The Puzzle's the Thing

I love learning new things and I love figuring stuff out.  At heart, I'm a problem solver, I guess. 

I've done a couple of projects now from vintage patterns that include tatting a "frame" and then needleweaving inside it.  Generally the patterns have been flower shaped (more or less).  As I've been playing around with this, I've discovered what similarities it has with Reticella work.  Have a look here and here.  Although these are much more intricate than anything I'm doing, it still bears a resemblance to how it's worked. 

My friend Karen Poulakos is vending at the Round Bobbin show in St Charles, Missouri, this weekend and I told her I would come along and demo at their booth on Saturday.  (If you're in the St Louis area, be sure to stop by booths 308 and 310 and say hi.)  While we were talking about it, I made the comment of wouldn't it be fun to do specific demos at specified times so maybe people will come by more often throughout the day.  So we hit on doing the following:

11 am - start spinning with a drop spindle

12 pm - knit or crochet with unspun silk hankies

1 pm - anatomy of yarns: tips to choosing the right yarn

2 pm - spinning cotton from the seed.

3 pm - needle weaving.

 

Most of the subjects are things I can do with my eyes closed but the needleweaving was a bit of a challenge because I haven't done that much of it.  I needed some samples.  See what you think of this:

 

 You've seen the brown tatting project.  It's not yet finished because I'm going to use that for my demonstration on Saturday.

 The pink panel at the bottom was just a filet crochet "frame" (instead of the tatted frame) with 3 different designs worked inside.  Click on the image to see it more up close.

The little medialian was done completely differently.  The frame was done by laying the thread out in a square, pinning the four corners, doing a buttonhold stitch around to make the fram and then working the leaves.  I wanted an example of more of a weaving base for the petals and this is what happened.  It has such an art deco look to it.  I can just see that sort of image being used for the Miami hotels or something like the Chrystler Building.