Antique and Vintage bobbins and More

June has been a very busy month as I prepared to attend my very first Bobbin Lace retreat to be held at Sweet Briar College near Lynchburg, Virginia. First of all I had to learn some new techniques prior to my class. In the meantime on one of my lacing sites a lacer was having to give up this part of her life and was offering tools and books for sale. An opportunity for me to purchase some really nice bobbins at a good price. These are the dark wood bobbins I purchased ..... already spangled .... something that takes time.

Here are the light wood bobbins also already spangled as the previous owner had used all these bobbins plus many others for quite some time. The more they are used the better the patina, so I was quite happy with my purchase.

The lone bobbin on the left was left off of the group of light wood vintage bobbins. The four on the right are antique bobbins possibly early 20th century. All of these bobbins had been purchased from Christine and David Springett, lace suppliers in Rugby, Warwickshire, England by their former owner. They are all of the Midlands type which is what I've been learning to use. They were the only type that I felt comfortable enough to purchase. More on bobbins in my next post.

As I said before, I needed to learn new techniques before attending the lace retreat. Here I'm practicing my left and right picots. Although they could be a little tricky the only problem I had was grasping the pin in the proper position ...... at the head. After a week of practice my teacher said I had a good grasp on the technique. The other technique I needed to learn was how to add gimp .... a heavier thread used to outline a portion of the design. Forgot to take a photo of that which is on another pillow. On the upper right is a biscornu that I made for myself. My teacher fell in love with it so I made one for her.

The front side is the same pattern that I worked on mine .... a traditional Bulgarian design. On the back of mine I cross-stitched my initial and a butterfly. On the back of the one for my teacher I worked her first initial and a simple embroidery vine and flowers pattern that I would normally use as a seam treatment for a crazy quilt square. She was very pleased with the finished product .... sorry
no photo.
On my CQForNewbies group Lesa, one of our list moms, issued a challenge. We were to find a stitch we had never done that began with the first letter in our name to work. Well, believe it or not there are no embroidery stitches that begin with N so I went with the first letter of my last name and came up with Heavy Chain Stitch. I used 18ct ecru Aida in a size that will fit my stitch journal and used size 5 gold DMC perle cotton. As I worked the stitch I tried to think of ways to use it and one idea that popped out at me was "cattails"! Using 2 strands of floss as the stem or outline stitch for the bottom part that would be in the "grass" and a single straight stitch, also 2 strands of floss, coming out of the top the #5 perle cotton would give just the right amount of depth for the cattails.

The second part of the challenge is to add our favorite embroidery stitch to the challenge stitch. The whole idea behind this challenge is to get us out of the rut of using the 'same ol' stitches all the time.

These next three photos were all part, ooops I forgot one of the parts, of my prize--winning squishie. Back in May I joined the Stitch Angels Mentors (SAM) and StitchMAP (MAP) groups. SAM is an educational group endeavoring to encourage newbies in a variety of needleart skills. The Angel part deals with sharing stashes when and where needed. The MAP portion has mentors paired up with apprentices .... the more experienced stitcher helping the newbie. Lyn of these groups has regular contests on her own blog and held the very first one for the SAM/MAP group early this month. It was a two parter contest and I was lucky enough to win part one.

Lots of different kinds of fibers here including several packages of stamens which honestly I never thought about using with cq so I'm definitely going to find a way to use them; a package of white rickrack, several skeins of different 'brands' of flosses including a vintage one. Some fancy knitting yarns and a big group of red feathers. They will be interesting to work with!

In this photo there are many different laces - cottons, rayon, braids and other fancies as well as a very nice length of 'hen and chicks' tatting.

Here you will see several crocheted motifs as well as a very nice selection of 'silkies'. Now silkies are something I've rarely had so was much delighted with that addition. The photo I forgot was a humongous selection of fabrics ..... guess I'll have to post that next time. The gallon ziplock baggie was jam-packed!!!!

I would like to invite any readers to check out SAM/MAP as well as their brand new blog .... official TODAY! I don't know how to add the coding but if you search yahoo groups for Stitch Angels Mentors; StitchMap; and google for K.N.A.S.S. I'm sure you'll find all of them.
BTW K.N.A.S.S. stands for Keeping Needle Arts Alive By Sharing Stitches

Hope to see you there.
Until next time keep those stitches flowing.