The Veil of Black
December 07, 2019
A blessed day to you, dear reader!
Some of you may remember that I mentioned that I had a black lace veil that I made recently....with many promises to show you the process once it was completed. I'm happy to say that (as of a couple of months ago) this has been done and I now can show it to you!
I started with making the large motifs for the bottom edge. I fell in love with the Irish Rose motif in the design process; but when I made the first one, I discovered that they were a lot bigger and poofier than it looked in the book. So they were relegated to the bottom edge with these nice leaf motifs.
The next step was to redesign the "body" section of the veil - which required making a new style of motif. The stem portion of these motifs was in the same book I got the rest of the motifs from, but the flowers came from an online pattern - they are primroses. The leaves were free-handed, but based on the bigger leaves that I made earlier.
Above is the fully designed veil. It is a half-circle veil, with rose, leaf, and primrose motifs. I'm using a jigsaw of cardboard pieces in order to keep everything flat - a method that caused a lot of grief later. The size is quite large - I had designed it to reach my waist to cover all of my hair - and the width is a lot longer than I had originally intended.
The next step was to make the "ground" which connects all the motifs. I decided to do a plain ground of chain stitches, making a sort of diamond pattern. It was more free-hand than following the pattern, much to my chagrin. Thumbtacks did most of the holding, which caused grief in and of itself - the points being almost too short for any decent use.
The extra difficulty too was that, because of lack of space, there was no way that I could keep the work flat. I'm using a table here, and I'm working my way up - a terrible strategy. It was also super difficult to keep everything stretched which made for some really wonky looking sections.
The ground is now complete, and you can still see the motifs clearly! As you can see, I'm also starting to edge it with a "wheel" edge. Because of the dramatic motifs on the bottom edge, I didn't want a really big edge.
Once this edge was done, it was time to try it on for the first time. The first thing I noticed was that it was super stretchy and that it sagged down on my head. So, I spent several hours trying to starch the finished veil in order for it to stand up a little better.
As these pictures show, it's still a little on the stretchy side, so more starching is in order in the future. One thing that I did not take into account was just how much "ground" separated the motifs. Much more of the detail was on laying on the front.
The length actually also made it conducive to being a fancy shawl too :)
All in all, it's not bad for a first try at veil-making. Though I will say, that I think I'm going to re-try it and make it....smaller. Or at least not so wide. And maybe find some bigger motifs.
Or, with my luck, someone will buy me a black lace veil.
Have you ever tried making a veil/mantilla, or done any lace crochet?
Old-fashionably yours,
Catherine
2 comments
Wow that's super neat! I knit, but haven't made much lace and really want to.
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Oh my word, that is stunning!!! I can't even image making something like that! It is beautiful, Catherine!!
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