I love bobbin lace.
It amuses me. It fascinates
me. It intrigues me. But I’ve never had a proper lesson.
So when I got a chance to take a workshop with Holly van
Sciver (www.vansciverbobbinlace.com)
through the Lafayette, IN lace guild, I had to jump at it.
There are so many types of bobbin lace and so many options to study for
the weekend. Bedfordshire and Russian
Tape lace are the styles that I’ve gotten most interested in, mostly because of
the ability to use them for pictorial representations, rather than just a
repeated pattern for a lace edging. So I
decided to focus on Bedfordshire lace, so named for the region of England where
it was developed and refined. I won’t go
into the whole history right now but I wanted to show what I learned over the
weekend.
Although I started on pattern 4 of the 4 patterns (when I
was really supposed to start with pattern 1 – who knew?), it was both a
learning project and an encouragement that I was able to the finish it.
What did I learn?
I learned that Beds lace is made up of trails (the flat,
solid sections), plaits (the threads moving among the other elements – I never
made a proper plait until this weekend but I think I’ve got it down now),
picots (another element that I never could figure out how to work properly
until Holly was able to beat it into my head) and tally leaves (ditto).
From the inside out, you see tally leaves, trail, plaits and
picots, and trail.
