My camera was hiding in the trunk. It came out as soon as I wasn’t looking for it anymore, and I got these pictures. The first is of Mary D, who came up from Virginia to work on the lace this weekend. She set herself a goal of 6 repeats/day, and was well ahead of that by Sunday afternoon. Her hands moved so quickly the photo is blurred.

It was a treat to me to have some quiet time to chat with Mary; bobbin lace as a technique doesn’t really call to me (fortunately, my fiber room is bursting with supplies and tools) but it was fascinating to hear about how she came to learn to make lace, and how she enjoys the puzzle and challenge of working complex patterns with many pairs of bobbins. I asked her if this lace, simple as it is and with very few bobbins, comparatively, is boring. Fortunately the answer was no, because working with the metal threads presented its own challenges.

Here are two pictures from my visit to the New England Lace Group on Saturday. I thoroughly enjoyed the day, and was pleased to find I knew more people than I thought I was going to – Bryce, Jill H and Carolyn W have all been to work on the Plimoth lace, plus there was Carolyn H who had invited me, and Mary came for the meeting, and also Elisabeth whom I’d met a few years ago at a Weavers’ Guild of Boston meeting. They all, old friends and new, gave me such a warm welcome, and were so admiring of the work. I feel funny, always in the position to accept all the praise for the project – I’m officially passing it on to all of you, who really deserve it!

Tricia sent me this post for tonight:

I know many of those lacers reading the blog would like to see how we are keeping the spangles on the bobbins. Here you see the spangles on one with Carolyn’s small hair clips to hold the thread in place.

We are also adding pictures of Bryce, our speedy lace maker from the April session and her early progress.

Everyone enjoyed watching her fast hands clicking the bobbins and having the airy lace start to float off of the pillow.

I started thinking that I would have to get out my own bobbins and learn myself!

Tricia

Today Wendy counted up the motifs that were done this weekend. I had high hopes for this session and I was not disappointed. There were many hands working and a great deal was accomplished:

16.5 worms. The plain worms, not the fancy worms. We don’t have directions for those yet. But the plain worms gave us plenty of head-scratching moments, as we tried to figure out what color each should be, comparing the photos of the original and the different pieces of the jacket. The half worm disappears into a seam, and it was the back half that was stitched, which led to some merriment. Oh, and Debbie thinks they’re actually slugs, since they have little feelers on they little heads. Are slugs ickier than worms?

3.5 pansies. Pansies take a LONG time to work, and they’re not as spectacularly colored as the pansies I’m familiar with. Still very pretty, and after these 3.5 were done, there are not that many left.

2 whole pinks. Pinks, or carnations, and in the 1627 village gillyflowers (hence very popular with me). Also take a long time to do, and we’re almost done with them, too.

6 leaves, 1/2 a pea pod, 1/2 a rose hip, 1/2 a thistle calyx, 1/2 a honeysuckle, 1 set honeysuckle buds, and one little edge of a pea pod that vanished into a seam. It was just a tiny line, but it was fiddly to work since the way it was oriented meant a long column of one buttonhole stitch per row rather than one long row of stitches. Abigail did that one. Some of those half motifs were partially done at other sessions by other stitcher, some were the kind that disappear into seams or off the edges of the pieces.

AND TWO of the dreaded trefoils. That’s a thistle in the bottom of that photo, with the calyx of course the green part below the blossom. Debbie did one of the trefoils and Linda did the other. Linda was with us only on Saturday.

Not to mention 9 lace motifs in only two days (that was Bryce, speed lacer.)

Here’s a picture of Wendy working that very first rose motif. She stayed late tonight to finish it, “so her boss won’t yell at her.” We’ll see what Tricia thinks of the result, maybe next time we can add another motif to our repertoire.

Thanks, everyone. I so enjoyed this weekend.

Here’s two pictures of Bryce working, both from Friday. And here’s what Bryce said in the comments about her time in the workroom:

I had such a wonderful time making lace. I urge all you lacemakers out there to try it! It’s a little fiddly, but not difficult. The people — staff and embroiderers both — are wonderful. The food is as good as they say it is. All in all, a great place to get away from everything for a couple of days. Thank you! I’m hoping to get back!

I’m glad she had such a good time, that is the point, after all, to have a good time doing something you enjoy with other people as crazy I mean passionate and dedicated as you are. Well, that and making the thing. That too.

I mentioned that Wendy is working the prototype of the rose motif this weekend. I wanted to expand on that a little. Before she started stitching, she and Tricia sat down with some detailed photos of this motif, both prints and digital images enlarged on Tricia’s laptop. They sketched out the shape and drew in the direction of work, determining which stitches and and colors should be used. Here are a couple of pictures of that conversation. This took maybe a half hour, give or take, and they’ve done this with a couple of other motifs, too. It’s one of those fascinating things that happens almost unnoticed, I think all those working in the other room had no idea this was going on. I just happened in and thought you’d like to hear about it.

So they decided how to proceed, and Wendy will finish the prototype this weekend as I mentioned. If it looks like the originals we’ll be good to go. If for some reason it doesn’t come out as expected, then it’ll be back to the drawing board to see if a different method will result in a more faithful reproduction, just like the process Mark went through with the spangles. Sometimes this is called experiential archeology. Whatever you call it, it is pretty cool. Likely this level of intense scrutiny would only happen in trying to create a reproduction, which is one of the reasons why I do this sort of work.

Lace sample arrived from Bryce W.

Several lacers have asked this question – when you send back the sample, we only need 3 repeats of the lace motif, that is 3 scallops of the lace, not 3 of the gold + silver repeat, or 6 scallops overall.

I had an update from Mark yesterday. He’s been busy, traveling to different places to seek help from other skilled metalworkers. Next step is to confer with Tricia and Wendy regarding how much or how little the current trial looks like the original spangles (the teardrop shaped kind). He thinks it is possible that we’ll be ready to make lace at the end of March. The living history exhibits will be open again by then. We’ll all know more after the Spangle Questers have met, hopefully on Friday.