Lavish with Laces - Part 2

I want to get going again on CQJP as this March block was the last one I did.

I desperately need something to work on for this upcoming trip and I can baste down laces without my magnifying lamp. Since I am woefully behind in the CQJP2016 challenge   I've decided to lace up 6 blocks and take them along to baste in Alaska.

For years I have had a special drawer for my most precious laces... not necessarily precious monetarily but precious in that I loved to fondle them... They will be pretty much depleted by this project.  First I lay out the six blocks and begin sorting a pile of lace on each block.

I am looking for a balance with each block having a good variety of laces.  Hopefully each block will have some fine handmade laces, antique gossamer laces, inexpensive machine laces and both tatted and crocheted laces...each different.

After I get them pretty much sorted and pinned, I lay them all out side by side to see how well they harmonize and then do some fine tuning...  The three finished blocks are across the top as the new blocks have to blend with them also... You might also notice that I have left a unadorned area near the center of each block.  That is for the placement of the gold work feature added later.

I am mainly looking for variety in texture as the texture of the laces is the very essence of these blocks.. Below I used a very special delicate hand made lace from Italy along with machine made lace and hand crocheted lace.  I try to include several on each block that lend themselves to beading.  The narrow laces can be worked into seam treatments.

Here is another shot of with an juxtaposition of a variety of laces.  The lovely lace lower left was from a vintage collar I bought on Portobello Road in London last fall..  The fine lace at the bottom center was from a tattered section of an old wedding dress.  I only had one sleeve.  Lower right is very inexpensive machine lace but it beads beautifully. The narrow lace I put on the ribbon will be incorporated into a seam treatment...... layer and stack.....layer and stack.

You may have noticed that I only used plain ribbon to bury edges and for the seam lines and there is a reason for that.  I used grosgrain, velvet, silk and both sides of satin ribbon (  the shiny side and the dull side.)  With all the texture of the laces any fancy seam treatments would be invisible.

The ribbons act as a canvas for fancy stitching.  Here you can see how nicely a seam treatment shows up on the grosgrain ribbon... the ribbon is edged on the upper edge with two  different narrow laces...layer and stack...layer and stack!

Here is a seam on a ribbon that had a nice texture but was about 2" wide but I just cut it to size and buried the raw edge under the daisy trim.  Lower left the satin ribbon on the seam that is edged on both sides...one is a scalloped eyelet and the other is a lace especially nice for bead embellishment.

Here is a better shot of that area... Don't you just love the tiny vintage MOP buttons?

Again here is that entire block...  It was the March CQJP2016.  I did a "Lavish with Lace - Part 1" some time ago and it is in Block Talk...  Lots of tips and techniques!

I'll do a block talk on color when I return.