The DeMenil Craft Guild is now recruiting! At our new monthly series, we’ll step back in time and get hands-on with 19th century hand crafting and decorative art techniques. Bring your own project (doesn’t have to be nineteenth century) or join in the featured project of the night. We’ll experiment with crafts that are still common today as well as some of the Victorian era’s lost arts. Guaranteed to be entertaining as well as stealthily educational!
Each month will feature an introductory class to get you started on a nineteenth Century fancy-work technique. Open crafting starts at 6:00 pm. The classes start at 7:00 pm and last about one hour, but the house will remain open for crafting until 9pm.
Scroll down this page for details on our upcoming classes and other special events or you can click here to register.
If your curious about some of the crafts we’ve covered or you missed a session, check out our DeMenil Craft Guild Tutorial Page.
Upcoming Craft Night: June 13th, 2012 – Featured Craft: Broomstick Lace
In general, to the uninitiated, the word lace signifies exclusively the delicate and elaborate fabrics that owe their origin to Venice and the Netherlands and were thence imported into other countries. But besides Venetian, French, English, Chantilly, Brussels, Sedan point, names familiar to everyone, there are all kinds of other laces, likewise of great antiquity.
As it would be impossible in these pages to give a comprehensive account of them all, we have restricted ourselves to such as seem more especially suited to the amateur, to whom needlework is a mere recreation and pastime
–Encyclopedia of Needlework 1884
Broomstick Lace is a sort of mystery among textile historians. They are very few traces of it left due to the fact that it was considered utilitarian rather than decorative. It is thought to be American in origin and was used to quickly produce warm blankets with scraps of unwanted yarn.
This technique was originally done using a crochet hook and a broomstick, hence the name, but is created today with a large knitting needle or dowel in lieu of the broomstick. It was also called witch’s stitch, jiffy lace (because you can create a large amount of fabric rather quickly) or peacock stitch (because the stitches resemble the pattern of a peacock feather). It produces a stable fabric with a nice drape and an unusual but beautiful pattern that is well suited for blankets and shawls.
A basic understanding of crochet is helpful but not required. Crafters will need to bring one skein of worsted weight yarn, a crochet hook (size G, H or I) and one large knitting needle (size 35 or 50). Yarn will be available for a small donation. Click here to sign up!
Craft Night: July 11, 2012 – Featured Craft: Ribbon Cockades
Ribbon cockades were originally used to identify military personal and were worn primarily on an officer’s hat. In the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries they became a popular civilian accessory used to show political allegiance and were pinned to a hat or other item of clothing. During times of upheaval like the French Revolution or the American Civil War the color of your cockade was taken very seriously and could lead to dangerous confrontations with those who opposed your point of view.
We’ll be talking about the styles and colors worn during various conflicts in addition to creating our own. Be sure to wear yours to our Bastille Day Celebration on July 15, 2012.
Crafters will need a length of ribbon (it should be at least 1 in wide and 4 ft long), a needle, quilting thread, straight pins and a measuring tape. We will be providing buttons with various mottos from the French Revolution for the center of the cockades, but if you’d prefer you can bring your own. Click here to sign up!
Craft Night: August 8, 2012 – Featured Craft: Card Work
Card work or punched paper embroidery was an inexpensive and easy way for ladies to create a personalized decoration for their parlor. The perforated paper could be purchased with a pre-printed design or ladies could design their own with a pencil and a ruler. Designs were created using long parallel stitches and embroidered with Berlin wool. The most popular designs were mottos such as “Home Sweet Home” and various biblical verses.
We will be creating a note card using a punched paper embroidery technique. Crafters will need embroidery floss in two colors, scissors and an embroidery needle. The note card and envelope will be provided. Supplies will be on hand for a small donation. Click here to sign up!
Craft Night: September 12, 2012 – Featured Craft: Crazy Quilts
The crazy quilt is not really quilted at all but is a form of patchwork that is similar to the one used in constructing quilts. The patches are irregularly shaped and of many different sizes making the “crazy” effect those ladies in the 1880’s found so popular. Early versions were made out of fine fabrics. Scraps from gowns, curtains and other household items were collected and made into a thing of beauty, displaying both the thriftiness and creativity of the lady in question.
We will be creating our own crazy quilts! Crafters will need a foundation fabric (muslin or cotton) that is a little larger than they wish their finished product to be. Other supplies needed include cotton thread, a sewing needle and scissors.
Crazy Patch Swap: Each crafter should bring at least three patches to start their quilt and three patches to swap with another crafter. That way everyone will have a variety of patches. Extra patches will also be available the evening of the class for a donation. Click here to sign up!
Craft Supply Swap: September 16th, 2012
On Sunday September 16th we’ll be hosting our first DeMenil Craft Guild Craft Supply Swap! All you need to get in is a bag of your left-over, unused and unwanted craft or art supplies. Then pick up some free craft supplies for your future projects! Bring one recycled empty bag to fill with some crafty treasures!
Craft Night: October 3, 2012 – Featured Craft: Hair-work
Learn about the significance of the use of human hair in hand-crafting and the different forms that it took throughout the Nineteenth Century using period examples of the craft.
Our featured project will build on the techniques from our first hair-work class in March. We will go over the process of making leaves and expand on that theme with a few other designs for petals. Hair flowers were normally worked into a larger wreath made of many different family members’ hair and displayed in a shadow box.
Crafters will need to bring any type of embroidery floss or thread of the same weight, scissors, fine gauge jewelry wire, and one knitting needle (any size from 5-9). Floss will be available for a nominal donation. Click here to sign up!
