Saturday, March 23, 2013

I think I'm going to like this

I don't know what I'll ever do with it but this was a fun, quick project.  I've got a couple more prickings picked out to work.  They're a little more involved than this one but this was really good practice.  It measures about 7 inches tall and 4 inches wide.  Maybe I should do a little grass and frame it.  That would be a very Victorian look, wouldn't it.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Randomness

Random thought #1 - I heard the most ironic statement today from our UPS delivery person.  He was telling someone that he'd been bumped from that particular route but they could just have it, he couldn't wait to get out of it.  This is the UPS guy that continually complains about the number of packages he has to deliver to our office.  Today when he was singing the same song, the irony hit me again.

Dude, you're a UPS delivery guy.  What did you think you were going to do when you were hired by UPS and they gave you a big brown truck?  Plant petunias?  Really?  I laughed all day long about that.

Random thought #2 - During the bobbin lace class a couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies had a book called "Bobbin Lace, A Contemporary Approach" by Brigita Fuhrmann.  I really liked the way it was laid out and the really good close-ups of the steps of each lace she was describing so I found it on Amazon. 

One of the types of lace I've been more and more interested in called Tape Lace.  It's the type of lace very common in Eastern Europe and Russia.  This book had wonderful descriptions of the various techniques used in tape laces. 
Here's the study from the book that puts together all the methods of turning corners and making sewings that she described so far in this section.  I'm really digging it.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with it but I'm digging it.

You can see how you just use a few bobbins (in this case 5 pairs) and you follow the outline of the graphic, joining and turning as you go.  The next thing to go into is the various fillers that are worked when the tapes don't run so close together.

There's just always too much to learn, isn't there?

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Spania Dolina

Running away can do wonders for the mental state of a person.  It doesn't hurt when you are running to lace.  At the LACE meeting, the program was on a type of lace that originated in a Slovakian town called Spania Dolina.  The lace is what you would think of when you think of the beautiful folk costumes of Eastern Europe.  Here are some samples the teacher had:

Beautiful, isn't it?

Making the fans on the edge was the trickiest bit but the ladies who were helping us were very good at explaining what to do and we kept them hopping!

I only got a few of the fans finished by the end of the meeting so I had to come home and try to remember what I was doing.  I would work a section, realize it was wrong and take it out.  I won't tell you how many times that happened but let's just say, more than once and less than 105!

But I'm thrilled that I was finally able to get it finished.

I thought the yellow and white would be very springy, but a brighter color would probably looked a little more authentic.