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Friday 24 April 2009

a little progress


I finally managed to start my bobbin lace fan. it's not a terribly difficult pattern - but the material, silk, is quite slippery and also rather fine. with all the needles in between I am not entirely certain that the yarn works well, at the moment it looks a bit loose... I hope it works, I won't have time to order other materials and work the whole shebang again!

the other problem is the number of bobbin pairs I need! there isn't enough space on the pillow to lay them all out, so I have to fasten and undo groups of them as I need them... every time I do this the half hitch loosens and because the silk is so smooth, they tend to slip off the bobbin tip:( annoying - I realise I should have ordered those tiny rubber rings to avoid this! I am also waiting for several wooden "racks" to keep order within my bobbins. they look the same as the one on top: a "U" with two very long branches, but the new ones I ordered have a needle at the closed end! which means that I can stack the bobbins I don't need upright (by pushing the needle into the pillow) = saving a lot of space in the process, which makes it easier to work with the rest!
of course I could have chosen a different pattern to avoid the amount of bobbins. there are patterns, where you work a "ribbon" with only a few bobbins and crochet the bits together continuously - but I don't really like the fiddly crocheting much.
"luckily" the weather isn't great at the moment, which leaves a bit more time for inside work - no fun crawling around in the garden during heavy rain! isn't it sad when you're hoping for rain to get on with other work?:))

4 comments:

Guzzisue said...

my, my, there are times when you just cry out for a big pillow! I agree about the not liking 'tape' lace styles and having to sew pairs into a main trail,like you I would rather work with more bobbins and not have rythmn broken so much hence my love of Bucks point although learning Beds is proving interesting.

Woolly Bits said...

huh, I have a larger pillow! well, actually this is the inner part of the large pillow - one of those, where you can slide the middle up and down or turn for a corner! but - the start was at such an odd angle, that it was impossible to see with the side part in front of it as well! hence the narrow thingy:)) standing and bending over the table isn't a nice option (my back thinks!)... it's getting easier now - I changed to the whole pillow again! the silk isn't less slippery though:((

Tatman said...

I am glad to read that you put it back into the large pillow. I can forsee lots of problems coming up if you continued with such a small amount of pillow space. You could have placed another rectangle of foam below it with a cover cloth so the bobbins have a place to rest. Then skoot it around as you work.
As for the hitch always slipping....try cutting short lengths of plastic straws that is the length of the neck of the bobbin. Cut a them on the long side so you can slip it over the loaded thread on the neck and that might also help keep the hitch in place. Worth a try!!

Woolly Bits said...

thanks for the tip with the straws, never thought of it! there is a german shop, which supplies small rubber rings for this - should have ordered them together with the silk yarn!!