January 6, 2013
Christmas gifting-knitting and bobbin lace
I tried to keep my Christmas gifting to a manageable level and was able to finish everything in plenty of time for the holiday.
I made fingerless mitts for my nieces and nephew.
A bobbin lace scarf for my mom. I need to get a photo of her wearing it.
Close up of the lace. It’s a ‘s Gravenmoerse pattern. It ended up about 60″ long and took me 60 hours to complete. Now for the first time in forever I don’t have any bobbin lace projects on pillows. I’m going to have to fix that really soon. I loved working on this scarf so much that I think I’m going to make one for myself also.
Also, two TARDIS hats (for son and nephew), lacy green Orenburg cuffs for my mother-in-law, and socks for Grandma. Yes, the socks were done in time for Christmas, but I took the photo early because I had to get the other gifts wrapped. I also knit a handful of Orenburg lace-style dish cloths. None of them ended up as gifts, yet, but I like to have them on hand. And they were great practice for my next project, an Orenburg lace stole, that I started on New Year’s.
November 6, 2012
Retreat update
Had a wonderful time at the Doris Southard Lace Guild retreat that was held in Dubuque last weekend. Started a new project, a ‘s Gravenmoerse bobbin lace scarf. Fourteen members were there and we got a lot of lacemaking done. I’ll do a more in-depth report on the retreat later.
‘s Gravenmoerse bobbin lace scarf in progress
September 16, 2012
Guild meeting today
The Doris Southard Lace Guild meeting was in Galena today and I did a short presentation for the group about my Princess lace machine. We had a nice mix of people, with the local members all there, members from Moline and Cedar Rapids, and some visitors from Galena, Dubuque and Rockford that made the drive to see us. Some of us met for lunch before the meeting which was held in the Desoto House Hotel. The room was great, with good light. I think we did a lot of chatting and sharing, but some lace was made.
Jan’s new bolster pillow. She has a very talented hubby.
June 12, 2012
Progress
I am making progress on my Romanian Point lace doily; just 4 more sets of bars and centers. I’m getting tired of making these wrapped bars; I think next time I will mix it up a little and not leave them all for the end!
I’ve been making cord for my next project, which will be a design of my very own! Exciting…
Also, I FINALLY finished the lace for my fan. This lace was started at the 2010 Doris Southard Lace Guild retreat. Even though I estimated it takes about an hour to do one repeat of the pattern, and there are 38 repeats, there’s no excuse that this took a year and a half to finish. Regardless, it looks great, I love ‘s Gravenmoerse lace, and now I just have to mount it on the fan. The lace was designed to fit this fan and it looks like it will be a perfect fit. I’m going to stitch it to the ribbon at the top of the fan sticks. The only thing wrong with that is the white stitches that will show on the back. I have an idea about how to hide that, do you have an idea for me to consider?
Close up of the fan lace
May 30, 2012
Recent projects
I haven’t been doing much stitching lately; too many good books to read. But I have a square Romanian Point lace doily that is very close to finished, some knitted face cloths that just need the ends woven in, a finished bobbin lace bookmark that is going in the mail to my exchange partner, and a pair of knitted socks that have just gotten interesting. I guess that’s a fair bit, but it still seems like low numbers to me.
Here are the face cloths that I’ve been knitting. The Spa yarn is bamboo and acrylic and it has a really nice, soft drape and hand, even when wet.
I also finished a bobbin lace bookmark that is going to be sent to my exchange partner in England. I hope she likes it. This is one of my favorite patterns, designed by Susan Wenzel.
March 10, 2012
Knitting Pipeline Retreat
Audrey and I had a wonderful time at the Knitting Pipeline Retreat in Washington, IL last weekend. We left Rockford Friday morning and wound our way down there, visiting 4 yarn shops in the process! I didn’t buy much, but found some sock yarn (of course) for Ted and a pattern booklet for me. The shops were all sweet, and best of all we ran into retreaters at each one. Even in the restaurant for lunch we were identifying the Knitters as they came through the door.
I didn’t get much knitting done; I was too busy talking, watching the break-out sessions, and scoping out what everyone else was doing. I did take my portable lace pillow and gave a quick demonstration to some people around me. It surprises me every time I hear that someone has never seen or heard of bobbin lace before!
I even won two door prizes, lucky me. Here is my loot from the weekend.
We came back to Galena Saturday night and Audrey finished two of her projects by the end of the weekend. We met great people and had the best time! Can’t wait to do it again next year.
February 13, 2012
Bobbin lace update
I can’t believe I’m still working on this fan project; I only have about 3 inches left to do! It’s gotten to the point where it’s hard to work because the bobbins are starting to hang off the edge of the pillow.
February 6, 2011
Winter projects
With all the snow on the ground outside, the reflected light makes my living room very bright on the weekend mornings. It’s been wonderful for working on my bobbin lace for the fan. I’ve passed the halfway point and there are only about 9 or 10 inches left to finish. I timed how long it takes to do one repeat of the pattern and it’s down to about an hour and 15 minutes. I feel like I’ve really gotten into the groove of this pattern.
How does that dust get on the pillow when I keep it covered all the time?
Here is my selfish knitting project for January. This is the Inishturk sweater from Lion Brand Yarn. It’s a cabled fisherman’s sweater that I’ve had my eye on for some time and Ted gifted me with the yarn for Christmas. I have absolutely loved knitting this sweater. Every row has cable crossings and surprisingly the 16-row pattern repeat was easily memorized. It was a little tough to get going because the pattern is written out and I’ve gotten used to charted patterns, but I just love everything that is going on in it. I’ve just started the first sleeve and hope to be able to wear it yet this winter. With the weather we’ve had and the projected cold temps in the forecast I think that won’t be a problem!
We survived the Feb. 1 blizzard and had everyone had some shoveling stories to share. Ian, Ted, and the neighbors did an excellent job and got us cleared out very early. Ian enjoyed his two snow days and I enjoyed my day off work as well. Primo knitting time!
November 13, 2010
Retreated
Last weekend the Doris Southard Lace Guild held a lacemaking retreat in Dubuque, Iowa. We met Friday night at the retreat center and went out for dinner. The rest of the weekend all our meals were at the center and we moved from our bedrooms to the conference room to the dining room and back. It was wonderful!
The theme was fans, so most people worked on a lace fan of some sort. We didn’t have to, but it was a good impetus for me to get back to working on the s’ Gravenmoerse fan I had started a long time ago. Through the weekend I got about 5″ of the lace made and am really happy with my progress.
's Gravenmoerse fan edging
August 19, 2010
Wordle
I just found a fun new toy on the Internet…www.wordle.net. I put in the address of this blog and it created the following artwork based on the occurrence of certain words. (Larger words appear more often.) It is really fun and I think accurately expresses my interests, especially in lacemaking.
Hmmm, looks like “started” occurs more frequently than “finished”.
