Vologda Lace

Vologda is known for two things - dairy products and lace!  An odd combination, I know.  Since we are from Wisconsin and know lots about dairy products already, I thought you would like to learn more about lace.

The lace from this region is hand made.  I remember my grandma making crochet doilies when I was growing up.  These are actually woven using bobbins and a large circular pad.

I think this technique would be very tricky to learn!  Each wooden stick is called a bobbin.  The artist makes pins to follow a pattern on the paper, and then uses the bobbins to weave the thread and make knots.

As they follow these patterns, the lace develops.  This is in a strip, but they also do circular patterns for table cloths, etc.

Here's a finished table cloth.  Incredible!

This is a zoomed in view of the table cloth.  When it is in larger pieces like this you can see the seams that divides it into quarters.  Then they are woven together.

Very interesting...this is an old school uniform!!!  Anna Z told us that her mother used to wear something like this when she was in school, and hated having to wear it.  Now the girls wear outfits like this for high school graduation.  Her mom thought it was funny that she was always trying to NOT have to wear the uniform, and now girls get to wear it as a special occasion!

The lace can also be woven into pictures.  

Here is a close up of the previous piece.  Every one of those threads were knotted by hand!

Sometimes they leave little loops in the stitches, which creates a snowflake effect.

This is the entire piece - it was a tablecloth.  I wish you could see how huge these pieces are - this table would seat 8!

And of course I couldn't help but include this one!  Even the flower bouquet was of lace!