Irish Lace revisited

My passion for fiber arts plus my half-Irish heritage equals Irish crocheted lace for me, and I have recently taken up learning and practicing more on the lace.   I have crocheted for many year, though I can't claim any great proficiency, and that makes it easier to make a start.  Irish lace uses packing cord, or padding, and managing that cord as you crochet around it is, I'm finding, not as easy as it might seem.   In addition, the free-form nature of connecting motifs can be a challenge but these two characteristics are what make it Irish lace.

A padded ring, or "buttony" as Maire Treanor calls them, is made by winding thread around a knitting needle, crochet hook, or (as one of Ms. Treanor's students suggested) a drinking straw, and crocheting around the cord.  Easy, you might think, if you crochet.   Not so much, I discovered. (The straw suggestion is brilliant, however; I'm not sure I would have completed one yet without it!)  My second was definitely better than the first.   (Note that, in all the following photos, I am doing my practice crocheting with size 12 thread; in the end I'll be using 20-50, with packing cord in size 10 or 20.  I'm waiting for delivery of smaller crochet hooks.)

 The wild rose is a good motif to start with, as it uses most of the stitches and techniques used throughout Irish lace.  I'm working on my first wild rose here, and getting better with each petal. (I'm sure you're all too kind to count, but the first petal doesn't have enough loops--mistakes are important to learning right?)

The packing cord is used when you crochet around all the petals, giving more body to the edging.
Did I mention that this is going to take some practice?

There are so many beautiful Irish lace antique pieces out there, and new ones being designed now.  Check out the Sheelin Irish Lace Museum for a look at some antique pieces.  And a search on "Irish lace" on Pinterest yields some beautiful examples.

Traditionally Irish lace was used for dresses, and for lace curtains and linens.  Since I'm a quilter, first and foremost, I'm thinking about it for crazy quilting; I have been seeing some motifs that would be beautiful as lace embellishments.  Some of the collars and jackets and tops are tempting though; I wonder how long it would take me to crochet a jacket....?

The finer thread has arrived from Heirloom Crochet, and the finer hooks are on their way from Earth Faire.  Then we'll see how I do with finer work. Stay tuned.

More Lace--with Irish Eyes

Some time ago, while working on a crazy quilted vest I found a strip of thick lace in my stash.  I don't remember buying the lace myself, so it must have come from my Mom's stash of embellishments.  Only later, as I began to look into learning Irish crocheted lace did I realize that it probably was made by someone in Dad's family, who came from Ireland.  It is now a pretty precious piece of lace!

Irish lace, I discovered, is quite different from other lace, as it is usually worked around a foundation cord--hence the thickness of the lace. 

I am beginning again to delve into Irish lace, and ready to learn.  My first foray (aside from a shamrock--what else could I start with?) is actually a rose and leaves motif pattern for a pincushion.  Traditionally, the motifs and the background "lattice" would be worked separately but for this pattern the background is worked out from the rose motif, and the leaves added later.    It is also not worked around a foundation cord, but it is in the style of Irish lace.   The edging IS worked around a foundation, and added later.

Here's the rose motif for the center:

And here it is, with the lattice background. 

I have completed leaves (I like the way they're done, though it took me a couple of tries to get them to look as I wanted), and will attach them when I have blocked the main piece and tacked it to the linen pincushion form.


As I recall, when I first started working on Irish lace, working around a foundation cord is cumbersome, and is going to require some practice.   But while I'm working on it I can think about my trip to Ireland, meeting my third cousin, visiting the family's old homestead property, and seeing my great great grandfather's grave.   It's one more connection to that side of my family.