Greetings fellow lacers, I have a question for you all. Some of you might remember my inquiries a couple of years ago regarding making lace for a christening gown. I have linen fabric, which I purchased in Brugges, for the gown and wondered if I needed to use linen for making the lace which would be attached to the gown or if I could use cotton. For the most part people felt I should use linen because of laundering and storage issues which is what I felt myself despite the fact that I would be unable to find linen that was fine enough for the lace patterns I was considering. So, I began to look for different lace patterns and it was during this time that a friend passed away and I received some of her lacemaking items. One of them was a Springett pattern for Christening lace. The lace is torchon - not quite what I had originally envisioned (I was looking mostly at Bucks patterns) but between this pattern coming my way just as I was trying to find lace patterns, and the fact that we seem to be packing up and moving quite frequently these days and my lacemaking gets put on hold for several months at a time, I figured this was a message from above to be realistic of my limitations. I don't get a lot of steady time to work on lace. So a year ago just after we moved here to Guam I started making the lace. The pattern I have has several widths for edgings on the neckline/sleeves, bottom and front of the gown as well as a pattern for insertion lace. I believe I have made enough of the middle sized width which shows on the drawing to be attached to the front of the gown and will soon move on to one of the other widths.
Up to this point I've not been too panicked about fast progress on this since only one of our three daughters is married. (I know that's not a pre-requisite for children ;-) Both she and her husband are in the military and for the past 3.5 years one or the other has been deployed with only a couple months together in between so not much chance of a grandchild yet. However they have both just recently transferred to shore duty and while they say they have no plans for a baby now...well, we know how plans like that sometimes go. So, I've had the thought that perhaps I should get the gown itself made and attach lace as I finish it. That way if there were to be a baptism needed before it's completely finished it would be available. That brings me to my question. I don't have a pattern for the gown itself. I have the drawing of the finished gown with lace attached that is on the pattern of lace edgings. I wondered if there was a sewing pattern that came with this lace pattern? Or if anyone has something similar they'd be willing to share with me. I could probably alter a basic pattern to fit my needs but as I said earlier, we now live in Guam which is not exactly a major textile hub. We have only a small Ben Franklin here with very limited patterns and none of them are christening gowns. The labeling on the pattern simply says "Christening Lace, C.V. Springett 1988. Is anyone familiar with this pattern? I look forward to your responses. Dona Bushong on the island of Guam where the rainy season seems to have overlooked the calendar and decided to continue on. - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
