regular mesh.
So, what would happen if I run this pattern through my Corel software and distort it? would i still be able to follow it? will it hold together?

now to find some thread and wind my bobbins.

the big Giveaway draw

I invited Biker Ted to make the draw, sort of forgot that he has problems bending his arms so he improvised with some sellotape !!

The winner was Lise, many thanks to everyone who took part.

Border Patrol 2008

We are back home, tired, muddy but happy as we have just returned from a camping weekend organised by our club Drake MCC, Pintpullers MCC and Tamar MCC. Around 70 bikers attended and we raised over £900 for the Air Ambulance Service!!






more photos here

I spent two mornings cooking breakfast, sausage and bacon whilst fellow bikers Alan and Robbie took care of the eggs and beans. Ian and Biker Ted were left in charge of the washing up.

TAST revisited, week eleven

Still playing catch up-Up and Down Buttonhole Stitch

My first bobbin lace ATC

The lace is off the pillow and I realise that I don't want to add embroidery but simply have the lace alone.

The Atc has a cutaway so the lace structure can be seen more clearly.


I suspect I will soon be playing with my bobbins again!!

Maybe with wire??

Ouch

Stitching temporarily suspended, typing this with one hand as I have tendon damage to the other. Should be ok very soon but I'm still taking painkillers.
Went to watch this on Sunday, photos a little shaky as camera held mainly with one hand.

TAST revisited, week 14

week 14, Bonnet stitch, cotton and wool on embellished background.


Lace experiment continues :-)

I was hoping to stitch more today but I was my usual clumsy self, tripped up and bruised both hand and knees, look like a little kid with scuffed trousers. Anyway it put a stop to the stitching for a while but hopefully will be a bit better by tomorrow as we are off the watch the bike racing. I hope you all have a good weekend.

What If? lace experiment continues

now adding silk embroidery threads.

Remember my giveaway here, even Biker Ted has been adding his comment ( no he can't win, that would be cheating, oh yes it would!!)

What if?

Some of you may have been following What if? blog stretching the boundaries on crazy quilting and beyond. Whilst I really want to have a go at this soon, anther thought came into my mind. What if I ignore the lace books, load my bobbins withWool/silk/cashmere mix and hand embroidery cotton and simply put the pins where I want.......will it simply fall to pieces when I take the pins out? can I embroider the spaces and make an atc?..........



Blog giveaway link here, open for comments until 26 October.

Sunday Playday

Hey, its Sunday, I get to play!!

Blog giveaway link here, open for comments until 26 October.

Belated 100,200,300 post GIVEAWAY

As promised, here is my much delayed giveaway, I am giving away the lace bookmark ( now completed) together with a goody bag to the first name drawn out of the hat in two weeks time. All comments on my blog between now and then will enter the draw and the winner be picked by special guest blogger Biker Ted.

First here is the completed lace.


If you've not seen bobbin lace being made, visit here for a demo.

The winner will also get this pile of goodies to play with :-)
so why not drop a comment on below, I would love to hear from you.

Workspace (TIF October)

Sharon suggested that we might like to post pictures of our workspace/studio/room, so here you are!!
Ok, I admit that I did tidy up a bit first, my room usually looks more chaotic than this.

The lace is progressing well, should finish it at the weekend, keep tuned

This was my Grans dinning room table, its taken quite a beating over the years but opened out fully it gives me a great sewing machine table.

A rescued office desk is home for my computer, cd player etc plus it has pull out shelves which are really useful when using the table as wellPart of my library along with Indian puppets and bags.

Some of the chaos found in plastic bags- gave me an idea for this months challenge...........My workspace is usually chaotic and out of chaos I am trying to make some sort of order. Now I don't knit but much of this bag contained strips left over from rugmaking so I found some needles and started knitting, just knit, knit, knit ( I don't do purl)
Maybe a bag? maybe add beads, patches, maybe just a hanging? small rug? what would happen if I put it under the embellisher ( suspect broken needles) for now, I think I will carry on knitting.
Just realised that what you can't see are the big boxes of fabric and threads at the other end of the room, I think I need a bigger room or a radical cull of supplies :-) Claire at Stitched Up last night suggested that we all take in a bag of materials that we no longer use and pass it on to the person sitting on the left hand side of us. Sounds like an idea because every ones stash has the fabric that you loved when you bought it but doesn't "fit" in with what you do now.

I don't usually pass on video from other blogs but thanks to Angelika for spotting this one

Weekend review

No stitching this weekend, too busy ! Saturday we went here :





Nottingham Goose Fair, then Saturday night we went to see this (Finding Nemo on Ice)
we were allowed to take photos for personal use only so I haven't uploaded any.

I spent Sunday with Claire working on material for a workshop being run at the Textile Worshop in Sherwood, Nottingham later this month. We had a great time with transfer paints and crayons but forgot to photo the results before claire took them with her.

Why I love Indian Motorcycles.

They just sound so good !!

October TIF

yes, I know I let September TIF slip by but I was sat by the computer yesterday evening waiting for the October topic ( being in the UK we tend to get it a few hours before the 1st)

This time, Sharon said "This month the challenge is to think about your textile work space. How do you feel about this space? What role does it play in your life?"

Thinking about this over a sandwich at work, I came up with the following : peace, quiet, solitude,escape,comfort,calm, but also chaos, creative, messy, disorder...help, I think I may have a problem :-)

I will mull this over for a few days and see what surfaces, in the meantime I hope to spending some time with Claire at the weekend looking at transferring images to cloth to see how many techniques we can come up with.


Anyway, back to the lace rescue!!