I'm ironing my 18th century clothes tonight (as I'm giving a talk to a local DAR chapter tomorrow about #IpswichLace) as I wait for a woman astronaut come out of a spaceship....

Crossover alert: I talked to a local reenactor guy at an event who captained a ship that picked up #Apollo crew.

The Needleworker’s Ultimate Resource Guide to Celebrating America’s 250th From commemoration to inspiration, we’ve gathered 30+ exhibitions, events, and resources to help you join the festivities.

PieceWork Magazine has a guide to #needlework events associated with #Rev250. You can ask to post your events too.

And yes, that is me at the #IpswichLace event we held for #Massachusetts250.

#America250 #Revolution250 #embroidery #bobbinlace #needlelace

pieceworkmagazine.com/threads-of-i...

Lace Lives On! Bobbin Lace in Ipswich Past and Present Honoring the women who built the historic lace industry in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and connecting today’s makers with this nearly lost craft.

The web article that accompanies our Piecework magazine article is available. We talk about our #Rev250 event last spring with the tale of the Revolutionary lacemakers.

#BobbinLace #IpswichLace #Massachusetts250

pieceworkmagazine.com/lace-lives-o...

The cover of Piecework Magazine Spring 2026 issue. It has the big PieceWork title on the top. Below that it says "Celebrate American Needlework". Other side text says: "Hidden Stories of Revolutionary Lacemakers" and "Piecing Together the History of Seminole Patchwork". It shows some spools of thread around, a white one and two red ones. A blue woven shawl lays diagonally across the background. On the shawl a beige pillow sits. It's a needlepoint rectangular work with a small colonial salmon colored house on the left. One story with 2 small windows on each side of a center entrance door. Three small dormer windows are visible in the brown roof above. It says to the right of the house: "To be Good and To do Good" 1776 [needlepoint flag] 2026 A rose and vine embroidery is below the writing.

My blue Swedish lace pillow with my Ipswich lace in progress. It has dozens of wooden bobbins around the front, wrapped with black silk threads, with my lace in progress on the roller part of the pillow. You can see part of the pattern, and the rest is covered with the pins in the completed lace section. To the back is my completed yardage rolled around a little tiny holder. To the upper left is my decorated pin box with a colonial woman wearing a black shawl and a cyanotype of a sailing ship that was turned into a lace pricking. A banner on the front has the PieceWork cover I described in the other image, and it says "I'm in PieceWork".

I have an article coming out in the spring #Rev250 theme issue of PieceWork, about #IpswichLace + stories of women who made or used the lace.

Another article about #AbigailAdams has a needlepoint of her house + a phrase on it.

#ReneeNicoleGood Patriots--the real kind.

#BobbinLace #embroidery

A large bedroom in the historic house called Smith's Castle. A bed, bureau, and chamber pot chair are around the background. In the foreground is my Ipswich Lace demo setup. We have an informational poster to the left, a table of examples and books to the right. My active lace pillow is set up on a cocktail height purple table in the center.

The mystery portrait of a young woman, maybe in the 1760s era clothing. It's flowing white silk, with big lace engageants on the sleeves. Her bodice has a black bow in the center. She seems to be wearing a white cap. But the weird part is the really long black lace that comes from behind her head and drapes down to her lap. It's an unusual use of black lace and I'm so intrigued by it. Maybe if we can find out her name and backstory we can learn more.

Scratched on the paining in some rusty looking ink there is supposedly a name. They call her Miss Elizabeth because it says Elizabeth something. But I cannot decipher the writing myself. I will email them in the future for the rest of their research on this.

I spent yesterday at Smith's Castle in N. Kingston RI. Doing a #BobbinLace demo in a home of the right period for #IpswichLace makes me happy.

But they have this mystery painting, with a sitter draped in black lace that haunts me.

www.smithscastle.org

A screenshot of the tri-fold brochure for the Marblehead Museum colonial craft fair this weekend. Panel 1: "A special thanks to our sponsors" and the logos for Mass Cultural Council, Marblehead Cultural Council, NeighborGood Care, Essex Alarm & Security, Salem Auto Body, MarketStreet Lynnfield, Philanthropic Lodge F & AM Panel 2: Marblehead Museum logo that looks like a fish outline but has a sweet painting of a coastal scene in the body area. 170 Washington St Marblehead MA 01945 781-631-1768 info@marbleheadmuseum.org Logos for their socals: facebook, insta, X, youtube Panel 3: Marblehead Museum Colonial Craft Fair Experience the past with talented artisans as they bring 18th century trades and skills to life! 3 photos include a smiling white woman in colonial garb preparing food on a pewter plate. A white man in a tricorn hat with a sword appears to be describing the leather of the sheath. A lace pillow with bobbin lace underway and some hands with colonial mitts because it was cold last year when we did this....

The map of the grounds from the trifold brochure. A map in the left has 2 main areas. The upper part of the map shows the "woodland garden" that includes a Ropewalk and other booths, numbers 9-16. It is called the lower garden and it's down the hill a bit from the street out in front. The upper garden area in the front has booths 2-8, and a nearby sundial garden. The main historic house sits to the right front and that's where the entrance/exit is. Underneath the map it says: "Scurvy Fellows Indeed" will be singing sea shanties in the Perennial Garden at: 11am to 11:20 1pm to 1:20 Glover's Marblehead Regiment will be demonstrating military drills throughout the day. The guide to the booths on the right indicates: Map of Artisans Upper Garden 1 Admissions table 2 Copperplate engraver 3 Ipswich lacemakers 4 Cooper 5 Colonial herbalist 6 Mantuamaker 7 Chandler 8 Raffle table Lower Garden: 9 Leatherworker 10 Flax worker 11 Ropemaker 12 Broom maker 13 Master tinsmith 14 Flintlock gunsmith 15 Glover's Marblehead Regiment 16 Colonial Foodways

LOLOL! I just found out that our upcoming #IpswichLace demo at #MarbleheadMA museum will have sea shanties! I love sea shanties.

This Saturday, or Sunday if they have to move to the rain date.

The singers are called "Scurvy Fellows Indeed" and I can't stop laughing.

#SeaShanties #18thCentury

A photo of the second pin box in process is easier to show the lace I used. The white linen is uncut and rests on the left top corner. The black lace lines the bottom edge. The upper box was my first one that was done, but since I had the glue out I added some red highlight sparkles later.

A small cardboard box of Bohin's brass pins that are the size used for reproduction lace. But the cardboard box is not ideal for transport to our events and leaving out on your lace work table. On the left is my first pin box. It has an ad from 1797 that I printed to highlight the Ipswich lace mentioned, on a yellowish parchment-like paper. I also pasted a small piece of black lace down the front, and 4 tiny bobbin-looking pieces of toothpick tops tied with thread. A red ribbon runs around the edge of the upcycled tin like a frame for the newspaper. On the right is my second pin box. It has a cyanotype of a lace pricking I found in an old book, which is the pinholes for lace but on the back of it was a schooner image. I also included Lucy Gallup Eldridge whose 3 tiered lace shawl inspires me. It a 1795 portrait in the Connecticut History Museum. But postage-stamp sized for this. There are 2 pieces of lace on this. The black one on the bottom is hard to see, it's under the green ribbon frame. A white linen piece is in the upper left corner.

Inside both pin boxes there is more cyanotype that fills the lid, but this time they are a piece of lace I used to make the image. And each one has a small silhouette image from the 18th century, postage-stamp size. On the left box is a pink one with 2 people. These are the Bakers. In their house was a grammar and lace school run by Mary Baker. On the right box is Joseph Dana. His report to Alexander Hamilton in the Library of Congress is why we know about the Ipswich lace industry today.

For #WIPWednesday I have so much demonstration lace underway for #Rev250 that I needed to make myself another pin box. I have about 5 pin boxes already, but for different sized pins. I need them all...

These are Altoids boxes dressed up for events. All #IpswichLace related stuff.

#BobbinLace

A photograph of a page of the Boston Globe today, Sunday April 6. It is the story about Fiber Arts and the upcoming month of Gather Fiber Symposium events. There are several images of artworks, including a hanging lumpy but soft installation, wild collages, a basket of words on thin strips of fabric, and a cool almost fungal looking multi-fabric tube structure. Also a photo of my Ipswich lace shawl.

I was at #GatherFiberSymposium event yesterday, and we yearned to be at the protest. But hanging with artists was really good for my soul. Artists are taking no shit.

Many great textile events this month. And #IpswichLace event made the #BostonGlobe.

#BobbinLace

www.gatherfibersymposium.com

New England Lace Group - Weaving threads of lace history

If you want to learn more about #IpswichLace and are around the state for other #Revolution250 events, join the most lacemakers in 200 years in Ipswich in April.

Now I'm trying to figure out how to do a Ghosts tie-in....

#BobbinLace

nelg.us/Weaving-thre...

What does Alexander Hamilton have to do with the lace industry in Ipswich, Massachusetts? If you were rich and powerful, from the late 1500s on into the late 1700s, you would show off your wealth by adorning your fashionable clothing with yards of handmade lace.

It was a missed opportunity for the #lace community to get in a plug for #IpswichLace.

It was about #AlexanderHamilton! We have lace from his papers....

americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stor...

Record Bayeux Tapestry Motifs Needle Lace Runner | Collections Search Center, Smithsonian Institution Search millions of objects in the collections including photographs, artworks, artifacts, scientific specimens, manuscripts, sound records, and transcripts. These represent Art, Design, History, Culture, Science and Technology.

The firm of "Melville & Ziffer" apparently made it. Michel Bouvot said he found it in a book during his #OIDFA talk today. And Karen Thompson (of #IpswichLace fame) updated the entry in the #Smithsonian to account for that.

I added it to #Wikipedia today.

collections.si.edu/search/detai...

Weaving a fascination for lace A delicate jewel among textiles, lace is an elegant and deceptively simple creation whose appeal has been spun for centuries. Correspondent Lee Cowan teases the threads of the misunderstood history of...

The #lace segment that ran today is now available to view on the web.

My heart is broken that they showed only a smidge of #IpswichLace and didn't even say its name....sigh.

#BobbinLace #Needlelace #IOLI #IrishLace #Idrija #TextileHistory #RBG

www.cbsnews.com/video/weavin...

Screenshot of the segment of the "this week" story list that shows a lace doily and a lace collar, and the entry says: ARTS: Weaving a fascination for lace A delicate jewel among textiles, lace is an elegant and deceptively simple creation whose appeal has been spun for centuries. Correspondent Lee Cowan teases the threads of the misunderstood history of lace, and talks with some of the hundreds of lacemakers who shared their craft at the annual convention of the International Organization of Lace, Inc. For more info: International Organization of Lace, Inc. Lacemaker and textile historian Elena Kanagy-Loux Brooklyn Lace Guild Follow lacemaker Linda Knott on Pinterest Allie Marguccio: Designs by Marguccio

Lace-related rumor: #CBSSundayMorning program in the US will have a #Lace segment on this weekend (barring any breaking news disruptions).

#BobbinLace #NeedleLace #Tatting #IpswichLace #TextileHistory

www.cbsnews.com/news/this-we...

Weaving threads of Ipswich Lace history | April 26 2025 — Lace Couvige We have a big event planned to celebrate the Ipswich lacemakers and share lacemaking with the Boston area as part of the Gather Fiber Symposium 2025.

#TextileHistory fans: the largest gathering of #IpswichLace makers and examples of real period lace tools will be this coming April 26, 2025.

Women were on the economic front lines of #Revolution250, weaving history and textiles. We're telling that story.

www.lacecouvige.com/threadsblog/...

New England Lace Group - Ipswich lace: Poster presentation

For local #Boston area textile nerds: there'a a month-long series of events coming to celebrate local arts. Our lace group is just one of many involved.

We'll be having an event that celebrates #IpswichLace that is a little bit #Revolution250 aligned.

#Gather2025 nelg.us/Ipswich-lace...