back to the lace

In early August I received a parcel in the post, gave it a shake then realised what it was.

measuring just 32cm x 23cm x16cm it is one of the smallest lace pillows that I have seen. 

I haven't really had chance to test it out yet but I will let you know when I have.

Meanwhile I have bobbins on two pillows, one with Downton lace on it which unfortunately had to be taken off once I discovered that the threads were week and several snapped without my help. A shame as I do like the pattern and was planning to make a longer strip.

I then sorted out my recent purchases, second hand bobbins and threads from a Lace pop in session.

                and set up a traditional pattern called sheeps head to use on the lace doll.

This is as far as I got with the Downton lace

more purchases, two new ebony bobbins and another antique bone bobbin.

I plan to get back to lace making in October and have a good play with the travel pillow.

What's in the box (s) ??

 As some of you may know, I am trying to seriously destash the house and hopefully cut the contents by at least a third.  The pile of boxes for the charity shop is getting large again and we had another trip to the recycle centre at the weekend.

I'm trying to rationalize my craft stash and even offered a large amount of items for free on a local facebook page. In spite of several organizations replying and saying they wanted them, none have actually replied to any of my messages or posts when I have said they could have them !!

Today I decided to throw out what I thought were two empty boxes that have been in my cupboard for many years except for the fact that they rattled when I took them down from the shelf.

So I opened them....

First, the blue one which turned out to have my Honiton bobbins in, along with an assortment of vintage bobbins collected over the years.

The bottom photo is a small collection of old travel bobbins which are shorter than the ones I usually use. Most of the others are very old, picked up from antique and second hand shops on our travels, others have been passed on to me once people find out that I have an interest in lace making.

The second box contained a number of old crochet hooks, quite a few lace making accessories including some old pins for dividing up the threads and yet more bobbins !

A little wooden sewing set, the inside of the spool is hollow for your needles. I think I bought this off a market in France on one of our road trips.

And this looks like a spool holder?

As we travelled around by motorcycle, bobbins were a good size to collect on our travels and some of these are from Belgium, Italy and I think that there are some from the Czech Republic.

Others are from different parts of the UK.

I think that I would like to make a proper display of these sometime.

Speak soon x

More restrictions

Its my usual 6am and its very dark outside. Today we will hear what the latest lockdown instructions will be, as the city I live in has the highest infection rate I suspect that our travels will be severely curtailed.

In the meantime I will stitch, make lace and knit so I apologize if this blog is getting a little repetitive and boring for the next few weeks.

I nearly forgot, I bought some more bobbins !!

They are so pretty, also they have some lovely little details such as this one which has a picture of a bee on it and a glass bead in the shape of a bee.

The collection also included a few vintage bobbins, the ones with the metal bands are South bucks bobbins which I think were known as known as jingles or jangles .

                                        The bobbin with the metal disc provided a mystery.

Under a magnifying glass the metal disc was revealed to be a quarter farthing dated 1848 interestingly these were only ever used as currency in Ceylon !

In other lace news, I have set up another sample ready to be worked.

the work on the cross stitch continues, progress is slow but at over 150 stitch per inch it is going to be !

the big bobbin sort out

Good morning

Firstly I must warn you that I go back to full time work next week so posts may go to just one a week, we will see what happens.

I have finished sorting my bobbins and all the nice usable ones are now safely stashed in their cases.

 I emptied my box of oddments to see what I had, these vary from the very old to continental, one or two have obviously been carved with a penknife!

I have an old lace pillow somewhere so may set something up on that for demos, quite a few pf these have been used by myself on the past. I had a happy few minutes sorting these into groups.

I also had a play with the camera :-)

 That's about it for now, I have a coffee date this afternoon with a spinner who wants to borrow my wool combs, as I have his inkle loom I think its a fair request :-)

Pillow Lace

Morning,
Nice and sunny here today and it's a bank holiday which means I will be in the garden in the next few mins. First a quick update on whats on my lace pillow.....



Ongoing, easy project, good for demos :-)

Bobbins on the pillow............





Not my best set of bobbins but interesting enough for anyone who wants to look at them.

I recently acquired a bag of bobbins and a pillow to sell for charity, the more durable ones have been put on one side and I will make up a kit to sell to a new lace maker in the new couple of weeks, some will enter my own collection for use at demos and teaching ( I'm going to treat myself to them using my birthday pennies)

Some of the bobbins were totally dried out, the spangles (wire and beads) fell off as I lifted them out of the bag.



So they are being treated to some Teak oil to try and breath a bit of like back onto them.



Starting to see a difference last night...........and this morning after two applications.



Definitely looking more usable, I suspect I may be shipping for beads later today :-)

Have a great day x

Bobbin along

On Bank Holiday Monday I joined the other volunteers at The Framework Knitters Museum for their Workers Play Time event. Usually I take my spinning wheel over to the museum but this time they asked if I knew anyone who did any other sort of craft. I admitted that I did know how to make bobbin lace and offered to put a display together with lace pillows where people could have a go for themselves.

It has been a while since I touched my lace making equipment and I spent a few evenings working on a strip of Torchon lace just to get the feel for it again, after all, no point trying to show people how to do it if I've forgotten the basics myself!!

I found my old samples and remounted them into a proper display book and found a couple of small canvas that came with easels in a local discount book store and used them to display different types of bobbins. Because I have given away/sold most of my completed pieces, I took along a couple of pieces of  bobbin lace that I had rescued from a charity shop and I hope that the original owner approves of them being used for this purpose.

The green bookmark is one of the pieces

and the hankie in the foreground is the other

Spinning was represented along with quilting

rag rug making

and natural dyeing.

The sun stayed out, the local community choir entertained us and a great day was had by all.