A few months ago, I purchased five yards of beaded Alencon lace from Buttons n' Bolts. I think the width is about 35 inches. I had ordered seven yards but there was only 5 yards left. That should be plenty. I think I estimated that I would need about seven yards for the bottom of Whitney's bridal gown. I'm sure that you are thinking my math is wrong. No. It's just that this lace is a little different. What I'm doing is cutting through the "middle" of the lace so actually instead of five yards, I actually have 10 yards total.
When the lace finally arrived and I took a look at it, then took a look at the little lace scissors, I thought it would take me weeks to cut and trim this out. This task went much quicker than I anticipated. I think I spent about 3 to 3.5 hours trimming out the first half. It was my husband's favorite day of the year. Not his birthday, not our anniversary. It was the NFL football draft. It was also the season finale of Project Runway. So I thought I might as well start the lace project since I was going to sitting on the sofa for a while.
I first took the lace to the table and carefully used my Ginghers to cut between the medallions. Then came the fine cutting. I placed the lace on a dark pillow so it I could see it better and more importantly, see where I was cutting. I did not want to repair this lace.
I still have half of side #2 to finish. I wonder what's on tv this week?
Hi Ellen,
ReplyDeleteI bought an alencon lace and i want to cut it in small pieces and apply it on a dress, the problem is that the lace is re-embroidered and if you try to cut it its getting bad and i would like to know what should i do it to cut it without destroying it?
thank you!
Hi Diana!
ReplyDeleteYes, alencon is re-embroidered. I think it helps to have small lace scissors when cutting out the motifs. I'm assuming you are cutting motifs and not just a straight cut. Lace scissors have a blunt, round tip so as not to pierce the fragile netting. If you find that the motif is unraveling after you cut, I would use either Fray Block or Fray Check immediately after cutting. I think you can hide or repair some raveling as you stitch it on your garment. Can you overlap any of the motifs to cover some of the undoing?