Lace is about to get Irished!

Like, I never even learned to crochet until about 8(?) years ago. I'd already started working for a knitting company as a demonstrator and teacher type person, but crochet was not a skill I posessed. I wasn't the only one, at that time less than half of the people working for that company in that role, were confident enough in crochet to teach customers. It's weird how knitting is more 'fashionable' or whatever, at the moment, which has basically flipped over the last 80 years, or so I am told.

In the office today it was mentioned that Woman's weekly magazine, who have been going for over 100 years, didn't publish any knitting patterns at all until near the 2nd World War. Just crochet up until then. I was proper gobsmacked by that, I mean, really? I don't picture the suffragettes and stuff crocheting, it had always, always been knitting in my mind.

I had heard about how Queen Victoria had re-invigorated the fashionability of crochet after her husband's death. One rumour I'd also heard is that she felt it looked more 'dainty' than knitting, but I can't find any actual solid details of that anywhere. I may have dreamt that one.

The article I read earlier (see above link) talked about starving peasants taking up the craft to make some money and feed themselves. It then was over-abundant and such crocheted 'Irish' lace was seen as being common and cheap. It took gifting some to Queen Victoria, who loved it enough to wear it with pride, to really make it fashionable.

The above is an example of Irish lace, a series of motifs joined together at the very end with a series of chains and treble-type stitches to form a background mesh.

I am probably the least feminie girl you will ever know, I'm a huge tomboy, an ex-kickboxer with blue hair - this stuff SHOULDN'T appeal to me. But I tell you why it does;

1. So the eventual wedding dress thing comes up from time-to-time. Ideas for what to do with mine are a never-ending sketch, and yeah, I'm thinking some panels in this Irish awesomeness. That gives me two or three years to become a ninja master at creating those delicate small motifs. Whenever I fancy a bit of teeny crochet, I can whip one up, throw it on a pile, and move on to knit some socks or whatever. My Pinterest boards kinda explain it better than my words can.
2. THE THRILL IS IN THE CHASE! It is definitely proof that crochet is nowhere near as popular as knitting at the moment, by the fact that I have to hunt high and low to find the crochet threads and hooks I like. My favourite shop for crochet stuff overall, is hands-down, PurpleLindaCrafts. She's just got a cracking range, but I still had to go to some obscure stockist for something that she didn't have. It shouldn't have to be this hard! Takes me frikking hours to find stuff sometimes.
3. Well lastly but not leastly, it's a challenge, ain't it?I do get bored with plain and repetitive projects quite easily unless I picked said project intentionally as something comatose to do in front of the TV. Irish crochet is not one of these things. It will keep me busy and challenged no end. Plus, I'll be learning!

Elanor King is going to lend me a book with some cool motifs in for me to try (thanks, Eleanor), and I've bought some crochet thread in 12, 16, 30 and 40 count to try out. I may have gone overboard there, but I still think it'll be worth it in the end with all this experimentation.

Plus I had to invest in some of these:

 If you have been living under a rock for the last few months, you may not have seen the new Amour crochet hook range from Clover. I bought the 2.00mm - 6.5(?)mm set to self-congratulate on the new job landing a couple of months back, but now I'm on the thread lace binge, I thought I'd better get the smaller ones, so they are on their way! They are worth what you pay, they are really comfortable. Feels really odd going from one of them back to a regular metal hook. Reeeeally weird.

So watch this space, basically. Lace is about to get Irished-up. Just gotta endure the withdrawal-like mail order wait for stuff to turn up. I hate that bit, don't you hate that bit?!!