Click here for Christmas patterns.
Lacemakers naturally enjoy the process of lacemaking, but after a bit, it tends to occur to us - what can we do with this stuff? After all, machine-made lace is so cheap, and quite hard to distinguish from hand-made lace unless you look carefully. Beginner projects are suggested - bookmarks... After a bit, you get fed up with bookmarks, and anyway, does lace make good bookmarks? It's a bit knobbly.
I wanted to make lace for my friends and relations for Christmas, and it occurred to me that bobbin lace might be used to make Christmas tree decorations. These patterns are small, and so are fairly quick to make. Also the finished lace is very light, and easy (and cheap) to send through the post.
Many of the patterns below are technically mats or edges (mats with a hole in the middle). This makes them bigger for a given number of bobbins, since the bobbins work all round the middle. It also gives an attractive overall shape. But of course this means that you must be able to work a mat! There is no reason why you can't learn to do this while actually working on these patterns. But I suggest that you try them out, and if any are satisfactory, give those as presents, rather than tell everyone that you are going to give them something, and then find it too hard. It takes time as well, especially if you are making lace for several different people.
One important part of these decorations is the type of thread you use. I tend to use sparkly thread, and often in different colours. I keep an eye open for sparkly thread whenever I visit a street market or haberdashery shop (or lace fair, of course). You can buy sparkly thread from a lace equipment supplier, and I'm sure it is available elsewhere on the internet. This sparkly thread often has a plastic component, or may be all plastic. You may be worried whether you can make lace with it. The only way to see is to try! As far as I can see, you can make lace with any thread that does not break, does not stretch and is bendy enough. The main problems that I have met is thread which is too thick (make the pattern bigger) or too springy. That, surprisingly enough, does not affect the making of the lace, it just means that the thread keeps unwinding from the bobbin! Do-able - just a pain... The other problem is that the thread just does not appear in the pattern the way I expected. It may be very sparkly on the reel, but disappear in the lace. You just have to experiment. If a thread does not work as a gimp (where it is a single thread) it might work better in a ground, where there are lots of thread. But a single sparkly pair of threads can colour a shape if they are cloth stitch workers.
I know that sparkly thread can be expensive. Do check how much thread is on the reel. Some reels only have a small amount of thread on, and you may not have enough for what you want to do. Also, I have used a particularly type of thread in the photos, and you may not be able to find the same type, or even the same colour. Be brave! Try out your own threads. Or, of course, just work the patterns in more conventional thread, although I think they will be duller. How about just getting a reel of golden or silvery thread (quite easy to find) and using that, perhaps as passives in a footside, or as workers?
I have also tried glow-in-the-dark thread!
When I started making these decorations, I assumed that it would be necessary to stiffen them somehow - possibly by threading thin wire round the edge. It isn't! Lace is extremely light, and they seem to keep its shape well. I suggest twisted the edge threads at leat twice for extra strength, though. When you finish it, take one thread from the ones you cut off when finishing the lace, and thread it though a hole near the edge, and knot it to make a loop. And that's it!
I do recommend that you try these out first, before considering them as presents. But I hope that you will find them fun to do, and be proud of the results, and find them acceptable to give as presents. You can even hang them from your own Christmas tree!
It is, of course, possible to use lace for Christmas in other ways. It can be used to decorate a card, or trim something.
Click here for Christmas patterns.
© Jo Edkins 2016 - return to lace index