Good Morning Everyone,

I cannot believe how fast the days go flying by and how long it has been since my last post.  I have been very busy, just finished two books in the past year. The first one, LACE FOR ADVENTUROUS CROCHETERS, will be out soon and is already available for pre order on amazon.com. The second one, is still under wraps, but I will be able to talk about it very soon.

I had a little down time, before thinking of starting another book so I decided to work on some unfinished projects that have been sitting around for way too long.  Of course I cannot sit still for too long, so new design proposals and a new book proposal are already in the works.

One of the projects, some of you may remember, is the jacket made from a collection of old doilies. I started it about 18 months ago, on a cold winter day, with snow coming down like mad. I was really excited about it and made a great beginning and even blogged about it - then life got in the way and I put it aside. It is definitely NOT your weekend project. Well I finally finished it and plan on wearing it while at the conference in Reno. I got the idea for the jacket from my friend and fellow designer, Prudence Mapstone. While we were on a trip, Prudence was buying up all these old doilies at thrift shops etc. When I asked Prudence what she was going to do with them, she told me that she had planned to make a skirt. I thought that was a great idea, and I had quite a few doilies myself, but then I thought that I would probably never wear a skirt. After thinking about it for awhile, I thought maybe I would try to do a jacket. I am really pleased with the results.

I really did not know how to begin my project, but I got the brilliant idea (even if I say so myself) of combining two different craft ideas. I used Makuba water soluble solvy as a base, cut my pattern before i even started playing with the doilies. Once I had the pattern cut, I started placing the doilies, moving them around, constantly changing placement, until I got them in a pleasing design.

I started with the sleeves, thinking that would be the easiest way, and it did work. This stuff is really easy to work with, not like the original water soluble stuff that I worked with several years ago.

Sewing the sleeves was fairly easy to do.

I had bought a lovely old crochet collar at a flea market, and I wanted that to be the whole neckline of the jacket back and front. That was the trickiest part of the whole thing. Sewing the body, which is made in one piece, was a challenge, but once I got going it became easier.

When I was all finished, I gave the entire jacket a dye bath to try to even out all the different shades of the doilies. Did not work out exactly as I planned, but I still love it.

Enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend all, we have a beautiful, sun shiny day here, but believe it or not, we had two small power outages this morning. I really feel for all the hurricane victims and what they are going through, with no power for days on end.  I hope that they get help soon.

Margaret

ps: photos were taken by my son Chris, he always makes me look good :-)