surprised myself

i was reluctant to tackle the lace pages of my class but finally braced myself and got stuck in yesterday - the fun bit was going through my lace stash to pick out suitable bits - far too much too choose from as usual but limiting myself to pieces which had already been sampled and/or had reasonably large holes helped to narrow it down

tried several layouts - at first it just looked plonked on and regimented, but aafter a few re-jigs it started to look better - i had decided on a brown paper background to provide some contrast then lightly printed it with a lace block, i wanted to stencil it but practise runs were not promising ..... i like the effect i got with the block, it softens the background and help link the areas of lace instead of them looking like stranded islands

i didn't intend to insert some of the samples (as shown on karen's video on swatches) but i realised it was the best way to deal with loose ends & jagged edges, not something i'm usually concerned about but the messy approach didn't feel right for this - i think this achieves the right balance for me

now i have to tackle the sketching bit ....... mmmmm.....