We have a lovely ebooklet for you on the website now which features 8 very pretty flower doilies to make- you can make them in the original fine yarns for doilies and centre pieces- but why not use some thicker modern yarns and use the flowers and butterflies individually to make cute pins, buttons and brooches, or to decorate hats, bags and clothes......
You can find it on the website to purchase and download by clicking here- enjoy
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This is a set of 3 patterns to show you how to make lovely rugs from crochet for your home. They would look good in retro style homes, but also imagine them in classic creams and neutral colours- or in contemporary bright pinks, blues and greens for modern homes too....
They are deceptively easy to make- and could also be a great way of using up odds and ends of yarns from your stash of leftovers- colourful stripes always work well, and imagine the hexagon rug made from hexagons which have lots of different colours within each hexagon....delicious!
If you like hefty heavy rugs you could try making these from yarns doubled or even trebled up and use your biggest hooks to make them- that way they make up nice and quickly too!
You can find the patterns- they are all included in the one pattern- on our Vintage Visage website by clicking here.....enjoy!
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We have just digitised 2 booklets on how to make pretty and stunning point lace in the victorian style. Point lace is made by taking different types of fine braids and then infilling with stitches. Both booklets are by Weldons and are titled Practical Point Lace
You can see in the second cover how the lace is formed by the braid and infill stitches
Why is it called Point lace?well according to a victorian source, 'point' is the french word for a stitch of any description as used in needlework- so the name point lace signifies lace made in stitches- Point de Bruxelle, Point de Venise and so on. Modern (eg Victorian!) lace work is also known as renaissance work, which means a lace having the from of the design in braid, with the intervening spaces filled in with stitches. How those stitches are worked determines the beauty of the lace work.
You can see here some of the different stitches used- this example is also worked on a net base.
This is a lovely example of a victorian collar worked in Point lace- you can clearly see here the different filling stitches.
This pretty cake doily too shows the beauty of the different infill stitches.
Another pretty collar.
All of these designs are in the booklets along with many others. You can find the digitalised ebooklets on our Vintage Visage website by clicking here
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Limerick lace is so dainty and so beautiful. This is a our second booklet that we have digitalised for you which shows how to make the stitches and examples of pretty Limerick lace to make.
Limerick lace is unusual in lace in that it is really embroidery onto net. You can see from the examples above and below how pretty it can be- its a very good lace for wedding and bridal items as nets and veils can be made to look very beautiful.
According to the introduction in the booklet, it is also unusual in that it differs from other Irish laces as it was a purely commercial enterprise started by an Englishman who married the daughter of a Nottingham lace manufacturer.In 1829 he settled in Limerick and took over a number of lace workers to teach lace making to the women of Limerick
This lovely and informative ebooklet was first published in 1902 so it is now over 100 years old, and it shows some wonderful examples of made lace, and also how to stretch the net over a frame, and has picture and instructions of how to make a large number of the fancy stitches to infill into the netting.
It is a craft which will not take long to master as the stitches are quite simple, but will take a long time to execute as the stitches are necessarily small as they are worked onto fine netting. If you are a design entrepreneur or a textile artist then you may be able to work out a way doing this in a large scale with bigger netting which might be very interesting.....
You can find the ebooks to purchase as pdf downloads on our Vintage Visage website by clicking here which will take you straight to the correct page
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Crochet lace bedspreads are so pretty and really make a bedroom look so special. We have just sourced and digitalised a selection of lovely vintage crochet lace bedspread patterns which are deceptively easy to make as they are made from lots of little motifs, or bands and strips of crochet. This makes your project nice and portable as you can make these little motifs anywhere!
This is one of the motifs used- how pretty is that!- and besides using the motifs to put together to make large bedspreads, you could also put them together to make smaller items such as rectangular scarves or shawls. You can also make them from thicker modern yarns- it will make the motifs bigger, but then you won't need to make so many to complete your project.
Here is a selection of the patterns available
At the moment they are only available on our ebay store as printed copies which you can access by clicking here but we hope to have them on the website as pdf downloads soon so will update this when that happens! We do have other afgans and bedspreads to download from the website which you can find by clicking here Enjoy!
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We have sourced and digitalised some more vintage patterns for using flowers made from flower looms.
In this pattern they are made and then crocheted into very simple shapes such as throws, afgans and pram covers. Very simple to make and illutrations f how tomake the flowers are given.
We note here at Vintage Visage that the colour schemes are very, what we might call, 'period' or 'vintage'. They use a very limited amount of colours and repeat those colours throughout the items. We think there is great scope for using either an even more limited palette- such as creams and whites and beiges for a very classic neutral look, or black and bright hot pink for example to make a striking throw!
You could also use the granny square principle and use lots of odds and ends of yarn to make a multicoloured throw by making each flower a different colour! That would make a stunning throw or cover. We do recommend though that if you use lots of colours for the flowers that you use just onecolur such as a black, navy or cream to crochet the flowers together as it will give it just a slightly more unified look.
Enjoy! and as always with our blogs you can find the pattern on our website by clicking here which will take you straight there.
Don't forget that you can also make the individual flower to make pins, brooches and corsages, or make smaller items such as scarves by just crocheting 2 rows of flowers together in as much of a length as you wish.
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We have a large number of very pretty patterns on the Vintage Visage website for doilies. On this post we are gong to show you some of the lovely victorian doily patterns available- they are over 100 hundred years old and are so very pretty.....
You can make them in the original white fine yarns to make beautiful tea time table accessories, or you could make them slightly bigger by using maybe a 2 ly yarn and having doilies for the bigger cake or sandwich plates on the tea table- try using lots of different pastel colours too.....
This one has a linen centre and pretty little crochet butterflies that can be made on their own and scattered around the table- try making them in lots of bright colours, and also make them into pins ad brooches- soo pretty...
Another one with a linen centre and this time little carnation flowers which again can be made on their own and scattered around the table or used as pins or brooches...
This one has a cockle shell design and lovely pointy edges...
This diamond design doily is a little more complicated to make, but is lovely,
With this doily design, you could make the circular design on its own with thicker yarn, make it twice and then sew the 2 together with an opening at the top to make a pretty little bag
This design is called a 'Manx' design as it has the familiar 3 part design reminiscent of the Isle of Man 3 leg logo
This one is not to difficult to make - when you get past the pattern part then it is mainly chains and loops- which are nice and simple to do. This one you could find would also drape nicely over the top of a milk jug or sugar bowl to protect the content from flies and other wee beasty insects! Which would be another pretty addition to your vintage tea table
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We have 2 booklets of instructions for Hardanger Embroidery on the Vintage Visage website. The booklets date from the early 1900s Victorian era and have instructions and illustrations of how to work and make the embroidery.
Hardanger embroidery is said to have originated from Denmark where there is a city named Hardanger, and was also worked in Norway and Sweden. However- the origin of this type of embroidery can be seen as far back as ancient persia and Asia where it was worked in silk and a fine gauze netting.
As you can see from the illustrations, its a sort of mixutre of embroidery, cut work and drawn thread. It was used to make
"pillow slips, tea-cloths, sideboard cloths, tray cloths, mats, sheet decoration, centre pieces, collars and cuffs, aprons, blouse trimmings, belts and button ornamentation. Indeed, each and every article designed for household or personal use can be ornamented with this work, which is not difficult to learn and not expensive to do...."
And as you can see from the illustrations above, the ebooklets give you comprehensive instructions and very good illustrations to show you exactly how to work the stitches
Its an interesting skill to learn, and inside each of the 2 booklets there are lots of ideas and designs for anyone wishing to research more about Hardanger, or as it says on the second booklet, Hardangen, embroidery
If you wish to purchase the ebooklets along with other Victorian Embroidery instructions-- they are available by clicking here which will take you directly to the Vintage Visage website- enjoy!
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This is one of our favourite vintage publications and we are pleased to let you know that we have now digitalised it and it is available on the website as an ebook.
Butterflies are such a pretty shape in design and colour, and there is so much that you can do with these beautiful little butterfly designs. The original book gives you designs for hats, gloves, light pulls, bedspreads, table decorations etc. All of which are lovely, especially if you after a vintage feel and look. However- we do think that these little beautys would look fantastic today as pins, brooches, hair decorations, in corsages ( in amongst a lot of crocheted flowers...), necklaces- bib necklaces would be fab- , and also to decorate accessories such as hats and bags, and clothes.....
Take a look at some of the pretty butterflies available to make below
This hat and gloves are so pretty and elegant- if the hat was made in whites and creams then it could look fantastic for a bride
We love this idea- lots of tiny wee butterflies made from lots of odds and ends of left over yarns and appliqued to a blouse. These could easily be made into pins or brooches- you could leave them nice and soft, and make lots of different colours and sizes from different thicknesses of yarns. You could also stiffen them with old fashioned starch or modern fabric stiffener- try also backing them with a stiff fabric with fusible interlining/bondaweb. You could use plain fabrics or lovely printed fabrics for a wonderful contrast.....very sellable!
Here is a selection of the butterflies in the ebooklet which have been appliqued onto a bedspread, net/organza curtains and a lampshade....if you ar elooking to make home decor items you could make lots of plain granny squares in plain colours and pop a pretty multicoloured crocheted butterfly on the top of each one.....
These little chaps (or chapesses ) have been popped onto a doily for the table- but again could just as easily be popped onto bags or hats to give pretty embellishments
These are so pretty- they were originally meant to decorate the ends of light pulls but we think that they are so pretty that they should be found more places than that! How can you se these being used?....let us know your ideas.
As you can see, this is such a useful little ebook and its available on our website which you can get to by just clicking here (it will open in a new window) Enjoy and have fun making these wee beasties- but be careful- making them can be addictive!
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Did you know that you can crochet faux ostrich feathers? We found this fabulous and quite rare very old antique vintage pattern to show you just how to do it....the pattern dates from the early part of the 20th century- just at the time when Downton Abbey is set. So, if you would love to emulate the wonderful feathered hats from that era but would prefer not to use real feathers then this pattern is for you.
We think these crocheted feathers have great potential- once you have made one from the instructions and understand the process, then you should be able to make them in lots of different sizes and yarns- they would look fantastic made in lots of creams and whites, but equally as good in bright parrot colours too.
Use them for music hall hats, decorating scarves and accessories and even for home decor!
You can find the pattern to download from the Vintage Visage website- you can go instantly there by clicking the text after the photo below- have fun
Click here to go to the pattern on the website
We do have crochet hats patterns for the same era too, so do take a look around
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