Little bears and other animals

These are some really tiny bears and other animals that I made. The smaller they are the fiddlier!

And a couple of small but not miniature bears. I had forgotten I had made these until I looked through my albums.

A miniature dog and a tatted rosary.



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.



More Bears

Some more bears from my albums today.

This one is a glove puppet.

A knitted bear, a knitted monkey and an embroidered bear.

I think these ones were all commercial patterns from the 1990s.



Bobbin Lace

Years ago I used to make bobbin lace but found I only really liked Torchon Lace - the geometric patterns appealed to me.

This is the last piece I made, from a Japanese pattern. My problem was, after that there seemed nowhere else to go with Torchon lace. Also the fragility was a problem and the inability to wash it. So I decided I preferred the robustness and infinite variety of tatting.

As you can see, the framer, who assered me he was experienced in framing needlework, used a glue which has stained the lace.



Bears

Two of my very big bears and a little one today.

As far as I can remember the big ones were made from bought patterns.

This little one was from a magazine pattern. He is one of my favourites. The tatted collar was an early effort by a friend I was helping with her tatting. It made him a peftect collar!



Embroidery

Two examples of patterns known in Japanese as kogin. It is a counted thread technique. The thread is worked horizontally over and under the appropriate number of threads and the pattern gradually builds up. It is sometimes called pattern darning in English.



This is an evening bag worked in the same technique. It is amazing how just horizontal stitches build up to form diagonal patterns.

Japanese Inspired Embroideries

Two of my embroideries, more experimental ones this time, both based on Japanese themes.

The sumo wrestler above was based on an actual photo of a wrestler.

This one was based on a combination of  the map of the islands of Japan (but rearranged) and the Japanese rock and sand gardens. The rocks are raised work covered in green wool couching - because most of Japan is covered in heavily forested mountains. The raked sand is couched cord. I made my own cord by running a cord fast through the sewing machine with the machine set to a zig-zag stitch. By using a lot of different, but similar threads one after the other, in both bobbin and top-thread, a very interesting cord can be made. This does, however, use up a lot! of thread.