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Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Stabilizing a Lace Coverlet - 50 Inches a Day



50 inches a day!

We found an amazing bit of handwork.  It's almost a sampler.
It measures 76 x 84 inches.

There is a huge variety of patterns.
I have not counted the number of distinct designs.
The large squares are 6 by 6 inches.


They are held together by strips of linen with cutwork and crochet.
The rectangles are 3 by 6 inches.  The small squares are about 3 x 3.

 Alas, much of the linen is shattered.  Seams are pulling apart.  And the crochet is falling apart in places.

In order to be able to see and to use it, we decided to tack it to a background sheet to stabilize it.  I began the tacking today, and that's when I learned I can do 50 inches a day.  If I do that every single day, this will be finished in less than three months.


Did you wonder how we decided on the background?

We tried it with a dark background.  The contrast was clear, but the color was distracting.

We tried it with a white background, and you could not really see the work.  And that's the whole point.

So we settled on a chartreuse green.  This will go in a bedroom with beige and white curtains and beige walls.  Very restful.  It would have made a stunning tablecloth, but it is too fragile to stand up to laundering.  So it will be a summer bedcover.

I will need to talk to my crafty buddies.  Is this crochet?  Tatting?


1 comment:

Becky said...

I am no embroidery or crochet expert, but your piece looks like a sampler of whitework . I think I see some crochet and tatting, but there are other techniques there too. It looks very uniform so I think one person did the whole piece.