More from the Doune lacemakers

So, where did I get to last time?  Ah yes, I was introducing you to the girls and showing off their lace!  Janet, Sheila and Joan are working on some of the Continental laces, Flanders Lace,and Binche ( try saying Bahn-sh.  It’s about the nearest to the French pronunciation).  They all look too complicated for me, but the patterns are very ornate and beautiful.  Generally workers of these kind of laces tend to keep a watchful eye on an enlarged working diagram showing the directions  threads are moving.  These laces are not so straightforward as others!  The glass headed pins show where the lacemaker has reached in her work. 

Here are closer up photos of Joan’s and Janet’s lace.  In the photo above right you can see the pattern on the blue backgroundand the start of Janet’s piece, an edging for a hankie – not for everyday use this one!  The fine threads are wound onto special bobbins and worked by weaving the threads.  The pattern already has the pinholes that support the lace pricked through the background.  As you weave threads, pins support those threads so you can see the work nearer the bobbins has a collection of pins holding the pattern in place.  As you work down you can begin to remove the top pins, but to take out any more than Janet is doing here might result in an unholy tangle, as the threads are pulled out of place.  

 

L – R.  Joan, Sheila and Janet

 

 

 

 

Morag, above right, isn’t a lacemaker.  Her talents lie in patchwork and quilting, mainly.  Another non-lacemaker is Marge, on the right.  She’s good at watercolours, while Margaret, makes the same kind of lace that I like to make, Buckinghamshire Point Lace.  I seem to have slipped up as I don’t seem to have a picture of the lovely edging she is working on.

And this is Lisbet who met us all one week a good few years ago when she came to Doune on a painting holiday. She obviously liked us, as she often comes back during Lace Week to join us.  We like her too! She’s a super artist, doing pen and ink drawings of us, the scenery, the food, and anything else that ‘she feels worthy of a picture, but then she doesn’t finish there always.  We all have little pictures she has coloured, using her miniature water colour kit.  In this photo she is filling in some colour to a drawing of Joan. 

I didn’t show you what I did.  My prototype for lace earrings – I think they need starched and a bead on each of the tassels!   Well, they need something anyway!

I also tried out some needle tatting and made a few bum efforts….. then created these – not very happy with them really!  Still, as first attempts go…..

 Then I started this earring, and I like it a lot! A British 5 pence piece is about half an inch across so it’s not too big an earring!.

Making these tiny little petals is far easier than making larger ones  in the likes of the Bedfordshire lace example below.

This piece of lace was designed by Christine Springett and worked by Lisa McClure.  My sister has also worked this piece.

Well, I think I am going to leave you here for today.  Next time you can see some scenery around Doune.  It’s a lovely place, even in bad weather!  No it wasn’t bad all the time! 

Talk again soon.  Night night!