Carrickmacross Lace

Two pieces of Carrickmacross Lace from my albums. These were both my own design.

For those who haven't met this type of lace before it involves a layer of organdy over a layer of net. You sew the two layers together in places and cut out part of the organdy. Then you can work stitches into the net. And it always has a little row of hand sewn picots round the edge. It is time-consuming and fiddly, but very pretty when finished.

I entered this one for a competition. I was very cross when the 'judge' explained that, as a knitwear designer, she had no idea what to look for and so had chosen the largest piece in each class as 'she supposed these must have taken longest'. So I lost out to a rather coarse, but undeniably large, piece of hardanger. I should not have minded losing to it if the judging had been intelligent. But I was so cross at this that I never entered another competition - I didn't like the way it made me feel.