Meeting Highlights: Irish Lace Crochet (Part 1)

We were very pleased this month to have several guests so made sure we started the meeting with introductions. We always welcome anyone with an interest in crochet whether they are beginners or experts and it was exciting to see so many new faces!

Next we moved on to some general announcements:

• October will be our first meeting in our new location, the Textile Center of Minnesota. Our meeting room rental is for four hours so you can arrive early and work on projects ("open crochet") from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM with the meeting from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM as now. Watch for more details as well as information about parking in the next meeting reminder.
• June is collecting donations for the Prospect Park United Methodist Church bazaar, which will be held Saturday, November 2. Some of the suggested items are novelty hats for adults and kids, tea-towel toppers, and scrubbers. If you have any items to donate, bring them to the next meeting and the officers will make sure that donations are turned over to June.
• There will be a charity meet-up on September 21 at the Bruegger's Southtown.
• Members are reminded that this is the season to organize a Crochet Meetup in your area. Gather a few friends to crochet in a public place. Take a stack of Crochet Twin Cities business cards to hand out to people who stop to admire your work.

Show and Tell included many ribbon winners from county and state fair crochet entries. Congratulations to everyone!

Jo and Maxine gave an orientation to making Irish or Clones Lace. Irish lace began in the 1800’s in
Ireland as a way for woman to earn money. Villages would create cooperative groups who would create lace of a distinctive design. This approach can be considered crochet freeform, and allows for creativity or not following patterns exactly for those who rebel against pattern details.

Jo and Max were both beginners at this when they started to plan the class. Max found Irish lace a mystery since she could not figure out how the put the mesh and motifs together. (It turns out that you make the motifs, then pin them to a paper pattern and create the mesh around them.) Jo showed everyone her tips for making buttonys, a type of "min-motif" used as a component in several of the traditional motifs.

After this short introduction, everyone set to work on creating a Wild Irish Rose motif, which is the motif in the photo above.  This month we will create motifs, then next month we will work on creating the mesh. Bring two or more completed motifs of your choice next month.

There is a great deal of information online about Irish Lace. One of the best resources is from Interweave Crochet, a five-part series on Irish Lace starting in Fall 2011. An electronic version is available on the  Interweave website for around $5. Many You-Tube and other resources are available online.