my own bobbinlace pattern

I read somewhere that the real mark of a bobbinlace maker is the ability to make tallies. I ahve now been making lace for years and I decided it was time to take the next step. In the book "Gekloppelte Reticella" there are lots of pieces of milanese lace pictures that all contain multiple tallies. Since I do not have a teacher, I have had to learn from books. In this case I turned to youtube.com. A search of bobbinlace tallies came up with a few different methods for making them. I started the piece of lace adn tried multiple different ways each time I came to another tally. It is pretty easy to tell which end of the lace was the beginning. The tallies are hopeless. By the end of the piece they are getting a little better. The tallies are the filled in triangles coming out of the middle of the first third and fifth medallions.

 

You can see in the first medallion that the triangles are not well formed at all. Either they are vanishingly small or have rouge threads sticking out. By the fifth medallion I have begun to get some consistancy. After this small piece, I started another immeidately to continue practicing. I also want to use this pattern around the collar of the elizabethan smock.

 

In other thing I had been wanting to try was making my own pattern from an existent piece of lace. I decided to start out fairly simple and make a piece of lace from "Old Italian Lace" by Elena ricci. the piece I chose is made entirely from braids intertwined. I copied a picture of the lace and made a variety of samples of different sizes. I did not see anywhere in the book, the original size of the samples. I made 3 small samples of the lace with different sized of linen thread.

 

 

The first piece is made with 35/2 thread while the middle one is 60/2 and the far right is 80/2. I did them in order from left to right. I personally like the one farthest to the right, the thinnest thread. comparing it to the orginal picture, I think the thinnest one looks closest.

 

 

 

These pieces of lace are numbers #36 for the tally trial, and #37, 38 and #39 for the A&S 50 challenge. Next, I am going to try a piece that has mixed braids and grounds from the same source. I am working out of Volume II in the section on Venisian lace.

Lace update

It has been a while since I last posted my progress on the bobbin lace for the 16th C smock. I have just finished the longest piece, the one which will go around the collar. At this point I have 11 pieces done out of the 20 that the project needs.

When I finished the 2 pieces which will run down the top of the arms, I determined I did not like that pattern all that much and wanted to do something else for the other pieces on the arms. The second and third pieces from the top are the ones that will go on the top of the arms. I decided to try making a piece of lace directly from one of the patterns in Le Pompe, the pattern book drawn in the 16th century. This is my first attempt at doing something that did not have a modern interpretation of the pattern. you can just see the pattern from the book under the threads. The piece on the left that is loose was my first attempt. I decided quite quickly that the threads were too thin. They were 90/2. The second piece uses 60/2 thread, which I think looks much better. The first one just looked too spidery and light. I am a little worried about how a piece of lace using such coarse thread will look next to the other pieces I have made for this project. They all use considerably finer thread.

Now I have also found a new book; Seventeenth Century Women's Dress Patterns by Susan North and Jenny Tiramani. This book shows the bobbinlace from the original smock that I am trying to replicate in much higher magnification. They also have patterns for the bobbinlace. Though they are fairly simplistic. The one I looked at in detail did not seem to have quite enough lines to show the paths of all the bobbins, but I have not tried it yet so I may be wrong. Anyway, I should be able to replicate the pattern for the pieces of lace they have on the arms. I am very excited about this. I have been trying to find a pattern which had a similar overall appearance. Now I will be able to replicate the original much more accurately. The book also shows a pattern for the smock itself. I had not even started to think about how I was going to put this all together yet. The smock they show is the one which is also in Janet ARnold's book that has a chevron pattern on bobbinlace. When I started this project, I decided I wanted to make a smock with teh bobbinlace applied in a straight instead of slanted pattern. It is more a combination of the two laced smocks in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 4 on page 60. Now with the combination of the two books, it has become much easier.

More lace finally

I finally finished the next piece of lace for the Elizabethan Smock. This one took a long time to complete. It was 18 inches long and used 52 bobbins. While this is not a huge number, it is the most I have used so far.

The piece in the middle is the new one. This picture shows all the pieces I have completed so far. That is 6 out of 19. This is going to take me years to finish. Some of the pieces which I still have to do are quite small and will not take long, but there is also at least one more piece like the one I just finished. The original is on page 60 of Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion IV. I have made a major change in the pattern. There are 2 smocks in this book. One has straight inserts of needlelace and the other has diagonal inserts of bobbinlace. I decided I liked the look of the straight inserts, but wanted to do them in bobbinlace. The two garments are so closely related, I feel secure in making that change. I have tried to stay with the same general type of lace patterns. The pictures of the lace in the book are not quite close enough for me to try to do a replication of the actual patterns of the original smock. anyway, 6 down 13 to go.

Smock Lace

This is just going to be a quick update. I have finished the forth piece of lace for the Elizabethan Smock. Four down, fifteen left to go. This is going to take a long time. The other problem is that the pictured smock both have one a couple patterns of lace in all the pieces inset into the bodice. I really don't want to make the same pattern over and over again, so I am going to introduce a couple other patterns. I believe I will make all the pieces for the sleeves with the same pattern. The two pieces on the outside will be around the cuffs, and the ones on the inside are placed along side the front opening. Next I want to start on the main pieces in the sleeves. There are six strips of lace on the sleeves. One long piece running down the top of the arm and smaller pieces on the front and back. At this point I plan on making the sleeves inserts all the same pattern, but they are also the longest. I may become bored with one pattern all that time, and make the smaller pieces something else. We will see how it goes.

There are a couple of things which I have not recorded since I have not written in a while. First the Elizabethan smock I am making is based on one pictured in Janet Arnold's Pattern's of Fashion 4. There are 2 smocks, one with bobbinlace inserts and one with reticella inserts. I liked the pattern of the second smock, but prefer to make bobbinlace. Therefore, I combined the 2 and am making a smock with bobbinlace. To make a representation of the piece in the book I will have to make 19 separated pieces of lace. So far I have finished 2 and am partway through a third. The 2 finished ones are the same pattern, and I posted a picture of one on Sept 2. The latest piece is the first time I have tried lace with points. I still have 2 inches left to finish, then I will clip the threads. I am pleased with the way this piece is coming out.

From the other extreme end of the time frame of the SCA, I just finished a embroidered celtic dog. I have been working on this piece for years. It is not that it is difficult. It is more that I just found that this style is not my favorite, and I kept putting it down for years. This is going to be incorporated into an emboidered band on the bottom edge of a tunic gown. I will surround it with a geometric pattern which will work up quicker than this part did.

I have not posted in quite a while. I have been busy working on the table runner, smock, and scrolls.

First the table runner. I have finished the unicorn and 2 of the bobbinlace dividers. I am putting the runner together with spacers of linen with hemstitched edges.

As you can see, I am still missing a couple of the elements. The bobbinlace piece on the right is not attached yet, and the one for the other side is not finished. As a matter of fact it is barely begun.
I have about 1/2 a repeat done so far. The finished ones are 8 repeats long. I should be done fairly soon after the new year. I get a fair amount of time off at this time of year.

The spacers of linen are hemmed and attached to the edges of the lace pieces. Just a little bit of hemstitching keeps the lacy touch I am trying for. I have not decided whether I am going to do some whitework in the linen spacers. I may keep that part of the project for another day.

The Lacis piece was #7 in my A&S 50 challenge, and the 2nd bobbinlace insert is #16. There was quite a while between the start and finish of that lacis piece.

The smock has been moving along very slowly. More because I keep moving it to the back burner, than because it is difficult. The smocking was mostly finished back in August. I took it to a smocking round table discussion at Pennsic. The best piece of advice I got was to add a couple more lines to the smocking. After I had done that I think it has a smoother more finished look. In the picture you can see the stabilization band that I put on the back.

The ruffle is just hemmed. One of these days I would love to make another smock with bobbinlace around the neck, and a couple of inserts of lace. It is on the "list". I chose not to gather the ends of the sleeves to approximate the looser style. I have the fabric to make an Italian gown to go over it. I have decided I would like to finish it for Birka which is at the end of Jan. That gives me about 1 month to make it. We will see if that is too ambitious.

I have only finished one scroll since the last time I updated this blog, and unfortunately I do not seem to have made a scan of the finished piece. I really have a memory of doing it, but can't find it in the computer anywhere. Oh well, anyway it was a persian style AOA which would make it #16 for the challenge. At least I get an oportunitty to make up for my mistake. I have 3 scrolls due in the next month that I will try really hard to make scans or copies of.

another scroll and lace update

I have been working along on the A&S 50 challenge. As I go I seem to be starting more and more complex projects. I have decided the latest lace project is going to be a table runner with 2 lacis panels and 3 lines of bobbinlace surrounding them.

The first strip of bobbinlace is finished. The bobbinlace I am using is a repicated pattern from a 16th C Piece in "Onder de Leop" by Nora Andries. It looks quite a bit like a connecting piece used in an Italian lace piece in "Old Italian Lace" from the 17th C. It uses 40 bobbins and 60/2 linen thread. This is the first piece I have made from that book. This was the 15 piece of lace for the challenge.

To go with the bobbinlace I finished the first piece of the lacis. I posted a picture of it when it was partially done before. The lion is now done and the accompanying unicorn is started. At the moment the unicorn is kind of creepy. It looks like a unicorn torso, but it is going quickly and will pick up a head and feet pretty quick. In the meantime it is appropriate for the All-Hallowed Evening holiday coming up later this month. Because of a long delay between the start of the lion and the start of the unicorn they are numbers 7 and 16 respectively.

On the other hand I finished another scroll. This one is a silver cresent done in the Persian style. The recipient has a Persian personna in the SCA (http://www.sca.org/) so the style was especially appropriate. I really like making scrolls in the Persian style eventhough I consider them to be difficult. Some of the pieces from the Safavid period are almost unbelievably beautiful. With dragons appearing from around trees, and extraordinarily complex patterns on the buildings and tents of the people, they are gorgeous. I have not attempted to make one that is close to the more complex patterns. I think it could take months of continual and hard work. For now I chose to replicate a picture of a tree which dissappears behind the script box. This was the 15th scroll out of the 50 I want to complete for the challenge.

Finished First Handkerchief

I finally finished the my first handkerchief. The insert is a fairly simple reticella pattern, with a bobbin lace border. The lace is plaited from a pattern in "Gekloppelte Reticella" by Brigitte Bellon. I am not totally happy with the tension of the plait, but this was my first time trying it. I am also not completely happy with the pattern of the reticella in the insert. Somehow it looks unsymetrical to me though it isn't. Those are my main issues with this piece. It gives me something to try to fix in the next one. At the moment I do not have another handkerchief in mind, but I have started a lace cap. I do plan on doing some more lace handkerchiefs for the A&S 50 challenge.

In other news, I went to an Athena's Thimble collegium last weekend. I took a class on pulled thread work. It was exactly what I needed to start looking at a project I have had on the back burner for a while. It is a Ottoman scarf with designs on the ends. The designs have elements of pulled thread which I was not sure how to make. Now I have a better idea, and I have started charting the pattern. It really is not too difficult a piece. It has satin stitch, double running stitch, pattern darning, pulled thread, and some fairly simple reticella. While all these are fairly easy by themselves, the tricky part will be getting them all to work together. Anyway I am excited about it.

Here is a sample of the pulled thread that I did in the class.

I think this pattern will be just about right for the scarf.

The only other thing I am working on diligently at the moment are some scrolls for the king and Queen's archery champions event. I decided to do black scrolls this time. It is the first time I have tried then, but I think they are coming out fine. They may not be especially powerful from a distance, but up close they will be nice.

metal lace

I finished the piece of metal thread bobbin lace to send to Plimoth Plantation. They have a project underway to replicate a 17th C English jacket. The original is at the Victoria and Albert Museum in england.

They have done some wonderful work getting the correct type of thread for the embroidery and lace. Here is link to their blog: http://www.plimoth.org/embroidery-blog/

Anyway, I spent a couple weekends helping do embroidery on the jacket, and now I wanted to make a practice lace piece to send to them. I have not really decided if I feel secure enough making lace to try and help on the actual jacket. I am fairly new to the bobbin lace craft.

II also got another Scroll done for my 50 challenge. Unfortunately I did not get a copy or picture of the finished product. That is unusual for me. I am usually really good at documenting my work. I do have some pics of the unfinished piece though. The person who was getting it owns an African Grey Parrot so I was looking for an image of a manuscript page with a parrot in it that I could alter.

Here is a picture of the whole thing, and another close up of the initial with the white work filled in. You can't see the parrot in the picture of the whole thing because he is not in there yet. The 2 parrots were the last thing I did on the scroll. This is the 12th Scroll I have completed towards my goal of 5o by the society's 50th anniversary.

My projects for the A&S 50 challenge include: making 50 pieces of lace; making 50 scrolls and making 50 pieces of regalia with the members of my barony. Up to this date I have completed 11 of the scrolls. This includes 5 scrolls for our Baronial Challenge to the other Baronies to support the purchase of coursing equipment for the Kingdom. I usually have a color copy made of the scrolls I make, and don't take pictures of them. I happened to take a picture of this set so I can post it.

I am also doing some bobbin lace for the challenge. Only the second pattern down in the picture on the left is actually for the challenge. The other 3 I finished before the challenge began. The 2 on the bottom are now on the blackwork hood .

The picture on the right shows a short stretch of the baby bonnet edging from the pattern in "Elizabethan Lace" by Gillian Dye. The piece on top of that picture is a very short practice piece of a handkerchief edging from "Gekloppelte Reticella" by Brigitte Bellon. I am making a much bigger piece of the edging to go around a handkerchief I made with a small reticella panel.

The reticella is only partly done in this picture. Since then I have finished it, and the handkerchief is just waiting for me to finish the edging to get done. I am really glad to say I am just about 1/2 done with that edging now. It really takes quite a while to do a long piece. This was also my first try at going around a corner.

At this point I have made 4 pieces of lace for the challenge. I have to say so far the lace is my favorite part. I did not expect to enjoy making lace this much. It is after all a bit fussy. However, being able to turn out something which is this delicate and downright pretty really makes me happy. That after all is the real reason to follow the challenge. To do stuff which makes you happy. Well I guess that is enough for today. After I catch up on what I have finished it will not be quite so bad keeping this updated.