Monday 18 June 2012

Saturday was our Mid Downs Lacemakers annual Lace Day.  We had Jenny Adin-Christie as our speaker.  She is a highly skilled embroiderer and works part-time at the Royal School for Needlecraft.  Her talk was fascinating.  She talked about her training and all the different work the RSN undertakes.  They do a lot of restoration work and special commissions.  My embroidery skills are almost nill, but I would love to do a course in fine whitework. Have a look on her website, her whitework is exquisite.
     
                              jennyadin-christieembroidery.co.uk                                                                        

I am currently working on a rabbit, to help Jean Eke.  She is writing a new booklet and I have tried out one of her patterns.  It is a fairly simple rabbit in half-stitch and tenstick, I am sure it would make a lovely 1-day workshop.


As you can see I am not only interested in lace.  I fell in love with the Fair isle knitting of Kate Davies.  This is my first attempt at Fair isle knitting.  The wool is proper Shetland wool.  I choose this pattern, because it is recommended for beginners and so far I am pleased with it.  The finished item will be a tea cosy. I love my tea, but haven't used a teapot for years.  My daughter was very surprised I was knitting a tea cosy, because she didn't even know we have a teapot.

Friday 9 March 2012

Horsham Museum

Me and some members of the Mid Downs Lacemakers visited Horsham Museum on Tuesday, to have a look at the lace they own.  The museum had kindly given us the use of one of their rooms and had the boxes of lace ready for us to look at.  A lot of the lace was machine made, but there were some really good pieces as well.  Like the piece of Mechlin lace in the picture above.  We think it started life as 2 lappets, but were later on crudely sown together to make a small scarf. The width of the piece is about 8cm.
We also found a Dutch lace cap, which was in the box of wedding veils.
The day went very quickly and we weren't able to go through all the boxes.  The museum was happy with our contribution and invited us to come again.

The piece of Duchesse, I was working on last year, is finished.