Bobbin lace - lace weight this time!

Me and wonderful mum went back for another class with Louise West in the summer.  We had our first bobbin lace class their earlier in the year and this was the progression.  We made another bookmark, but this time we used lace-weight thread - size 80.

Here is my lace pillow, with the pricked pattern attached and the bobbins wound with the lace thread.  I used a lovely aqua/mint thread for the bobbins and white for the workers.

This pattern is made using just the two stitches that we learnt last time.  It's amazing how different lace can look using just these two stitches.

As last time, I was able to finish the bookmark in the class, the first person to ever do so!  Once I get in the zone, I'm throwing those bobbins around like nobody's business!

Ta dah!  The photos above were all taken in the class room.  The ones below are taken outside in natural light so should show the pattern a bit better.

You can see that the centre is the aqua/mint colour and the frilly bits are white.  I have no idea how people work out lace patterns and know how to get the colours in different places.  it's like magic.

There is actually a bit of mistake in this piece, though i can't see it on the photos.  My tension wasn't very good in one of the aqua/mint areas and you can see a real difference between that and the rest of the pattern.

I'll know to be careful of that in the future.  And there will be a future!  I love making lace and want to go to more classes with Louise.  For my homework she said I have to make the same pattern all in one colour as it's a little bit trickier keeping a grasp on where your workers are.  I haven't started yet...  ooops!

Bobbin Lace take 2

I seem to be flitting from one craft to the other recently, never finishing anything off.  I don't know if it's the weather, or my new medication, or just my illness, but I struggle to find motivation to make anything.

Eagle-memoried readers may remember that I went to a bobbin lace class back in June (see here), and that it was not particularly successful.  We both still wanted to learn this technique so we did some research and found a tutor in Derby which isn't far from Nottingham.  We took a class with Louise West and immediately signed up for the next one, she was an excellent teacher and we both really enjoyed it.

Our weapons of choice.  We pricked out the pattern and then drew pencil lines to connect the dots.  This is done on a piece of glazed card (the brown one).  After penciling in the lines, we had to go over it in ink and then rub the pencil lines out.  I thought this was a bit of a faff, but on more complex patterns it is probably essential.  We then chose some colours of Perle 8 cotton.

Apparently, I didn't take one single in-progress photo, I clearly was enjoying it!  I managed to finish the whole piece in the class which was great, no UFO!  We made a bookmark.  

There are a variety of stitches, or rather stitch combinations, in this piece, I'm going to list them as an aide-memoire for me, if you're curious to know what they are, you will have to learn bobbin lace, I know a good teacher!  I started at the top with cloth stitch, followed by half stitch which is so hard to keep track of.  I then moved onto half stitch with a twist at each end to make the lacy bits.  After this I added in a twist in the middle, and finally, on the last section, a twist after every stitch.

I really enjoyed making this, I had grand plans to make some more in different colour combinations, but of course, that hasn't yet happened.

The crazy thing is, considering I'm a crafter and that most of the crafts I practice can whip up a bookmark in minutes, I don't have very many book marks and had been using a receipt before I made this!

more bobbin lace

Earlier this month I told you about a bobbin lace class I'd taken.  It inspired me to get my kit out again and have another go.  This is a House of Crafts kit and I tried it before (see here) back in January 2015 with little success.  

This time it was easier.

The kit only came with one skein of the green thread, it certainly wasn't enough especially as I'd wasted loads so I bought some stranded cotton to replace it - not realising that it wasn't stranded cotton in the original kit!  Because of this, this sepal I'm making in the photo above came out far too chunky.

The actual flower parts use a very fine thread, it says DMC 80 on the ball, but I'm not sure what it actually is.  A crochet cotton?  It really is extremely fine.

I soon got the hang of it and was throwing those bobbins around!

I'm not sure it's the neatest piece of lace ever made, but I was pretty pleased with my attempt.

Here it is in all its finished glory.  A very simple pattern but I think it does look like lace, which was the aim!

I've made two so far - the one on the left is gathered into a flower as per the instructions, the one on the right is sewn up into a loop, ready to be gathered.

Here are the two sepals I made.  The one on the left is with all 6 strands of embroidery floss, you can see how chunky it is!  The one on the right uses just two strands, I think that's the way to go!

The instructions say to make 3 flowers in total, each slightly different.  However, and this is a big minus point, there is NO photo of the finished piece so I have no idea what it's supposed to be!!  A bookmark maybe?

bobbin lace

At the start of last year I cracked open a House of Crafts Bobbin Lace kit and had a go - you can see the results in this post.  For some reason, me being me probably, I didn't pick it up again.  When a bobbin lace class appeared on the 2016 class schedule at The Bead Shop Nottingham, mum fancied a go so I thought I'd give it another try, maybe some tuition would help.

The equipment required is a hay pillow (a large, flat cushion stuffed with hay that means the pins go in and don't wiggle around), sets of bobbins (the beaded spangles on the bottom are to distinguish them), a pricking pattern, pins and some kind of thread.  As we were making jewellery we used S-lon cord which is a thinnish cord.  It is not stranded which helps immensely!  The first stage was to wind the cord onto the bobbins in pairs.  It took bloody ages!  The damn stuff kept slipping off.

Here is the start of my bracelet.  I have to say, I have absolutely no idea what happened here or how this was made.  The teacher opted for the don't-bother-showing-or-telling-them-what-to-do-just-do-it-for-them method of teaching.  I'd like to point out she's not a member of the Bead Shop staff.  I was, to put it mildly, a bit frustrated by this.

Anyway, we soon figured out the actual body of the bracelet and I got the pattern.  It was pretty easy once I got going.  There was supposed to be a row of beads down the sides, but I kept forgetting to push them up so my beads are random.  On purpose, of course.

Twisty!  Here's what the finished article looks like.

I added the buttons for the closure at home.  I just kind of wung it and tied and glued and cut and hoped for the best.

Not the neatest closure.  I had to go for two buttons as in the initial teacher-doing-it-for-me bit, she made the closure loop and I didn't have any buttons big enough to fit it!

It was interesting, and after the initial disappointment, I rather enjoyed it.  AND, I can say I'll be doing this again as I already have!  I've picked up that kit again and I'm a couple of flowers in... that reminds me, I haven't taken any photos...

making lace

A couple of years ago I got a lacemaking kit from my parents for either my birthday or Christmas.  I got a few craft kits this year for both my birthday and Christmas, so decided it was time to start an old one!  This is for making bobbin lace.

The contents seemed a bit bizarre until I actually got down to it. The polystyrene roll is the worksurface, it's now been covered in the navy fabric provided.  Each of the bobbins had to have a beaded dangle attached, that took me ages!

I could have sworn I'd taken a work in progress photo, but I can't find one so clearly I didn't.  I'll get one next time.  

This is the piece of lace I made.  Don't laugh!  It was my first time...  One the right is the start and it seems I was doing it wrong, then I started doing it right and made the rest of the piece.  As I was following the instructions I realised that they were to make a rose with petals and leaves and a decoration at the back.  I thought it was just making random pieces of lace.  As my attempt wasn't quite perfect, I plan to start again, but I need to get some more of the thread first, it's just DMC but I'm not sure I'll have enough left.

I promise that next time I'll take some photos of the set up and tell you more of what's involved.  I really enjoyed trying something new, must do it more often!