Thursday 2 March 2017

Filet lace


Having seen so many lovely machine lace curtain designs recently, based on a grid format, I’ve been having a look at filet lace. I made some for the City and Guilds qualification, which involved making the filet net lace background as well – the type of thing that is easy once you’ve started and got the pattern going but you feel all fingers and thumbs when you’re trying to get it started. The ‘darning’ as well is not as simple as it seems and requires careful planning beforehand so you manage to cover all the squares evenly and the threads end up in the right place. It’s not really the way I like to make lace, I like the aspect of serendipity, rather than having to organise where each thread is going before I start. There is some beautiful filet lace around though. I remember seeing some lovely examples in the museums in Brugges. It is also the inspiration for much curtain lace so I need to carry on my exploration.

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