New thoughts...

Do your projects ever speak to you?

I've been getting some increasingly clear messages from my second piece of lacis.

It doesn't feel like a fan. It doesn't want to be a fan!

It wants to be...

a bag!

Hmm.....

DONE!

The second lacis piece is all stitched up at last. I'm still pondering my fall-back treatment for the stick...maybe carved and painted?

Anyway, I expect the lacis partlet to be a long term project. Just making the netting is gonna take a while so it will probably be a while before you see more lacis from me (after this fan is done, of course.)

Not to worry, I have lots of other projects to work on!

Just another case of belated cleverness

So today I finally got to the store and bought the thread I need to finish my 2nd lacis fan (and the proposed lacis partlet too, btw) and while I was there I bought sculpty in several colors to try making an 'ivory' fan.

Mixing canes of various colors was looking pretty good for the ivory so I took out my 3/8" dowel, cut in some grooves for the fan's wire frame to run in, and started covering it with the plastic clay...only to discover that it was going to turn out way too thick. OK, plan 2! I took out my 1/8" dowel and started covering *it* with the plastic clay...looking pretty good...I only have to sculpt and bake it....

Oh...wait minute...

I have to bake it...in the oven...rats!

I've tested it out and there is no way a 3' length of dowel is going to fit in my current oven. (Sigh, I really miss my fancy stove which is back in New York state.) I've decided to keep the 'ivory' and try it out a fan with a shorter handle so it's back to the drawing board for the stick treatment for this fan. I guess it's good that I still have some stitching left to do!

I've run out of thread

for my second fan so I'm stalled on that project until I can get to the store. (Sigh. So close too!)

The good part of that situation is that I now have time to wander around on the internet looking at cool stuff. I've found plenty of info on ways to make faux ivory out of fimo or other similar materials so my current plan is to make the stick for this fan out of a wooden dowel (it's a bigger fan so I think I will go for a full 3' length in the stick) covered and sculpted in faux ivory.

They say I should bake the fimo stuff on a wooden or even cardboard surface so I don't think baking the dowel will be a problem. I hope it works because I already have ideas about an 'ivory' wax tablet...I guess we'll see!

The possibly bad part of wandering around on the net is that I learn about other new a different cool stuff. Like the Scroll Blank Challenge which is going on in the Midrealm (aka my new Kingdom.) I have been thinking about trying my hand at the scribal arts and now could be the time. I have until early February to make a donation so I'm sure I will at least be able to make a scroll case for the concurrently running Scroll Case Challenge.

Scribal Arts..what fun!

Ideas about the Palo/Lotto partlet

The lovely big picture of this partlet at Web Gallery of Art pretty much makes it possible to count the threads so I have been counting, and pondering, and doing some on-line investigating and have come up with a theory regarding it's possible construction.

I think it may be a double weave (which basically means to weave two layers of fabric at once) which is joined together at the curvy diamond shapes (the lighter threads at the back layer brought forward to make the pattern) the flowers (the warp of the back layer pulled forward and held around a dowel to form loops) and the knots. (I'm calling them knots for lack of a better term but I think they are actually more loops which have been woven in again after several rows.)

I think I could get the loops at the edges just by leaving some extra thread at the edge at each pass--possibly held by another dowel for consistency of size and tension.

Mind you, I haven't actually woven a thing since high school, and even then it was never this complicated, but I think the theory is sound and worth trying. I guess my next step would be to investigate looms...

Lace fan#2 - More Progress

Stitch, stitch stitch....

Hmmm...Looks WARM!

Portrait of Laura da Palo, Lorenzo Lotto 1544 (Detail)

I swear this lady looks like she is wearing a variation on a potholder/trivet thingy one of my Mom's friends had in the 1970's. It was of string-ish yarn, thick, with loops on the edges much like this partlet and caul.

I have no idea what the technique is called but if I can figure it out I may have to make a set for myself. Warm would be nice.

Any ideas?