Bobbin Lace – The Crochet Architect

October 9, 2023October 9, 2023

Lace sightings in Europe

Do you enjoy traveling and seeing other parts of the world? My husband and I, along with our youngest son (30 something), his wife and their 9 month old baby, took a nice, long, 5 week trip to Europe in August and September of this year. It was amazing! We went to 7 countries: Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and France. The weather was between the 30’s (near the glaciers in Switzerland) to the 90’s (in Italy and Paris), so we had to pack accordingly.

I planned to visit and see several places with lace during our trip and I was pleasantly surprised to see several more! The first place I/we visited was in Belgium. I knew about the city of Bruges (from Bruges Lace Crochet that imitates Bruges Bobbin Lace), so I planned to visit the Kant Centrum (lace center and museum) in Bruges during our trip. I definitely wasn’t disappointed with the lace center at all! The museum was very nice, but the highlight of the trip for me was actually taking a bobbin lace class while I was there! I had read online a few weeks before our trip that they were having “lace days” during the time we were going to be there. I found a class online that I wanted to take the exact day we were planning to be in Bruges and contacted them. They said the class was full, but they’d let me know if someone had to cancel. Low and behold, the day before the class, someone had to cancel and I was able to take the class! I was giddy with delight! I had planned ahead for taking the class, just in case I could get into it. My local bobbin lace teacher loaned me some of her beautiful bobbins and some linen thread for the class. The lace center said I could borrow a bobbin lace pillow during the class, so I didn’t have to bring my own pillow, which would have been with me during the whole trip, taking up extra room in my luggage.

During the bobbin lace class, I sat next to the nicest lady named Ruth. She let me use some of her blue film to cover the bobbin lace pricking pattern. And when the class was over, she carefully pinned my piece in progress to her bobbin lace pin cushion that a friend had made for her and gave me the beautiful pin cushion to safely take my lace piece home with me! Wasn’t that a loving gift from someone who was basically a stranger to me before the class? I will remember Ruth and be thankful for her kindness for the rest of my life!

My bobbin lace piece isn’t perfect, but I learned more during the class. I’ve improved since returning home and working on it more, as you can see by the bottom part of the lace being more even than the top. What do you think? This style of bobbin lace is called Milanese. It’s a style of tape lace, which is one of my favorite bobbin lace styles.

When we were in Norway, my son’s friend, Fredrik, who lives in Hamar, took us to the local mall. It was a large mall for the size of the town (at least I thought so). Inside the mall was a yarn shop. Of course, I went inside! I didn’t want to take up a lot of room in my luggage with yarn, but I found some size 80 DMC cotton thread for tatting and bobbin lace. I bought some for me and some for a few lacy friends!

I went into another yarn shop during our trip, this one was in Bergen, Norway. None of the yarn “spoke to me” and said “take me home”, but it was fun to look!

Another one of the highlights for the trip for me was going to the island of Burano in Venice. Burano is famous for lace! There is a museum there called “Museo del Merletto”. It had a lot of lace to see. The museum also had lace making books for sale. Some of them were on Aemilia Ars needle lace, which I love and am slowly learning to make! I have book 1 of 3 in the series of Aemilia Ars books, but it’s in Italian (I use Google translate to help me understand it, but I’ve found Google’s translations are a little odd for craft instructions). They had the books in both Italian and English! However, they only took cash for the books and we only had 20 euros between us. Since each of the books was 15 euros, I decided to buy the second book in the series. I would have LOVED to purchase all 3 books in English, but we didn’t have the time to get to an ATM and back before they closed. So I had to choose between the 3 books. I think I made the correct choice so I can practice needle lace and improve!

Another highlight of the trip was visiting the lace shop near the lace museum in Burano. The name of the shop was “Merletti dalla Olga”. They had hundreds, if not thousands, of lace items for sale there! There was a nice lady who worked there (I didn’t get her name or a photo of her), who took my husband and me to the third floor and showed us some pieces that are absolutely stunning! She showed us a needle lace tablecloth that took 10 years to make and costs $85,000 euros!!! It was exquisite, to say the least!!!

There was a very nice shop in Brussels, Belgium that I looked in, also. They had beautiful baby clothes and lace doilies, tablecloths, etc. It’s fun to see lace for sale and know that it’s still going strong in Europe!

I’ve been learning a new crochet lace technique called “Veronese Crochet Lace”. This technique comes from Verona, Italy. Since we visited Verona, I decided to wear a Veronese Crochet Lace necklace and earrings one day while we were there! Here’s a photo of my husband and me in Verona at the Arena, which was built in the 1st century and is still standing! It’s used for operas and more. In fact, our son and DIL went to the opera one night at the Arena while we babysat our grandson. What fun!

We went into a lot of churches in Europe. They were spectacular! The architecture is wonderful to see. And the stained glass windows! Oh my!!! Many of them had beautiful bobbin lace or crocheted lace altar cloths. Here are a few of them:

It was lots of fun to see so much lace in Europe! I’m sure I’ll find more lace there when/if we go back for another trip/vacation! Have you seen lace, crochet, knitting, etc in Europe? If so, where? Where was your favorite place to see lace in Europe?

We had a wonderful time on our trip. We saw so many beautiful, stunning, scenic places in each of the countries we visited. And we got in lots of “grandparent” time, which was a blessing!

Happy crocheting and lace making!

Susan

June 6, 2018June 5, 2018

The Ireland Portion of our Anniversary Trip

This blog post is a continuation of yesterday’s blog post about our 40th Anniversary trip to England and Ireland. If you haven’t read yesterday’s post, please check it out here!

After seeing some of London, we went to Ireland for a week. We saw the Cliffs of Moher on a good weather day! Wow! What a sight that was! The cliffs are very high and beautiful!

We toured a tower castle called Dysert O’Dea in County Clare. There’s a circular staircase in one corner of the castle that takes you to each floor and room of the castle. That was fascinating!

One of the highlights of Ireland for me was visiting the remains of the Ballyheigue Castle that is in my family ancestry! The castle was built in 1295 by Timothy de Cantelupe and held by his descendants, a line of Barons de Ballyheigue, until 1690. Many of my ancestors were born in Ireland and some of them emigrated to Canada in the 1840’s, around the time of the potato famine. What a thrill it was to be there where my ancestors lived many generations ago!

What’s a trip to Ireland without seeing the Ring of Kerry? There were so many pretty views there! I got to hold a lamb for the first time in my 60 years of life! What a thrill that was! The lamb was so soft!

I also visited a lace shop in Kenmare called the Kenmare Lace & Design Centre. It was on the 2nd floor near the Heritage Centre. I met Nora Finnegan there, the lady who runs the Lace Centre. She showed me how Kenmare Lace is made. And I bought a few souvenirs from the Lace Centre, too! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take photos inside. But take my word for it, the lace was exquisite! Kenmare lace is a needle lace and the quality of the pieces there was amazing!!!

My husband and I toured the Muckross House, a Victorian house built from 1839 to 1843 in Killarney National Park, and walked through the gardens. We also had lunch at their cafeteria. The house and gardens were gorgeous! I LOVE old houses and various types of architecture! The most fascinating story about the house is that the owners, Mr and Mrs Herbert, spent a lot of money to fix up the house and gardens for Queen Victoria’s visit in 1861. The queen only stayed 2 nights in the house! The expense almost bankrupted the Herberts!

There was a wool shop in County Kerry called Kerry Woollen Mills. I stopped in there and brought home a few souvenirs from that shop! The shop had lots of beautiful finished knit items to buy, but I just bought a hank of wool yarn and a cute sheep!

Another old house that we toured was the Fota House. That was an amazing house with gorgeous architectural details inside! The gardens were amazing, too! We had our own tour guide, Brian, who showed us many fascinating things in the house! What a fun tour that was!!!

We stayed at Air BnB’s in Ennis, Killarney, Cork, Waterford and Wexford. The BnB in Killarney was exceptional! The host, Adah, was so sweet and helpful! She even put an anniversary card and a box of chocolates in our room! Now that’s a great host!

Most of the Bed and Breakfasts met our expectations and most included breakfast, which was wonderful!

All in all, it was a fabulous trip! The weather in Ireland was sunny 4 out of 7 days! I guess that’s about average for there. If Arizona got that much rain, I bet we’d have as much green as Ireland! But then Arizona wouldn’t be a desert, would it?

Driving on the other side of the road was quite different! My husband drove and I was the co-pilot! Besides being the navigator using Google maps on my hubby’s phone, I got to say things like “you’re getting too close to the curb” or “there’s a rock wall coming up”! Sometimes I just felt like closing my eyes because it’s a little scary on that side of the car, especially when it’s your first time driving (or being the passenger) on the left-hand side of the road! But all in all, my hubby drove great and we survived the other side of the road! By the way, if you didn’t already know, some of the roads in Ireland are only wide enough for 1 car, not 2! Those are the really “thrilling” roads!!!

There are fields of sheep everywhere in Ireland and England! Some of the sheep are even colored so if they get out of the field, they can be identified by their color(s) and returned to the proper field.

We had such a good time in both England and Ireland. It was a trip we’ll remember with fond memories for many years! I’m so glad that we took the time and spent the money to go on this 40th Anniversary trip! Both countries are beautiful and have so much history to them! And it was wonderful to see both countries where some of my ancestors lived!

Until next time.

Happy crocheting,

Susan

June 5, 2018

What a Fun Vacation!!!

It’s been over a month since I’ve written a blog post and for good reason. From April 29 through May 17, my husband and I took a 40th anniversary trip to England and Ireland! Where does the time go? It seems like it was yesterday when we got married! Now it’s 40 years later!!!

Wow! What a trip we had! In today’s and tomorrow’s blog posts, I’d like to share the highlights of the trip with you (England today and Ireland tomorrow). Here are the highlights of the England portion of our trip:

At the beginning of our trip, we spent 3 days in London and saw some fabulous sights! We went up to the top of the Shard, which overlooks London. The sights were gorgeous from 70 stories up! Here are a few photos of us at the top:

We also toured Westminster Abbey and took a river boat cruise along the Thames.

Tower Bridge in London as seen from Thames River boat cruise

I was able to squeeze in a trip to a London yarn shop called Loop. What a nice place to see lots of gorgeous yarn and crochet thread! Some crochet thread by Scheepjes spoke to me in the shop, so I came home with 10 balls of thread! I look forward to designing something with these gorgeous colors after I’m all done with the 3 crochet contracts I’m working on right now!

Crochet thread from Loop London yarn shop

We saw a lot more than this in London, but for the sake of this blog post not being WAY too long, I’ll stop with these places.

We went to Ireland after London, then back to the southwest part of England, known as Devon and Cornwall. We rented a car during this portion of our England vacation (we didn’t dare drive in London, but took lots of public transportation there, which was fabulous).

One of the highlights of this part of the trip was visiting Port Isaac, where the British show, Doc Martin, is filmed. If you haven’t seen Doc Martin, you’re in for a treat! It’s a wonderful show that we’ve enjoyed for quite a while now. We could almost envision Martin and Louisa there! Port Isaac was a really nice, beautiful place! Here are a few photos from Port Isaac:

We toured an old house in England called Cotehele House & Gardens. It was a fabulous tour! This house had tour guides in each room to tell about the specific rooms!

We went to the All Hallows Museum in Honiton to see some Honiton Lace. Wow! The lace there was AMAZING! They had large drawers with huge pieces of lace that were exquisite! Each large piece took thousands of hours of work!!! Now that’s dedication to a craft! Lace making, and Honiton Lace in particular, was a cottage industry in the Devon area in the 16th and 17th centuries. Making lace provided an income for many families for several hundred years. Unfortunately, the invention of machine made lace made hand made lace virtually obsolete.

Since I learned to do bobbin lace this past January, I bought some souvenirs at the museum to help further my bobbin lace knowledge and skills!

The England portion of our trip was so much fun, just as the Ireland portion was also lots of fun! Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog post about Ireland!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

February 22, 2018

Learning New Things!

Last month, I learned something new. It’s called “Bobbin Lace” and I LOVE it! Bobbin Lace is made with dozens of wooden bobbins. The thread is wound on the bobbins, then the bobbins are crossed and twisted to make the pattern. Of course, there’s much more to it than that, but that’s the basic idea of how to make bobbin lace.

I’ve been wanting to learn bobbin lace for many years. When the class was offered at my local yarn shop, Fiber Creek in Prescott, AZ at the beginning of January, I jumped at the chance to learn it! The Bobbin Lace teacher, Verla, was very good and encouraging! She supplied everything we needed to use in the class.

Here’s a photo of me learning bobbin lace in the class last month:

Bobbin Lace takes a very long time to make. The bookmark that I made in class took about 4 1/2 hours to make! Here’s a photo of my finished bookmark:

It’s not perfect, but I learned a TON making it!

There are many styles of Bobbin Lace. Two of my favorites are Russian and Brugge (or Bruges) Bobbin Lace. If the words “Brugge” or “Bruges” look familiar, it’s because it’s the original bobbin lace from Belgium that inspired the Crochet Bruges Lace technique that I’ve taught and designed in for a number of years! Here are a few photos from my Bobbin Lace teacher’s board in the class I took from her:

Both of these styles of Bobbin Lace are made with “tapes”, just the same as Crochet Bruges Lace. Here is a photo of a crocheted Bruges Lace piece that I designed in the last 10 years:

Can you see the similarities between the Bobbin Lace and the crochet Bruges Lace? They’re both made with tapes. Of course, the crochet method is much faster than the bobbin lace method, but I love them both the same!

In case you’re wondering, this crochet Bruges Lace doily is published in the book/leaflet called “Crochet Beyond the Basics” by Rita Weiss and yours truly in 2014. This book is still available for purchase in print or as a digital download through Leisure Arts, the publisher, here or in print through Amazon here. I designed another crochet Bruges Lace piece for this book. Here’s that piece:

If you’d like to learn how to do Crochet Bruges Lace, I’m teaching it at 2 places this year:

At the Interweave Yarn Fest in Loveland, Colorado in April and at the CGOA Conference in Portland, Oregon in July. You can read about the Interweave Yarn fest here and register for my Yarn Fest class here. You can read a little about the CGOA Conference and find out who’s teaching classes here, but the class listings won’t be publicized until around the middle of March.

Back to Bobbin Lace! Here’s a photo of the first Russian Bobbin Lace doily that I made a few weeks ago:

And here’s a photo of my 2nd Russian Bobbin Lace doily in progress:

What do you think? Have you ever wanted to learn to do Bobbin Lace? Or do you already know how to make bobbin lace? Do you want to learn to do Crochet Bruges Lace? I’d love to have you in my Bruges Lace classes in Colorado or Portland this year! And I’d love to hear what you think about bobbin lace and/or crochet Bruges Lace!

Happy crocheting, knitting, tatting and bobbin lace making!

Susan