Katherina Weyssin's blog

Katherina, William de C, Emrys, Iuliana

We revised the Rundstreich and Doppel Rundstreich, which Ludwig, Eleanor and Katherina examined a few weeks ago.

Katherina, William, Amalie, Caterine and Nadia continued to work their way through learning or revising the Canterbury Fair ball-list.

Tonight we looked at:

I've been experimenting with renaissance bobbin-lace, slowly accumulating patterns and techniques. I'm making preliminary notes for most of the patterns I try here. From time to time, I do a more extensive write-up of a particular pattern, and give it its own page.

My very first piece was done with Lady Ginevra's gentle and skillful supervision, and Southron Gaard's first String Day (a one-day textiles-workshop). Ginevra showed Caterine and I the basic stitches, and lent us her bobbins and pillows for long enough to complete a small piece. Wonderful!

Several members of the Barony are excited by bobbin-lace at the moment, so I'm compiling a the resources we've found most useful here.

Digital Archive of Documents Related to Lace

A fabulous collection of primary and secondary resources: facsimiles of renaissance pattern books, scans of 19th C histories of lace, modern articles on lace and lace making, etc.

Especially useful are:

I wanted to try bobbin lace, but didn't want to order bobbins or spend a long time making an elaborate pillow until I was sure it was something I'd do more than a few inches of.

Several members of the group have bought silk thread from Fibreholics, a weaving supplier in Kaitaia. Each cone of thread is quite expensive ($35-$50), but as there's over a kilometre on a cone it's significantly cheaper by the metre than embroidery silks, or even crochet cotton.

Update: Many of these are now available in much smaller, cheaper rolls - $6-$12 for 10grams. That's still a lot more than in a skein of embroidery thread.

We tend to buy different colours, so we can swap. So far, we have:

As we had the pleasure of Monna Fina's company for an afternoon, we had an extra dance practice this week.

Present: Fina, Anna, Caterine, William, Katherina

Dances: Lorrayne Almain, Black Almain, Contentezza d'Amore (from Il Ballarino), Gracca Amorosa.

Present: William, Katherina, Anna, Caterine

Finally put all four verses of Spagnoletta Nuova in modo di Madriglia together. More revision of Lioncello, Contrapasso Nuovo.

Present: Anna, Caterine, William, Katherina

Learned the third verse of Spagnoletta Nuova in modo di Madgriglia. Brought Contrapasso Nuovo out of mothballs (doing it with a missing couple). Brushed up Leoncello Vecchio. Played with Amoroso, and the random playlist.

Spagnoletta works to Ramstein, far better than you'd think.

Katherina, William and Caterine had a full, strenuous but fairly casual evening.

After warming up (Spero, some others I now forget) we spent the first half of the practice revising the first half of Spagnoletta Nuova in modo di Madriglia.

The rest of the evening was improvisatory: