Certificate Course Gingham Lace

 Because there are 5 Saturdays in this January, there have been two Certificate Course workshops, the first on Chican embroidery, which I've covered in my weekly diary. The second was on Gingham Lace (or Chicken Scratch, Depression Lace....) taken by Carol Mullan. Carol (like Barbara, who taught Chican)  is a good teacher, who knows how to encourage innovation and individual learning - really important in these topics. 

I brought along a piece of mauve gingham with roughly 1cm checks. The photos vary in colour but this first one is a good representation.

I worked a slightly extended version of a motif provided by Carol, using white thread and exposing the white squares in the woven stitches. 

On the other end of my piece, I worked the same motif again, this time in a mauve thread and exposing the purple squares.

I thought the white worked much better. This correlates with what I've thought when working gingham lace before - that in terms of thread, the white and dark colours in gingham produce a better result than the blended colour between.

So I experimented with a dark purple row around the edge. You can see immediately that this produces a kind of dark mauve shadow around the thread.

I played with this quite a bit, and decided in the end to keep the outside row very simple, to focus on colour. The little corner triangles are in fact the same mauve thread worked to expose the white squares rather than the purple.

The colour reproduction in this last photo is unfortunately terrible!

I then went back to the white motif and added a vertical row, exposing the purple on the woven squares. It is such a lot of fun playing with these simple stitches and fabric - and so rich in learning.

Finally, I found some suitable lining fabric and a zip, to turn the piece into (of course) a pouch. 

This (colour change again, I'm afraid) is the result. I'm pleased with it. I will find a use for it, it demonstrates both the stitches and colour impacts of gingham lace variations - and it's been a fun thing to do over a weekend.

Can't ask for more than that!