Using freestanding laces in unusual ways

Since I’m on the topic of freestanding laces, I thought it would be interesting to showcase freestanding machine embroidered laces in unusual ways. An immediate thought to using fsl is to edge doilies, table runners etc or to place in a garment like in a sleeve or around the neck etc. Lace is nothing more than fabric except it has a luscious feel and look about it. With that in mind, I ventured to use the Kanta laces in more ways than what I have used before.

One of my absolute wishes has been to use the kanta laces as a form of fabric. I have used the method before but in smaller areas, a bit nervous to take on more than I can handle I suppose. A dear friend had given me yards of lacy fabric which somehow kept coming in my view as I was searching for an appropriate project for kanta laces. Then it hit me…ofcourse. Mixing types of laces is an extremely wonderful thing to do and can create beautiful results. My picture does not do justice to this light and airy lace dress. The bodice is made completely using kanta laces which were adhered to the background fabric using stitch witchery. LOL…surprised. So was I!

Various types of iron on adhesives do well to adhere laces to other laces or to fabrics. I had found this some years ago when a dear friend took some of my kanta floral lace motifs and used wonder under to adhere them to a knit sweater set. The look was unbelievable and I decided it was time for me to try this technique. Sewing so many pieces of lace together would have taken me quite a while and as I was short on time I decided to use stitch witchery tapes to adhere the laces to the background fabric. The effect is superb.  As you can see from the circle on the close up image, that is a joint of two lace panels which hardly is detectable using this method.

My next project ofcourse was a bit on the heirloom side. My friend Carolyn from CreativeNeedlecraft had created a very simple yet elegant garment bag. While traveling I had noticed that my store purchased garment bags were getting to be pretty shabby looking and I had plans on making some myself using the pattern…..Well….I never got that far although I will make some yet. Her pattern is quite simple and easy to make but something stopped me while I was cutting out mine with Dupioni silk. The garment bag was for some of my heirloom dresses which I use in showcasing some of my heirloom garments.  The garment bag pattern uses a name panel which ofcourse was specially created for CNC by yours truly and is used exclusively by her in  her classes. The pattern has a gusset on the side to enable several garments to be packed together plus it has an interesting look where it can become a bag if needed.

In my mother’s house, we had garment protectors which came half way down the dresses protecting the shoulders and or the neckline which was always heavily decorated with hand embroidery and beads. These protectors kept dust away from the area as that is the first place which will get soiled with the dust in the air. Thinking of recreating something similar but with an heirloom look, I omitted the gusset and created a half heirloom cover. 

I further went ahead and embroidered my initial using the Vintage Monogram and the border designs and used Kanta Lace V around the edge and the neck. The silk was backed with fusible thin batting giving the garment cover some weight. The laces were attached in similar method of using the stitch witchery. Although in future I think I will use wonder under or similar adhesive which has a paper backing as that makes it much easier to handle all the pieces at one time. The garment cover was further embellished with beads around the neck and at the bottom giving it a priceless look. There are a couple of things I will do differently next time I make one as I hadn’t really planned this one right….too much in a hurry. My understanding is that there are types of wonder under type adhesives which do not come apart when washing but as this is silk, I intend to wash it by hand and ofcourse it is for decorative purposes but would make an excellent bridal gift and or a christening robe cover. Lots of ideas.