Blog & News

Just saw this post on Arachne from Gon Homburg in the Netherlands, which I thought might be of interest:

"In the Netherlands nowadays it is very popular to publish every week an edging for crochet or something small to embroider. We, a group of bobbin lace teachers thought it a good idea to start something similar in lace: Every week an edging or insertion. It started today with a simple edging in Schneeberg Lace. We will try to make it interesting for all people, not only simple edgings but also more complicated ones. Every Wednesday around 15.00 pm a new edging or insertion will be published on my website www.kloskant.com <http://www.kloskant.com/> or directly to the page http://bit.ly/1GpjsLJ <http://bit.ly/1GpjsLJ> If you like the idea, please join us. There is a special group made on Facebook to show your results, comments and questions. This group is called Kantje per week (Dutch for every week an edging or insertion in lace).

So I hope to see many of you there or read your comments on the edgings or the idea via Arachne.

Happy lacing and have fun make your lace this week."

Jill

aka Webmistress

I picked up this link via lace digest, and I think it is worth looking at.  There is an auction in France on the 21 October, and they have published the catalog on line.  Not everything is lace.  There are linens and dolls in the offerings, but the lace is beautiful.  There is a lot of Valenciennes as well as needle lace.  Obviously, this is what the upper classes were buying since there is a lot of work here.  Enjoy!  See: http://catalogue.gazette-drouot.com/index.jsp?id=20117&lng=fr

Jo Edkins' website is absolutely phenomenal and contains a ton of information including how to make lace, dozens of free patterns and links to other useful websites: http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/lace/  

If you haven't seen her website, or haven't visited in a while, I recommend you take a look.

Jill

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.