Vintage Lace Doily
Hi Everyone,
I made this doily using the Vintage Lace collection from Snow Lady Designs. These designs are so neat and remind me of the crocheted dimensional flowers found on old linens. The text file included with the designs gives exact instructions to create the floral blocks as well as hints for the best threads and stabilizers to use. Here’s how I made the doily.
Supplies:
Vintage Lace -Snow Lady Designs
Embroidery threads - I used white and a light, medium and dark blue
Water soluble stabilizer
1.Hoop stabilizer and embroider 4 bias triangles, 4 each large (lightest color), medium (medium color) and small flowers (darkest color), 1 mesh square and 4 2.5 square bases.
2. Stitch the flowers to the square bases following the instructions.
3. When all the lace is complete, soak in water to remove the stabilizer. Rinse and let dry.
4. Set your machine up for sewing. Select a zigzag stitch; 4.0 W and 1.0 L. Sew the rows together, catching the edges of each motif. Sew the horizontal rows first and then the vertical.
Row 1: bias triangle - flower square - bias triangle
Row 2: flower square - mesh square - flower square
Row 3: same as row 1
Now sew the three rows together and you’re done! You have a beautiful, unique doily.
Although this is a small project, when I played with the designs in my software, I could see many possibilities with them:
1. You can obviously easily change the size of the doily by adding more rows or make six sided doily by using three squares for the first row and five for the next rows. Finish with a row of three.
2.The set also includes continuous edging lace which could be embroidered and sewn together as in step # 4 to create lengths of lace to add to your projects.
3.Embroider the mesh squares and put the floral ones in the corner.
4.Use several different colorways on the flowers ( ie: purples, yellows, and medium pinks or peaches)
5. How about a little tote made of the floral squares or alternating squares? In this case, zigzag the finished lace squares onto a cotton base fabric that matched the flower colors. A little color would show through and the base fabric would give strength to the lace.
6. For a “folk art” look, use black thread for the base and bright colors for the flowers.
7. The flowers can also be made separately and used to embellish clothes, handbags, journal and notebook covers, towels, pillowcases, pillows doll clothes and even lace and fabric bowls. I’m sure there’s many more you can come up with.
I hope this project gives you some inspiration….as for me, I’m back to embroidering….I want to try some other color combinations!!!! If you have any questions, email me (Susan) or Snow Lady.