Lace Sampler Book

If you are curious as to why you have not seen much of my own work recently. Two weeks ago I was making another  sampler book  but for lace this time. I was using grommets on it and well I hit my left hand index finger with a hammer. I have not done to much handwork as of late because of it.  I was making a sample book with different pages for tatted, crochet, knitted, hairpin lace, some unknown makers some mine and some great grandparents each page is labeled so my kids will know who made the lace on that page.  I will add pages to it latter to add my childrens' lace samples, and needle lace samples and tennerife samples and so on.

That is why the grommets so I can easily change things around.  The pages are 18 x 11 with 8 grommets at the top of each page so that I can use rings to hold them together which also makes it easy to add pages that is as long as I don't take a hammer to my hand.  The pages are made out of wool.  The wool was washed so it is felted which is a good thing because I do not have to hem the edges at all  because the wool is clean I shouldn't have to worry about wool moths either but I will still take precautions on it any way. right now these are in one book but in time they will be split into other books such as.

• crochet by unknown crocheters
• crochet by me
• crochet by my children one for each of them
• crochet by great grandmothers
• tatting by me
• tatting by unknown tatters
• tatting by my children
• knitted lace by me
• knitted lace by others
• bobbin lace by me
• tennerife lace by me
• tennerife lace by others
• etc the list goes on and on

 

As you can see this is why I made the book changeable not all of these categories will have there own book but they will have there own pages and if there are to many of one it will get its own book like crochet by unknown crocheters already needs its own book.  I tend to buy little balls of vintage to antique thread when ever I see them they also tend to have little scraps of other peoples unfinished work in them.

I still need to make covers for these and I still need to sew lots in place as you can tell somethings are safety pined in so I know where they go.  This way I can carry a page with me and work on sewing it in and not get poked by straight pins holing them in place.  But i have not sewn in much yet the hand thing.  I am able to do sewing again now as my hand is mostly recovered but I am trying to empty a pod unit that has been in my driveway for a year and I need to get to it because most of my fabric is in it and well I am worried it is getting wrecked.

There are more pages in this book some with more lace samples some blank  but this gives you an idea of it all.

So for those who don't make test swatches a lot of mine in this book are my test swatches they are important. A lot are also my swatches from doing repair work trying to get the gauge right and trying to figure out the pattern. Samples are important. As I am working on cleaning out our pod unit I am finding more and more of my samples that have just been scattered about in my sewing supplies. It will now be nice to have a record to show people what I can do.