New Year Lock Down

Well here we are.  2021 and still in the middle of the Coronavirus nightmare!   I finished my red and gold Idrija lace motif just in time to pack it away with all the Christmas decorations.  It will come out in all its glory early in December and lets hope by then life will be back to some form of normality!

I have really enjoyed picking up my lace again, and so went back to doing some torchon I started late in 2019.  This piece was for working on at the monthly lace group, but as we have not met since early February last year I thought I might as well do some whilst waiting for the thread I ordered for my next Idrija piece.  This snap shot shows the point where I need to now add 6 more pairs of bobbins to work the edge.  After using only a few pairs of bobbins for the narrow tape lace, to suddenly having a pillow full of so many bobbins you haven't got room to lay them out , was somewhat disconcerting.  I need to use a better method of keeping the bobbins together without them getting tangled.  I had to resort to seeking help from my lace teacher for adding the border bobbins - but I have now done quite a bit more and will post a picture another day.

My new thread arrived a few days ago. I had decided to try a variegated one for a change and selected a pale blue.  I wound the bobbins trying to match the same colour start for each bobbin, hoping the shading would not be too random. The effect is not as I expected and the variation in colour is very slight. It is quite subtle and not as dark as I thought.  I am not sure whether I like the finished effect although I am quite pleased with the mat itself.  It now sits on a window sill in my hall with a small pot on top of it that holds an air plant. It's a laugh really as you can see hardly anything of the lace at all!