Hello lovelies, 

happy to have you here again and sorry for my absence. Time flies so fast again.

This time I want to write about a project I made in February/March of this year - an Italian Reta with real gold thread, real natural pearls in 6mm all made with a bobbin lace technique. 

Sounds weird? Yes, it was a weird project and I am pretty sure it was not a technique they used as most of the pictures depict the Italian retas as tied or knotted. But it was a great study in bobbin lace as this is a technique they should have had already. 

Here are a few examples of this Reta. Especially at the last example it is clearly visible that the headpiece is knotted.

I used the pattern I also used for the other two Italian retas. The pattern is by Lynn McMasters and it can be bought here. https://outofaportrait.com/ (no affiliation)

The whole bobbin lace project is made out of gold metallic thread, bought on Etsy from a shop in Kyoto: Etsy link (no affiliation).

The freshwater pearls are from aliexpress: Link (affiliated = If you buy something, I get a commission. Please disable your honey extension as it steals the affiliation.)

The stitches used in the project is actually just a plait with a plait crossing. And that's it. 

But let me elaborate a bit further: 

Usually I do my bobbin lace on a flat pillow, but I also have a roll. I put the pattern from Lynn over the end of the roll and padded it to really fill it out. And then I added my bobbins to it. 

It grew slowly. At that point I added each pearl to the piece seperately, it was not until I was almost half done that my teacher commented, that I could add the pearls to the bobbins directly when I rolled them up. Genius.

On the right side you are able to see the bobbin that has all the pearls on them. 

Doing this was a long and tedious process, I would not make another.

This is would be the top part. I had three plaits that would split in only two plaits and I was cheating a bit with this, as I split up the third plait and added it to the other two before snipping it off.

I could see the end of the road. My cat was snoring on the right side. 

Working on a roll is definitely not my cup of tea. I had tried it many times before and we never really bonded.

I knotted all pieces together and then hid the threads as I was too scared to cut them off right at the knot.

And this is the result:

Summary: 

It looks good but it it's a) not Historical accurate and b) I couldn't find any sources that mentiones those retas with pearls all over. One source, the last picture on top of the site, has the beads all over the rim. 

Cost: 

Gold thread: about 4,5€

Fresh water pearls: I needed 1,5 packs so about 12€ (from Aliexpress affiliate link)

Time: around 21h (I pay myself 18€ per hour so that would make it about 378€) 

Bobbins: I had to get new ones, which were 40€ for about 40 pieces. 

All in all, the material was not that expensive but it's very time intense. 

 

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Thank you so much!

Auris Lothol