Tradition

 

As was rightly pointed out, what has been traditionally accepted can be changed.

We are exposed to something - like a 'traditional' craft and tend to follow along with what is the 'norm'.  So for me, bobbin lace has always been fine work (in the respect of using fine threads).  This quality of cloth was appealing to me, in no small part because I tend to weave with what are traditionally (in weaving) considered fine threads.  Bobbin lace took 'fine' to a whole new level!

When I started making bobbin lace in 1995, lace makers were still primarily using white, mostly linen, sometimes cotton, more rarely silk threads.  As the 1990s rolled into the new century, more and more lace makers began incorporating coloured threads into their lace, which I thought was an excellent move.  Because I had a lot of 2/20 mercerized cotton in my weaving stash, I jumped into working with colour immediately.

I watched lace makers come to grips with how colour moved through the lace, noted when more and more of them began to use colour in untraditional ways.  Which ones 'worked' and which ones didn't.

But we all have our 'normal' and the comment yesterday broke me out of my mindset of working with very fine threads.

Not that I will stop using them - I have a rather large stash of threads!  My own purchases, gifts from my lace making friend, my mom's quilting threads.  But now I'm thinking about lace making with thicker threads and considering what I can do with the craft in a different way.

I doubt I will come to any conclusions any time soon.  Instead I will probably make a bunch of the little birds that I made a number of years ago.  They are small, don't take up a lot of thread, can be inserted into Xmas cards (not that I send many these days).  I made about 3 dozen and experimented with colours, adding metallic threads and just generally enjoying making a small project.  For some reason that appeals to me right now.

On the other hand, I still have a bunch of other things that are occupying me, such as stash reduction in my weaving yarns, setting up the Sunday Seminars (two now officially booked, two more to let me know date they can do it, several more on my list to contact).

I am working on one more puzzle, then the puzzle board will go away and I'll bring out the spinning.  I have decided on a new item I would like to make with handspun - cowls.  Knitted, not woven.

Yesterday I sleyed the warp and last night just before bed I tied on and wound bobbins.  It looks like there is enough black to weave maybe 15 towels.  The rest of the warp will be woven with the same green as what went into the warp.  I have a bunch of very close to empty tubes of that and would love to get them emptied and the tubes into the recycle bin.

Then there is the blue/purple(ish) yarn, and then perhaps another white warp, then another beige warp.  By the end of those, I don't know that there will be enough selection to do any more tea towels.  Yay?

But all of that said - that takes me into 2021 - nearly.  So with the new year, I will move on to something else other than tea towels.

Speaking of which, the three orders of tea towels I mailed to the US appear to be heading to their recipients safely.  One has already been delivered, one seems to be circling the block, and hopefully the other will soon arrive at its destination, too.

So for anyone in the US willing to chance the USPS being able to deliver a parcel, I will mail to the US, but only with a tracking number - which costs more, but I won't send without it.  Email me with colour preferences and I can send photos of what I have on hand.

And if you've made it this far, thank you for reading.