Blog & News

This is to encourage anyone in the Eastern MA area who might be considering submitting an entry to the BigE Lace competition. Please do so! Once again Sharon Sacco and I will be accepting entries for delivery to the BigE in September. Fill out the form, pay the modest fee, and attach your label. We will also be handling pickup at the end of the fair. Entry forms must be submitted by Aug. 14; we must receive your item(s) before the drop-off date of Sept. 5. If you have any questions, feel free to contact either of us. We hope to see lots of wonderful lace!

Bryce

"An Expensive, Rustic Brand Faces Backlash for Its ‘Poverty’ Aesthetic" is a recent article in the NY Times about the elite clothing maker, Magnolia Pearl. The clothing is sold to Hollywood stars and other elites, through stores such as Free People.

In one photo the model is fingering some lace, almost as if the lace were being used as a necklace. A close look at the lace reveals that it is feet and feet of tatting! A beginner's tatting pattern at that, just a simple ring with three picots.

It's a gifted article so anyone can read it, even if they don't subscribe to the NY Times.

Enjoy!

Jill

(Information shared by former NELG member, Esther Paris)

I found this curious book in the Digital Commonwealth archives. Who was Eunice Coffin MD? And why did she have this lace, I wonder?

https://digital.clarkart.edu/digital/collection/p16245coll1/id/101325

Looks like it's knitted and crocheted stuff. 

This is sort of the same Coffin family, probably, as the Ipswich/Newbury ones--but the family split in the early 1700s and a famous branch of the Coffins went to Nantucket. 

OIDFA USA is selling lace bag tags.  All proceeds from this sale will go to OIDFA to help defray expenses for the OIDFA Congress this year.  These bag tags are colorful to help you identify your luggage at the airport where there are many suitcases all the same color.  These tags can also help you identify your convention, lace and project bags by writing information.on the reverse side.  These tags are a nice little gift to take home to friends. 

The price of bag tags is $3 each or $5 for two TO BE PICKED UP AT THE IOLI CONVENTION IN JUNE by you or your trusted friend.  If you aren't attending the convention, is someone else from your guild attending?  You may pay at the convention with a check payable to OIDFA, cash, or PayPal.  

 Bag tags ordered for mailing IN JULY AFTER THE IOLI CONVENTION will have an ADDITIONAL COST for mailing paid by the purchaser which will be at least $5.  Consider a group purchase with friends in your guild to share the cost of mailing.  

Email SallyRobertsonOlsen@gmail.com to place your order and arrange payment.  

Thank you for supporting OIDFA.

The work is shown underway at this video:

Waco airport renovation and mammoth art by Manca Ahlin (June 9, 2023)

I had heard an interview with Kate a while back, and she talks about the circuitous route of this diary to her hands. And it's a story I hope can come true for Ipswich lace someday too--overlooked or underappreciated documents telling a terrific story. 

But this one starts with Bobbin Lace!

NYT Review: A Scrapbook Offers a Material Glimpse of Another World

“The Dress Diary” is an intimate record of one wardrobe — and its era.

The inaugural entry commemorates Sykes’s wedding day in 1838 with a neat rectangle of white-checked muslin and a piece of bobbin lace.

I got an announcement about an upcoming Teneriffe / Sol / Ñandutí event. It sounds unusual and I would attend, but I have a prior commitment at the time slot. It's a public notice, but it came only to people who had some certain terms in their IOLI profiles. So ICYMI:

I am making this invitation because you are in the group that is interested in Tenerife, Dramwork, Identification or Lace History according to the IOLI Handbook 2023. My name is Elizabeth Correa, from Brazil, and I am also a member of IOLI as a Tenerife lacemaker, teacher and researcher.

I organize every year a virtual meeting of SOLES weavers and in 2023 our SOL LACE DAY will bring the SOLES OF MARACAIBO, a unique technique to make SOLES and that was almost unattainable until 2014, when I went to Venezuela to know it and began to spread on the Web the “tejedoras” of SOLES OF MARACAIBO, this group of guardians that brought this complex radial weaving tradition to our days.

SOL LACE DAY with VENEZUELA will be hosted by ZOOM, on the 24th of June, Saturday, at 10:00 am, Brasilia time. Close to the date, 72 hours previous, the link to the virtual event will be available in our social media: Facebook ELIZABETH HORTA CORREA or NHANDUTI DE ATIBAIA and Instagram @rendatenerife . Follow us! Check below the hour at your place.

Along with more “tejedoras” we hope to see you at SOL LACE DAY con VENEZUELA!

Elizabeth Horta Correa www.nhanduti.ong.br

See it also here: @rendatenerife on Instagram

Kumiko will be visiting again the fall, 2023.  Her workshop is scheduled in Woodbridge, CT, from 10/6 to 10/10.  She will be teaching Binche and other laces such as Flanders Lace, Paris, Rosaline, Bruges Flower Laces, and Duchesse.  Interested?  Please contact Sumiko Tray.

We are saddened to learn that Pamela Nottingham, the author of wonderful lace books and respected teacher, passed away on May 12, 2023.

Story about a program for women recovering from Hansen's disease to make lace. Has echoes of the long history of lace as an educational route for the churches.

Iloilo’s ex-hansenite lacemakers seek market boost