gnome

I have a sneaking suspicion, going by the profusion of daisies that have blossomed in my back yard (from the plant I planted last year), and by the pervading scent of Jasmine in the air, that Spring may have finally sprung!

I also have this insane urge to buy some lattice and drape a wisteria plant from it. I may yet do this. I’ll see how much they look like setting me back at the nursery when I go for a walk sometime in the next week!

But what have I been working on? Well you may ask! For some reason I fell in love with a bullion stitch bookmark on Ravelry and scheduled a lesson for myself to learn this amazing new (to me) stitch.

Being in a crochet type of groove, I was inspired by this magazine, which I then bought,

Because …

So I decided it was high time that I learn Irish Lace Crochet. So I headed off to this site, and downloaded myself a 100 year old DMC instruction manual. (Specifically Dillmont, Th. de, ed. D.M.C. Irish Crochet Lace. Mulhouse, Dollfus-Mieg & Cie, [c.1900], 63 pgs and 7 linen patterns.) (I love the internet!)

I began with some leaves,

Then a flower,

Then I decided that my thread was FAR too dense to get the intricacy I was aspiring too, and so I headed back to Morris Craft for a finer gauge.

In between all of that I have also been slowly progressing with the Crown Prince Square. It’s repetitive, and not all that challenging, so I’ll need to finish it fast before I lose interest in it all together!

Just one more repeat of the middle section, then the border of crosses, then it’s on to the outer lace!

Somewhere in there I also made a gnome. *grins*

I’m not sure Elizabeth is as impressed as I am …