Pretty Little Lace Runner (or) Ode to Lace

Hey there! 

I was recently given some unusual remnants... unusual, but extremely awesome... from the local Lace Factory, which closed many years ago!  They were given to me by one of my personal heroes, a wonderful lady who has decided to purge her craft supplies (she was my hero before she did this, mind you!)  She had boxes and boxes of lace in fabulous condition... fabric, ribbons, notions, trims.  Green lace, brown lace, pink lace, white.... daisies, flowers, checks, rare patterns.

It is the holy grail of lace. 

And it is now in my possession.  Mwahahaha!

Superman always takes it in a stride when I bring a new load of boxes into the house.  He knows that 2/3 of them will leave again before long.  I had to break the news to him (gently, of course) that the lace was moving in for good.  To make my point much more obvious, I opened the boxes and showed him my loot.  I'm not sure what I was expecting... perhaps I expected him to start drooling, or to at least have gold reflecting in his eyes... but furrowed eyebrows??  "So... these boxes are basically just a bunch of scraps?"  The next fifteen minutes were dedicated to my explaining, in detail, how wrong he was to call these rare treasures mere 'scraps'.  I told him that this was offensive, and that, in the future, he should show more respect when referring to my lace.  (Don't worry -- he's used to my strangeness, and to be fair, I've also been asked, in the past, to show more respect for his sawdust floor in the basement, and to refrain from bringing a vacuum near it ever again.)

So, today, I will be sharing with you my first project with my lace!  (And I do apologize for the quality of the pictures.)  From my treasure trove, I selected a light brown lace piece that had already been cut a little.  I trimmed off the edges so that it was square, then ironed the edge under (on low heat) about 1/2" all the way around.

Then, taking a long, pink ribbon, I wove it through the lace.  Now, there are easy ways of doing this, and there are hard ways.  I chose a hard way (but, in my defense, it sounded easy at the time).  I chose to thread the ribbon through already-existing holes in the lace.  Obviously, I was crazy.  It worked, but it was extremely time-consuming (approximately 2 hours).

On the very last corner, I tied a dainty little bow.

And that was it!  This is the only runner I will be making like this... I just don't have the time to make more.  But I will certainly be enjoying this one!

~ Sarah