At Skipton Stitchers today we had a wonderful speaker called Wyn Ingham, she was talking to us about lace but wove into it her Catholic upbringing with lots of Irish aunts and grandparents, she brought with her family pieces of lace and embroidery which brought the talk alive, collars worn by her grandmother, hankies given to her for her confirmation, christening gowns, swaddling bands, together with little samples of lace and embroidery she’s collected over the years from 5th century stitching to 20th century lace. A fascinating and very entertaining talk.

In the afternoon she taught us to make macaroons, fabric ones, I think the idea is that you can put pins in the sides but I think mine is going to be for decoration.

She provided us with two large circles of cotton, three little ones to make Suffolk puffs with, a piece of lace, some buttons, two make-up pads, two circles of wood and a thick foam pad which was actually the circles you can buy to put on the bottom of furniture.

The pads were placed on the wooden circles as padding, one large circle was gathered round it and the foam circle was stuck underneath. That was one half of a macaroon done.

We then had to decorate the top circle with the Suffolk puffs, lace and buttons. This is how far I’d got when I had to go to catch my bus home…

This evening I started adding a few more French knots, some straight stitches round the lace and choose some smaller buttons from my stash. I could then gather it round the second wood circle…

All I had to do then was stitch the two halves together. This was done with perle thread and herringbone stitch, it actually went together fairly easily. It was a fun and fairly quick project to do, I love it, I think it’s pretty cute.