More Organization and More Projects

My husband and I shared the area that we called the shop for many years. He did picture framing and matting and I did my felting. I used his counter for my felting. As those of you who do felting know, wool goes everywhere, and it does not go well with the clean matting of pictures. You can probably see what is coming, or maybe not. We both love what we do, so what to do? We both had two rooms in the house in which to do "our thing." Yes, we are a bit spoiled, but our projects were not working together in the same area. At least his wasn't. The last picture that he framed as a gift for our grandson had lint under the glass, and my perfectionist husband was understandably not happy.



 In the last couple of weeks we have reached a compromise. I gave up my cheerful little sunny yellow room, with a nice closet, for the two back rooms. The back rooms have No Storage, so again with IKea, and this time I built bookcases. I already had the plastic tubs for storage of all my valuable junk, so I am making them work for now. I got a table to work on as well as the counter, and the room is almost filled up. The table can be folded and put away. And now I am working on my felting again, and paring down the junk

And now the latest on the Clay Ball. My friend and I have been like a couple of little girls, ordering dresses, getting shoes, and oh yes, those lovely things that fit like a huge girdle that pull you in in every direction, Spanks.  Getting the things on is a real adventure!!!

The brown-gold shawl below is one I made for my friend to go with her brown gown. It looks great on her. It is merino wool over yummy silk. It turned out so pretty. The poncho below is also made with merino over a great silk. For that one I took apart a couple of other things and remade them into this poncho. I am doing that with a few of my older garments.




 The folks organizing the ball want me to model the jackety-shawl in the live auction. The other jacket will be in the silent auction. I have also volunteered to do some chores like set up and  greeting people at the door. I love that kind of stuff.

I got a red mannequin to put the jacket on during the silent auction. I had been needing one anyway and decided that this would be a good time. Red was one of the choices, and I thought that she would go well with Big Red. They can keep each other company. Well, I have been rambling on, just wanted to catch up since I seem to only get to this rarely lately. Love and hugs to all my blogger buddies out there.

More From the Attic

Such a great response to this lace, as excited about this treasure as I am. Many of you wanted to see more, so here goes. As far as I can tell with my limited knowledge, this lace is hand made, made using a bobbin, and machine made. It seems to be all cotton so far. A small amount is crocheted. I even got some patterns in with my laces. Here are more pictures, also more of the black.

A Dream Come True

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you wander around in an attic finding all kinds of old and wonderful treasures? I have, and I have always awakened with a feeling of loss. I'm not sure what that means, but the treasure that I found recently reminded me of those dreams. I was looking at on line auctions and came across boxes of old lace. The lots were  2 and 3 boxes of lace at a time. I decided that I might as well try for some even though I thought that I never had a chance. I bid on a lot of 3 boxes of white and ecru lace and a lot of 3 boxes of black lace and I got both.

 These beautiful laces were being stored in an attic, as they have that smell of old attic. I love the smell, it's antique. Each lace is different. I think that the person who originally owned them was a dress maker because she kept every bit of lace she could find. Many of the pieces that I have are old inserts from vintage dresses, the lace pieces that went up to the lace collar, and the lace collars and cuffs.  These were made in the day when women wore a lot of fancy lace to decorate themselves.

Most of the black laces came on cards as shown so that the design shows. I could spend days just taking pictures of them.

I can't begin to show all of the designs. As you can tell I am excited about this find, what a treasure. Now I want to find out more about lace making. I am using a bit of it on a few vests just to show it off. These were pieces that were in the "scrap" bag. Hah!  I am careful not to ruin the lace. What fun.

 I hope that you enjoy my treasure. I will try to post more samples if you would like to see them. Hugs