Still Weaving

 but on a much smaller scale!

After sorting through my bobbin lace supplies over the past few days and getting one-on-one 'classes' set up for next month, I quite literally dusted off one of my pillows and set about trying to get this tiny star finished.  It is barely larger than a dollar coin and quite frankly I could not remember how it was supposed to be made so I made my best guess and forged onwards.

It is now ready to be sewn up (tail to beginning), then I'll braid a hanging cord and take it off the pillow.

It was with a sigh of relief that I sat down and actually remembered (or my hands did) how to do the cloth stitch (ie plain weave) the star is mostly made with.  I will have to see if I can find the book I took the design out of and re-read the instructions.

One thing is abundantly clear - I will have to enlarge designs so that I can actually see what I'm doing.  My eyes just aren't as good as they were and such tiny threads and pins packed so closely together make it hard to see the pricking (the design I'm following).

I had a bit of a bobbin lace 'stash' to begin with, then when mom died, I kept all her sewing thread (mostly quilting thread) because those bits of spools held enough to do small items in bobbin lace.  Then, as I 'finished' weaving with the 2/20 mercerized cotton, I figured those nearly empty tubes could also be used for bobbin lace.  I used to use 2/20 merc cotton all the time and it worked well.  I will never make bobbin lace with anything finer than those threads now.  But I understand what it takes to use really fine yarns and appreciate the exquisite nature of such delicate textiles.

Since I am not interested in committing to large projects, I will stick with tiny things like this star.  Even enlarged, it will still be 'tiny' and will only take a few hours to make.

My local fibre arts guild is looking at joining forces with a couple other guilds to make a tree for the Festival of Trees, so that is a perfect excuse to make small items like this star, or the birds I was going to try making again.  

There are two 'classes' (tasters, just to see if anyone is interested in continuing) booked for February, and I would be willing to do at least one more.  These are one-on-one, a lace pillow and bobbins will be supplied, and I have 3 'kits' consisting of pillow, bobbins and a book on lace that I can sell to anyone interested.

I know there are lace makers in town, but none currently involved in the Fibre Arts Guild, so it would be nice to grow a few more.  Then we could set up a lace making group.

In the meantime, I need to practice my skills and get comfortable reading prickings and explaining how the bobbins move to create cloth.

Bobbin lace is weaving, but where your warps can turn into wefts, where plain weave can morph into knots, twists, and turns, creating the 'holes' in the cloth that make 'lace'.

Bobbin lace is dated to around the 1400s, generally accepted to have started in Italy, then spreading across Europe.  

There are elements of sprang, netting and weaving involved, and of course we all know those gigantic lace 'collars' from paintings from the 1500s.  Yards and yards of extremely fine threads made into those iconic (and very stiff) collars.

Now, most bobbin lace makers do smaller items - window dangles, bookmarks, decorative edgings to adorn collars and cuffs.  In the 1980s lace makers began to break out of the traditional and use colour and now there are many lace makers working with colour to great effect.

For me, though, it is another way of 'weaving' that is less physical and may provide a way to keep playing with threads if weaving becomes too...much...for my body.

For now, however, it would just be nice to grow a group of people also interested in this craft.

Register here if interested.  (Scroll down to get to the lace listing)