Fragments of Family

On Monday afternoon I went round to my grandparents house so my gran could teach me how to make pillow/bobbin lace. It's important to me to learn how to make traditional bobbin lace because it's a craft which has been being handed down through my family and is deeply rooted in the Belgian flank of my ancestry, so for it to stop seems ridiculous considering the applications I could use it in.

Gran has also, very kindly, honoured me with a Belgian Lace Pillow & Continental Bobbins which were made by my great, great grandfather & was used by my great gran until she was in her 90's. It still has her last piece on it which makes it even more poignant. Though one in the photos above are actually of my grans lace pillow, which is similar to granny grans but was made by her father (N.B.: I may be getting my greats and great great grandparents muddled in relation to who made the pillows, but you get the jist - they're old, handmade & full of history).

Anyway, for the past week I've been trying to master the basic stitches which are used to make more ornate designs and from the above picture I took on Monday, I've made a 15cm piece of lace using: cloth stitch, cloth stitch & twist and half stitch. Which I unpinned a couple of nights ago to start a new piece - hand winding the bobbins being a complete pain - and gran thinks I'm doing really well when I showed her it.

I've turned back into an excited child with doing this and keep making my mum come and look at what I've done! But it is exciting because it's part of our heritage, plus it's suitably handsy/fiddly for my liking and has stopped me knitting for a few days - knitting post to come at some point.

My lack of making since Christmas has made my brain stagnate a bit, well, a lot. Though I reassured to hear from one of my friends, a wonderful artist & fellow blogger that she's been feeling equally despairing and lost since finishing university. This in itself isn't a good thing, in fact it's down right bad because I don't want my friend feeling that way, however, it does make me feel less ridiculous for my designers block.

The lace however, I think has started to give my designer self a bit of a jump start and my friend pointed out that a blog should be about sharing the whole process, not just the final pieces. That's what my portfolio site is for. So I'm going to try and be a better blogger.

"Honest to blog!"

Don't Step on the Floral Army!

A year-ish ago I posted pictures of my Floral Army Draught Set. It's one of those pieces I love for its little bit of kitschness which I think is more personality peeking through, making a made break for freedom and then hiding again. I always wanted to make necklaces and earrings out of them as some of my simple pieces but I never did because the MDes got in the way. Until Thursday.

Now normally I'd go for the Douglas Adams rule of "I never could get the hang of Thursdays", but on this particular one, I needed to make a birthday present for my friends little girl, Kirsten, who turned 4 on Saturday. I made her most of her present a couple of weeks ago, a knitted momerath after she saw the Alice in Wonderland window my sister and I had made for work.

Now is it just me or does this photo make him look like he's in a line up?

It was lucky I was depressed for a few days really because knotting all the hair on took me about a day and a half alone and I could sit and glaze over as I watched the West Wing.

Anyway, these are the first things I've made for a while and I'm just praying that she'll like them, because I'm rubbish for buying presents for kids and being able to make things comes in really handy. Now what the hell to I make my friends son, Mikey, for his birthday!