Blog & News

For those of you not lucky enough to be in Berkeley CA this winter, here is your chance to feast your eyes on their current display of nineteenth century laces: 

http://lacismuseum.org/exhibit/Nineteenth%20Century%20Lace/

Over 200 slides of hand and machine-made laces, with closeups!

Enjoy!

There have been two posts on Facebook recently about Idrija Lace.

The first was about a short video (6 minutes) on Idrija lace that is played on a continuous loop at the Idrija Municipal Museum in Slovenia.  There is no narration, but it is beautiful to see the lace being made.

The second is that Bridget Cook has recently announced that her out-of-print book on Idrija Lace is again available directly from her, for £20 plus postage.  NELG's library has a copy of the original book (published in 1999), but if you are interested in getting your own copy you should contact Bridget directly at lacebmcook@btinternet.com. 

Don't forget that we will be having an Idrija Lace workshop at retreat in 2015!

Jill

A big thank you to Gail, Rosalie, Sharon, Marjorie, Linda, Mary Lou, Sr. Madeleine and Sr. Annaliese for demonstrating at our first annual Crafts Center celebration! With your help the weekend was a huge success!  Our visitation and revenue were significantly higher than the same day last year.  I personally loved having you there and getting to spend time (and make lace!) with you and, of course - we got the word about lace out there to lots of people!  

And yes, you read that right - it is going to be an annual event!  Or, we're doing it again next year, anyway!  I will be attending a "debriefing" meeting tomorrow afternoon, so if any of you have any suggestions for improvements, I'll be glad to take them with me.  If you don't see this in time, or you think of something later, no worries - pass it along anyway and it'll get to one of the innumerable planning meetings we'll be having between now and next September.  

Again, thanks so much for your part in making the weekend a success!

I want to thank all of you who have supported demonstrations in the last month.  This is a busy time of year for demonstrations that really help to get the word out to everyone that we believe lace is important.  It is always hard to determine who we inspire during a demonstration.  A few will show their interest in lace, but it may be some time before we know about that spark.  While our members do demonstrate at small venues which are important, I was particularly pleased that we were able to support two major events that overlapped.  Bryce Wolf and I were out at the Big E last Thursday to demonstrate.  It wasn't the best of days since it was cool and gray, but we did see more people that we expected.  I was also at Plimouth Plantation for the demonstration at the opening of their new crafts center on Saturday.  What a beautiful day for the group of us that came.  I'm sure that those who were there on Sunday also had a good time.

We are always looking to improve the demonstrating process.  Having been to two demos in the last week, I am thinking about it as well as gathering ideas from others.  You can expect that we will talk about ideas in November.

I am happy to announce that Bryce Wolf has volunteered to take on the position of NELG Clerk.  We have had many people record the minutes at our meetings for the past year, and I would like to thank all of them for contributions.  Bryce has held the position of NELG Vice President in the past and is currently on the scholarship committee as well as running the silent auction at the last retreat.  I welcome her back onto the board.

The Big E results are now available on line at http://www.thebige.com/fair/agriculture/documents/14ca004bobbin.pdf .  I'd like to thank all who participated as well congratulate those who placed or won awards. 

This is always an important way to show our interest in lace and inspire others.  Note that it isn't too early to plan for 2015.

I came upon a reference for searching the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.  You can search for different laces in the collection.  Unfortunately many are not photographed (only 36% is by my calculation), but it does give some information on the piece of lace when you click on the details button.  The details will also allow you to get a larger picture of the lace.  See: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/

Once again I will be taking entries from Eastern MA out to the Big E.  The dropoff date there is either Tues., 9/2 or Weds., 9/3 -- I'm not sure yet which date I'm going. Because I will be away on vacation at the end of August, Sharon Sacco has kindly agreed to accept entries & will then pass them along to me.  Call her first so that she knows you are coming.  Otherwise, you can bring them to me either Sun., Aug. 31 or Mon. 9/1 of Labor Day weekend.  I hope to see lots of entries!

Bryce

The BBC has an interesting piece on making hand made scissors.  This link has a video which is really interesting.  So, if you are interested in the process, see http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28581597

Seeking roommate for FLLG lace day Fri-Sat-Sun-maybe Mon nights. PM if interested - Carolyn