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All members are eligible to submit to the Lace Challenge. A new challenge is added every August, but these challenges are ongoing and you can continue to submit to any challenge posted below.
To navigate to the page where the challenge entries are displayed, click on Lace Challenge in the upper right corner of this page to see a drop down menu then click to select a challenge. The challenge pages will be updated as entries are submitted by I. O. L. I. members.
Your Challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to create a “lace-something” reflecting the Challenge theme. It can be very Traditional lace or think wa-a-a-ay outside the box and make something really “outré.” It can be made using just one type of lace technique or multiple techniques. It can be your own design or someone else’s- just give that person design credit when you send the pictures.
It can be flat, it can be 3-D, it can be attached to something else, it can be a functional item or just for pretty, it can be one color or a riot of colors, it can be one thing or many, it can be big, it can be small-go ahead: go wild!
Rules:
Use your choice of lace technique(s).
Use your choice of materials and tools.
Use your choice of pattern/pricking.
Submit a .jpg photo of your finished lace using the Challenge Submission Form. The form will require:
Your email
Your name and state
Style of Lace
Challenge Number
Designer, book, or source of the pattern or original design
Designer’s name or original design
Title, author & page(s) if published in a document
Definitions:
Something which can be added to make something else more attractive
Contributing to or aiding in an activity or process
When we attend IOLI conventions or guild meetings, we enjoy seeing the lace accessories others display including jewelry, a scarf or shawl, or embellishments for a phone or bag or purse. At public demonstrations, we educate and fascinate and hopefully recruit new lacemakers. Are we aiding & abetting?
For this challenge, make an accessory in lace that you can use or wear or gift to someone else to use or wear.
Rules:
Use your choice of lace technique(s).
Use your choice of materials and tools.
Use your choice of pattern/pricking.
Submit a .jpg photo of your finished lace to Challenge@InternationalOrganizationOfLace.org with
Your name
Lace technique(s)
Materials
Pattern/pricking source
Designer’s name or original design
Title, author & page(s) if published in a document
Any additional comments to share with lacemakers
Supercharge your challenge by designing your own lace.
Some suggestions to get you thinking about designing your accessory:
Take a geometric shape, the shape of a letter or symbol, or a random scribble shape as the basis for your design for a pendant or a motif to attach or sew on to clothing.
Adapt a favorite bookmark to be a pendant or necklace.
Lay a blouse or shirt flat and use tissue paper to copy the curve of the neckline from shoulder to shoulder with a pencil or pins. Then add a line for the lower edge of a collar or necklace. Extend the right and left ends of the lines so that they are long enough and have an appropriate curve to meet for fastening. Once you have your shape, pencil in meanders to fill the shape. The meanders may be tape lace or bobbin lace plaits/braids, crochet chains, fleco knotting, or tatting.
Use the pattern as a guide to make needle lace or knit lace from the neck edge down or from center back around to center back.
Add beads or embellishments as you make the lace or when the lace is complete.
If your lace is delicate or very flexible, make 2 layers. Make the bottom layer a grid to support the shape of the top layer.
How about a lacy sprang accessory?
Would you like to be part of a collaborative project to welcome the participants and thank the local organizers of the next OIDFA Congress in Bulgaria in 2025?
At the 'Big Lace Installations' course held by Puntaires de Girona in July 2024, it was decided to make a big lace welcome installation in KALOFER 2025. The idea is to homage the Bulgarian Rose and open it to all of you, make it a worldwide collaborative project to celebrate lace and friendship. Do you want to be part of it? If you are interested, click on the upper right corner to display the menu of challenges, and select Challenge 11 to get information in English, French, German, Spanish, or Catalan.
Thanks go to M Mercè Rovira and Maite Yanútolo – Puntaires de Girona for preparing materials for this project.
Help us gather information about lace collections you visit. This information will be useful for people who are traveling and enjoy lace. We’ve all returned home from a trip and found out about something we would have liked to visit if we had known about it. This information will be helpful in planning travel.
For this challenge we will use an online form to collect information.
Your name and contact information in case we need to contact you.
Name of organization with a lace collection, their website, email address or location of contact form, street address, telephone number.
What lace-related items will visitors see?
Here is a link to the online form to use to save your information.
https://forms.gle/1ktHYtnd2iavCt9T7
If you are not comfortable using an online form, please send an email with the information listed above to challenge@internationalorganizationoflace.org to record your information.
Your challenge this time is to participate in Maggie Hensel-Brown’s Community Lacemaking Project. If you have never made needle lace, this is an opportunity to learn by making a small leaf. If you have made needle lace before, this is an opportunity to demonstrate your skill. A page of leaf patterns, 38 pages of instructions and two video lessons are provided.
After you make a leaf, please remember to take a picture, and send the picture to challenge@internationalorganizationoflace.org with your name, location, size of leaf, materials and your comments. Instructions for mailing the leaf to Maggie are available through her website. There is a link to the website near the end of the details that follow.
You are welcome to contribute as many leaves as you want for this challenge and for Maggie Hensel-Brown’s Project. Deadline for mailing leaves to Maggie is mid-March 2024. Deadline for emailing pictures to IOLI is March 31, 2024.
WHAT IS THE COMMUNITY LACEMAKING PROJECT?
The community lacemaking project will be a single, large piece of lace to be exhibited in Sydney in mid 2024. It will measure at least three square metres.
A tapestry of small needle lace motifs, designed and pieced together by Maggie Hensel-Brown, but made by hundreds of others.
Needle lace is a centuries old tradition whose practitioners are severely dwindling in numbers. The aim of this community project is to introduce the basic stitches of needle lace to a broad range of new lacemakers, work together in small community sewing groups, and create a single large physical piece. A visualization of all of the hands and thoughts and moments that have gone into the stitches.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE?
IN PERSON: Maggie will be hosting a series of sewing circles. Stitchers will be introduced to the basic principles of needle lace, and will each produce a small motif to add to the overall piece. These circles will pop up between September 2023 and April 2024, mostly around NSW Australia, but also in other areas around Australia and overseas. You can be updated via the mailing list or on instagram on when and where these classes are happening.
ONLINE: For those unable to make it to any of the in-person sessions, there are digital instructions. Participants can gather materials, download a pattern, and stream a video lesson. They can then post the sampler to Maggie to be joined onto the tapestry.
The video links are now live, and you are welcome to start stitching. Any samples for the finished project will need to be sent to Maggie by mid-March. Video links are on Maggie’s website at: https://www.maggiehenselbrown.com/community-lacemaking
There you will find a form to use to contact Maggie for Postal details, questions and updates on the project.
All instruction, whether in-person or online, will be free for participants.
Leaves_Printable_Pattern.pdfPrintable pattern in PDF format.
Printable pattern in PDF format.
Click on the upper right corner of this document to view and print it from your browser.
Maggie Hensel-Brown Community Lace Instructions.pdfInstructions in PDF format.
Instructions in PDF format.
Click on the upper right corner of this document to view and print it from your browser.
I.O.L.I. is a vibrant organization because of the variety of laces made by the variety of lace makers. Several types of lace are made using more than one technique. Romanian point lace combines needle lace stitches with a crochet cord. Battenburg lace has a woven cord (bobbin) with needle lace stitches. Close inspection of a piece of Czech bobbin lace edging showed that the leaves were made with needle weaving.
For Challenge #8, make something using at least two lace techniques, knitting, crochet, tatting, needle lace, bobbin lace, sprang, knotting. You may partner with
another lace maker for this challenge with each lace maker contributing lace in one of the techniques. Here are some ideas to start you thinking about possibilities.
● Knit a scarf and add a crocheted or tatted edging
● Knit a shawl and create a clasp/pin/button using a different technique.
● Decorate a project bag with small pieces of lace in different techniques. Then when you go to demonstrate you will be prepared to show the difference between looped, knotted, woven and/or twisted laces.
● Embellish a crazy quilt placemat with lace in different techniques.
● Make a sampler using at least 2 techniques.
● Make a pendant in one lace technique and its cord in another - crochet cord / bobbin lace braid / fingerloop braid.
● Make a sprang bag with bobbin lace braid drawstrings.
Have you picked up a pretty leaf or rock or seashell? Have you taken a picture of something lovely or interesting in nature? Go for a walk. Look around and find your inspiration. Here are some ideas to start you thinking:
● Knit in sunrise/sunset colors.
● Tat a waterfall
● Crochet a leaf
● Weave the lines of a crystal in bobbin lace
● Make a bird in fleco knotting
What is your favorite part of nature? What is the most intriguing part of nature? What is most fun? What is most beautiful? What is most amazing?
You may choose a pattern someone else has designed or you may design your own pattern. Always give credit to the designer. Your entry may be two or three dimensional. There are no size requirements. The choice is yours. When you take pictures of your entry, be sure to have a plain, contrasting background so that your entry is easy to see and the background does not distract from your work. Send your pictures and descriptions of challenge entries to challenge@internationalorganizationoflace.org .
Challenge 6 is to use your creativity and suggest challenges for the next year.
How long do you want to work on a challenge?
Do you want one challenge at a time or parallel challenges to work on through the year?
Send your suggestions to challenge@internationalorganizationoflace.org .
Thank you for participating in challenges.
The next challenge is to try a lace stitch that is new to you. For example there are books with oodles of variations of rose ground. How many rose ground variations have you tried?
Submit a picture of your sample showing the lace stitch that you tried. The physical size of the sample will vary with the technique and size of thread. Your sample must have enough repetitions of the stitch (at least 3 is recommended) so that others see the pattern created by the stitch. The shape of the sample will depend on whether you are making a tape or ground with your bobbins or if you are knitting or crocheting or tatting or stitching with a needle.
Document your sample. Describe how the sample is constructed with the notation that is appropriate for the technique you are using. You may refer to a book for the description or diagram or you may create your own stitch.
You may submit multiple samples trying out the same stitch using different fibers. You may submit multiple samples trying out the same stitch and fiber on different scales or grids or arrangements. You may try out more than one stitch that is new to you.
I.O.L.I. members, please send your entries to challenge@internationalorganizationoflace.org . This challenge will remain open through July 2022.
One source for bobbin lace stitches to try is GroundForge at https://d-bl.github.io/GroundForge/ .
In the right column there is a list of Catalogues. If you click on Literature you will get a list of book authors and titles. If you click on one of the other Catalogue labels you will get collections of stitches. If you click on TesselLace Index, for example, then click on one of the pair diagrams, you will be taken to a page where GroundForge will draw both the pair diagram (one line per pair) and the thread diagram (one line per thread). Pick a stitch and try it out.
Contact challenge@internationalorganizationoflace.org if you have questions.
At UnCon we missed seeing the bits of lace we’re making in classes because we were not walking around the convention site. Let’s celebrate the great classes at UnCon 2,0 by sharing our work online. The next challenge is to finish something from class and show everyone what you made. This may be a piece of lace, samples of stitches you practiced or learned, a diagram for lace you designed.
I.O.L.I. members, please send your entries to challenge@internationalorganizationoflace.org . Provide the name of the class you took at UnCon 2.0, pictures of what you made, and a description of your work. This challenge will remain open until June 2022 so that members working on larger projects have time to finish.
We look forward to celebrating the first pieces made by lace makers who learned a new technique. We look forward to celebrating the samples made by lacemakers who were practicing challenging stitches like tallies and leaves. We look forward to celebrating the pieces that lace makers have been working on from one convention to another and are finally finishing. We look forward to seeing what everyone did during UnCon classes.
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