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Hi. I live in Canberra, Australia, and started tatting early in 2009. Consequently, I've now caught the 'tatting bug' and hope to be infected for a long while.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Needlelace - Take 1

One of my tatting WIPs requires a more 'dense' area, and tatting just doesn't do justice to it. So I thought that it might be possible to incorporate needlelace into the design.

Well, that's the long term goal. The short term goal is to actually learn how to do needlelace :)

So this is my first attempt at needlelace. At the suggestion from Liz (a needlelacer from Victoria, Australia), I purchased some beginner's books from the Guild of Needlelaces in the UK and gave it my best attempt. The books made the process reasonable easy (thank you whoever wrote the instructions).

This first picture shows the needlelace leaf design still on the backing fabric. The directions stated to 'stitch the outer cord down to the fabric with very small stitches'. Well, that was a distasteful thought to me, so I got the old faithful sewing machine out and stitched the cord to the backing fabric with a very large zig-zag stitch. Seemed to work OK....



This second picture shows the completed article - TA-DA! Next time around I will 'snip' the blasted zig-zag stitches better instead of merely yanking the poor needle lace off the backing fabric in a rough and disrespectful way. The poor little leaf lost a little bit of shape in the process.

4 comments:

  1. I find any kind of lace fascinating... good for you, trying out a new technique! I've not tried needle lace, but some day...

    Your leaf is beautiful!

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  2. Very good Vanessa! Are you on the Ning needlelace group for beginners? I can't remember the names but it's a very helpful group if you aren't. Email me and I'll send you the link.
    ginab6 at yahoo dot com

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  3. Congrats on learning a new craft! I think it's a lovely leaf. Can't wait to see what you do next.

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  4. Wow! It sure looks good to me! Yes, congrats on learning something new, AND making something that well! Impressive!
    Fox : )

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