Blog & News

Plymouth Craft, a recently-formed non-profit dedicated to promoting (nearly) lost and forgotten arts and trades, is sponsoring a lace workshop this Valentine's weekend, to be taught by none other than Holly Van Sciver!

 http://plymouthcraft.org/?tribe_events=bobbin-lace-with-holly-van-sciver

I am planning on attending as are several other lacemakers in the area.  Hopefully this will attract some beginners too!  Rest assured I will spread the word about NELG!

Yes, the holiday season is almost over for us.  New Years Day is a time when many of us contemplate changes in our lives.  While it is hard to follow all the resolutions we can generate, we can select a few that we can make happen.  If you are so inclined, may I make a few suggestions? 

• The Creative Arts competition comes up quickly in terms of the pace of lace.  It is one way that the members of NELG can show this craft to the crowds at the Big E.  So, pick out a piece of lace to finish by the end of August.  You can always enter it by the end of July even if it still needs work.
  
• Another way to show off your lace to the world is to send pictures of your lace with a short description or story behind it to our webmistress (nelgwebmaster@gmail.com) to go in the Member's Lace section of the website.  
• As a reminder of the previous post, for those of you who are on Facebook, you can always "like" the NELG Facebook page.  Now for a New Years resolution, isn't this an easy one to accomplish?

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous New Year,

Sharon

If you are a facebook member please like the NELG page.

For those of you who do not subscribe to Arachne, the Lace Guild is once again offering an "Advent Calendar".  For those not familiar with it, a different lace picture is provided for the first 24 days in December, sometimes with the pricking.  Additionally, they have a contest where the hints are provided via a picture on several of the days.  This is a fun exercise in lace identification even if you don't enter the contest.  This year they are providing the usual version for your computer as well as one for your smart phone. See:

http://www.laceguild.org/guild/calendar.html    (for browsers)

http://www.laceguild.org/phonecal.html          (for smart phones)

Enjoy!

Carolyn Wetzel gave a great program on Eastern Mediterranean (Armenian, Oya, Bibilla, etc.) last week at NELG.  To add to the list of books she mentioned, there is another recent book in French, Fleurs & Papillon en Broderie Oya.  Below is a link to the publisher's page which will give you an idea of what it contains.  There are lots of flowers and butterflies that can be used as accessories.

http://www.edisaxe.com/fleurs-papillons-en-broderie-oya.html

I want to thank Rita Bartholomew for donating a copy of her new book, The Lost Art of Netting, to the NELG library.  I believe that those of us who went to the netting lesson at NELG last year had some preprint excerpts as handouts.  This is a labor of love with a lot of pictures detailing the methods.  She obviously is thinking there could be more since this is volume 1.  While I am not aware of any of the usual lace vendors offering her book at this time, for those who may be interested, it is on Amazon.  And, of course, you can request it from the NELG library.

Just saw this post on Arachne from Gon Homburg in the Netherlands, which I thought might be of interest:

"In the Netherlands nowadays it is very popular to publish every week an edging for crochet or something small to embroider. We, a group of bobbin lace teachers thought it a good idea to start something similar in lace: Every week an edging or insertion. It started today with a simple edging in Schneeberg Lace. We will try to make it interesting for all people, not only simple edgings but also more complicated ones. Every Wednesday around 15.00 pm a new edging or insertion will be published on my website www.kloskant.com <http://www.kloskant.com/> or directly to the page http://bit.ly/1GpjsLJ <http://bit.ly/1GpjsLJ> If you like the idea, please join us. There is a special group made on Facebook to show your results, comments and questions. This group is called Kantje per week (Dutch for every week an edging or insertion in lace).

So I hope to see many of you there or read your comments on the edgings or the idea via Arachne.

Happy lacing and have fun make your lace this week."

Jill

aka Webmistress

I picked up this link via lace digest, and I think it is worth looking at.  There is an auction in France on the 21 October, and they have published the catalog on line.  Not everything is lace.  There are linens and dolls in the offerings, but the lace is beautiful.  There is a lot of Valenciennes as well as needle lace.  Obviously, this is what the upper classes were buying since there is a lot of work here.  Enjoy!  See: http://catalogue.gazette-drouot.com/index.jsp?id=20117&lng=fr

Jo Edkins' website is absolutely phenomenal and contains a ton of information including how to make lace, dozens of free patterns and links to other useful websites: http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/lace/  

If you haven't seen her website, or haven't visited in a while, I recommend you take a look.

Jill