Crafting

[ohlia]

Wow Messy, that's beautiful. Hats off to you lady! I think I would spend my whole lifetime and still not be able to learn that craft. Don't the thread ever get tangled?

I can crochet and sew, I like sewing. I haven't done either in quite a while because I find myself spending all my spare time on here.

[Makinamess]

Yep, the threads often do get muddled up, which is why (when they are not being used) they are held in place with stitch holders ! Cats and children can be quite troublesome too, as both ignore the rules of the house - ie. do not touch Messy's lace OR ELSE !!!

A friend of mine one showed me a piece of lace her grandmother had almost finished but it was interrupted by grannie's death. The pillow and all her work were put up in the attic for the next 15 years. When I got to see said piece of work, it was filthy and covered in soot and all the threads looked like the cat had been having a wonderful time with them. I untangled it all (took me a week), undid a few inches, finished it off completely and washed it gently (errr, 3 times), then pinned it all back into shape. My friend now has it framed on her wall in tribute to her grandmother and it is a beautiful piece of lace !

[ohlia]

Yep, the threads often do get muddled up, which is why (when they are not being used) they are held in place with stitch holders ! Cats and children can be quite troublesome too, as both ignore the rules of the house - ie. do not touch Messy's lace OR ELSE !!!

A friend of mine one showed me a piece of lace her grandmother had almost finished but it was interrupted by grannie's death. The pillow and all her work were put up in the attic for the next 15 years. When I got to see said piece of work, it was filthy and covered in soot and all the threads looked like the cat had been having a wonderful time with them. I untangled it all (took me a week), undid a few inches, finished it off completely and washed it gently (errr, 3 times), then pinned it all back into shape. My friend now has it framed on her wall in tribute to her grandmother and it is a beautiful piece of lace !

I bet this piece is priceless to her, she must be so grateful to you. That's so nice of you to do that.

[Makinamess]

Maybe, I don't know. Virtually every experienced lacemaker I know has untangled someone else's work or retrieved and cleaned it from an attic somewhere ! It was a very popular skill some 50 years ago but quite rare these days. I still intend to teach it to my neighbours daughters, I know they are fascinated by the whole process but aren't really old enough yet to start - maybe later this year ?

[Makinamess]

Just to update you, here's a picture of my last piece of lace, professionally framed - the insert of pink really sets it off I think, plus the frame itself has a pink tinge to it. I am actually quite proud of this !

[Yogi]

You have every right to be proud of that. It's beautiful. How long did it take to make that masterpiece? It must have been months if not years.

Can you do a macro shot so that we can see some of the detail?

[Makinamess]

It took about 3 months to complete, but only because I was able to spend week-ends working on it. It was quite a fast pattern actually (unlike the one I'm gonna show below). I can't show you any detail shots of this particular piece of lace because it was given as a present to a friend last week. However, the current piece I am working on is from the same pattern, just a different colour thread here (red instead of salmon pink):-



This piece has also now been framed professionally - shame I'm not a very photographer hehe - it took me about 18 months to complete and is far more complex than the one above.

[Yogi]

Thanks for the pictures Messy. That is way cool. My wife does cross stitching and I thought that was complex. What you you is way beyond that.

So, I'm wondering now, after seeing the work in progress, what keeps it all together once the pins are removed. Do all those knots just lay flat after they have been tied? I'd expect them to curl up or something.

[Makinamess]

They are not really *knots* in the true sense of the word. Lacemaking is a form of weaving (creating a piece of fabric) with the pillow as the loom. The threads are woven around the pins on the pricking card and it's the tension built into the weaving by the weight of the bobbins (the wooden sticks with glass beads - spangles) and by pulling down each thread after a stitch or row of stitches has been completed that holds everything together. On the detail view of the red mat, you will notice that I have left the pins in some of the stitches (the roseground) until I had completed a section of "whole stitch" (the bits that look like woven cloth). If I had taken the pins out before I had a secure section done, they would have collapsed.

[Yogi]

Sounds like witchcraft to me, but it's incredibly beautiful when it's complete - regardless of why it works.

[Valleysailor]

Messy must have the patience of a saint! I would be sooooo cussing those needles and thread for everything under the sun!
Beautiful work, Messy!

[Makinamess]

Just to show that I do make *ahem* slightly more useful stuff, here are some drapes I have just finished:-





(I made the curtains about 25 years ago - they are still going strong)

[Makinamess]

Another piece in an action - this time a bookmark (about 8" long x 1.5" wide):-





and the finished, mounted article (The lace was sewn onto ribbon and then I inserted a piece of card between the layers of ribbon to stiffen it up)