BAL part eight (bucks point lace) and recap

 This is a quick recap of where we are with the Bucks Point lace a long as I will now be missing the next couple of lessons due to commitments . I will however prep the pricking ( pattern) and wind he bobbins ready for when I can play catch up.

So far we have lessons one to four on strip one, reading right to left.

 Point ground, honeycomb ground, introduction of gimps (outline thread ) and traditional sheep head pattern.

Strip two 

Traditional pattern Plum Pudding, each pattern introduces new elements into the lace.

Strip three

Peacocks Eye from the Jean Leader book Introduction to Bucks Point Lace, pattern redrafted from a lace eding in the Guild Collection.

Strip four

Rings and Tallies from the Jean Leader book Introduction to Bucks Point Lace, pattern redrafted from a lace edging in the Guild Collection.

Strip five

Traditional pattern found in many lace books, this version is from the Jean Leader book but the next lesson on how to work the corner will be taken from one of several Pamela Nottingham books.

new lace project inspired by charity shop find

 Hi,

As you may have guessed, we have been away on our travels and one of our stops was at Dunster in Somerset. More about the Castle in a future post ( Interesting cross stitch) but we did call into the doll museum for a quick look round there second hand books and bric a brac on the way back to the bus stop.

That was where I spotted this little lady looking sad and unwanted with a price tag of £1.00, how could I leave her on the shelf? so she came back to the van with us and I think that it would be an interesting project to replace all the machine lace with bobbin lace. What do you think? shouldn't be too big a job and I do have a book of miniature lace patterns sat on the shelf at home,

The dress bodice is glued to the doll as is the cap but I think that I can get around that,

The chair and stand need a good sand down and maybe a coat of something. I have all the threads that I may need and it gives me an excuse to keep a lace pillow handy over the next few weeks,

BTW She is standing up due to not having knees and the complexity of the lace produced by just four bobbins is astounding.

A bit of this and a bit of that

 Thursday morning saw me in my usual spot a Cafe Sobar with my lace pillow, I am currently working through some old patterns  as I've found that I have forgotten quite a bit over the years, 

Concentrating on Bucks point, I am working my way through Geraldine Stott visual guide to Bucks point lace (again)

I'm currently on lesson three, I know I have left the pins in the temporary starting holes and the thread is thicker than required but I'm using up oddments in my thread stash.

At the moment its more about making sure that my fingers remember this style of lace and don't revert back to Torchon lace.

I managed a small amount of spinning which I hope to finish today (Friday)

Its raining again so no fleece washing but I have started to process the Ryeland.

In other news, we had a phone call last night from the company who are due to refurbish the van in June saying that they have had a cancellation and would we like to drop it off on Saturday so our weekend plans have been totally turned around. This also means that the campsite that we had booked for an auto event in June, that we cancelled two nights ago when we realised we wouldn't have a van has been hastily rebooked !

Speak soon x

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

craftiness in a box

 What's in the box ? 

I know some of you may already have seen this a few years ago but many of you haven't.

I'm giving a very small lacemaking demo/lesson with another lacemaker of Saturday and I'm unable to get my usual pillow into my rucksack and if I'm having a crutches day I will be stuck for carrying things. I made this pillow a number of years ago but it still does the job so I've started a 'simple' torchon strip of lace.

This gave my brain a work out, firstly I have the pricking and no instructions or number of bobbins to be used, then I had to try and remember how to do this type of lace as I usually do Bucks Point lace. Torchon is my usual go to option for a demo (it's been a while) as its easier to pick up and down between questions and as its quite angular you can point out the different stitches and direction to work in.

There are a few mistakes in the first repeat, not really mistakes, more trying to find the right fit for the pattern but I'm not worried as I probably won't do anything with it.

I've been doing a little spinning.

and a little knitting so I now have three woolly hats waiting to be soaked and blocked.

A few stitches have been added to the big red thing and the black thing :-)

I have another hat on the needles and plan to spin up some cheviot fleece later this week. I think that about sums up all my craftiness over the last couple of weeks. My diary now seems to be a heady mixture of coffee dates, dentist, and covid jab over the next few days so I will update again as soon as I get chance.

Take care xx

bobbin along

 Hi

Its been a quiet week, cold and wet most days so I've been slowly sorting through things and starting to pack for the next road trip, our first since last October.

I did get chance to finish dyeing my yarns and label them all up. Ended up with a nice selection which will find their way to a new home next week.

A spur of the moment purchase for £5 brought these beauties to my door, two still need beads but they will all be added to my collection.

I've had the chance to stitch a little more on my monochrome embroidery.

I'm looking forward to seeing friends again, hopefully later in the year we will be able to stay with friends in Cornwall and before then we hope to catch up with others who live in Scotland. The UK is beginning to feel like its opening up a bit more, more people out and about although I still can't go and sit inside a coffee shop and its too cold to sit outside ! However, more restrictions will be lifted next week.

That's about it for now, speak soon x

just a quick crafty update

 HI

Well, the paints are still in their boxes, the yarn got as far as being wound into a cake. I've tried half a dozen times to cast on a simple shawl and failed each time so I suspect it will sit around for a while.

I cut the lace off the pillow following a mishap.

but the cross stitch has been started !!

and that's about it, short and sweet this week xx