Reticella Lace

Costume Showcase is over and it is less than 8 weeks till the course is over for me. It has been a bit of a roller coaster ride and it seems like I only started yesterday. We have 2 shows to complete costumes for in the next few weeks. They are 'The Putnam County Spelling Bee' and 'Love's Labours Lost' then it is all over and we all need to look for work.

 While working on the costume for Showcase I have become interested in lacemaking. I have been taking lessons with a local teacher and have completed several very very small and very simple samples of bobbin lace. Unfortunately I don't own any bobbins or a cushion so it makes it difficult to actually finish anything larger than a half a book mark but I am finally getting the hang of the basic stitches. I wonder if I could get a few people and make lace with rope and use people as the bobbins? Sounds like the perfect drama school collaborative project :-)

Although I am learning bobbin lacemaking I keep finding photos of reticella lace which I really like.
http://lace.lacefairy.com/Lace/ID/ReticellaID.html

Reticella lace is made by stitching over linen threads. The Duchess of Dunfermline's ruff was probably made this way.









In her Ballyhoo Blog,  Carlyn Beccia gives a Adobe Illustrator tutorial on ruffs.

Here Cal Lane shows his lace sculptures