Day 332: For the last week or so, I have been developing a bobbin lace pattern (a sampler) to insert into the channel of an acrylic ruler designed with this type of display in mind. The lace is protected by a snap-in cover, removable if you want to change it out for another piece. Several factors went into planning the lace, width and length affecting the number of repeats possible in the alloted space, and weight of the threads (working thread and gimp). The pattern I created worked well with #60 cotton and #8 perle, but I decided I wanted to see what it would look like with a heavier thread carried along the sewing edges. I had worked one full motif using #12 perle before deciding it was too bulky.
About 35 years ago, I purchased a one-pound cone of white #60 cotton from a supplier in McMinnville Oregon, now long out of business. It proved to be my favourite thread, and now I find myself getting close to the end of the cone. Upon reaching the conclusion that I didn't like the look of the #12 in the edge, I was faced with a dilemma. Bobbin lace should have no knots. It is begun with the threads from pairs of bobbins hung around pins. If I cut my work and threw the completed section of lace away, I would not have enough left on a single bobbin to wind a new pair, i.e., I would be wasting all the thread I had originally wound on the bobbins. There was nothing for it but to unwork the piece, reversing my actions one by one until the entire lace was un-picked.
When a fiber artist is developing a new design, there are usually hitches in the process. I counted myself lucky that none of them had been in the way I'd drafted the work. Backing out of the lace stitch by stitch, I salvaged every inch of thread and completed the sampler this morning.
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