Lacers stretch out their threads

Sometimes it takes a while for a central thread to reveal itself.

Such is the case with the N.C. Regional Lacers.

Turns out the newspaper played a central role in the forming of this group 19 years ago.

Kristin Conrad learned to make lace in the Netherlands, and when she moved to North Carolina, she thought she would be making lace all by herself.

But she saw a picture in the Raleigh Times on May 18, 1989, that changed everything: In the picture was a pillow, dressed, as lacers say, with a ribbon of handmade lace spiraling off the back. The caption told of an event at the Carrboro ArtsCenter.

"That was the initial event that gave birth to the N.C. Regional Lacers," Conrad said. "The representative from IOLI (International Old Lacers Inc.) was there and got us organized, and we appointed officers."

In 1992, a smaller group of women formed Sir Walter's Lacers.

On a Thursday evening, five lacers have lasted until the end of the daylong lacing session: Conrad, Betsy Sykes, Jan Guy and daughter Mary Guy, and Rhoda Stein, who is hosting the group at her Raleigh-south-of-Garner home.

They are gathered around a table with their dressed pillows -- each with a dizzying array of pins, with thread splayed out to bobbins along the edges.

"If you can count to four and know right from left, you can make lace," Sykes assures.

"Watching them, stitch by stitch, may confuse you," Conrad says, "but making lace is quite easy."

A 2-inch lace flower that will be a gift for a lucky attendee today took "three to four hours -- not very long," Conrad says.

There is real time and there is lace time.

These dedicated lacers meet five times a month and make lace all day. That's right, from 10 in the morning until evening.

Why do they do it? For the same reason you knit or weave or make jewelry: They love it.

And, like you, they are preserving a tradition that stretches back centuries.

They have had other dalliances. Stein, in particular, has put her hands to nearly every needle art there is. Her walls look upholstered, so thick are they with samplers wrought in hardanger, cross-stitch, blackwork, needlepoint, bead-weaving, crewel work and more.

She has done it all, though she doesn't love it all. "I will never smock anything ever again," she proclaims.

But she does dedicate six to eight hours of every day to needlework.

"If I would've known I would have so much fun, I would have retired sooner," she says.

The other lacers are a bit more moderate: Conrad laces 15 to 20 hours a week and Sykes about 15 hours a week.

"We work," Jan Guy says of herself and her daughter. Jan Guy mostly makes lace on the second Thursday of the month, all day. She admits that there's a price to pay for that time off.

When she arrived Thursday, she says, "I just looked at my bobbins for half an hour."

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

"We do spend a lot of time stroking our bobbins," Conrad says. "Rosewood sounds wonderful."

The tools are indeed lovely. The Continental bobbins are turned wood. Midland spangled bobbins are turned wood with a circle of spangles at the end.

The spangled bobbins have somewhat limited use, in that they can get caught in the lace if the pattern calls for "sewing" the bobbin through the lace.

And there's another problem with spangled bobbins: They can lead to bead addiction (to see the stunning side effects of this addiction, see a picture of Stein's bead closet at blogs.newsobserver.com/notions).

In addition to straight pins that shape the lace, there are fancier "divider" pins and -- my favorite -- the "striver" pin. This elegant pin marks the place you strive to reach.

My day is filled with striver pins.

Jan Guy has certainly recovered her mojo by evening, as she works some of the 73 bobbins stretching in all directions from her evolving lace collar.

As she moves the bobbins, four at a time in the basic cross-twist-cross movement, she explains that it's a form of off-loom weaving. A loosely woven fabric forms, shaped by pins into a curve.

At the end of it all, I did not learn how to lace. But I hope to remedy that today (see Details).

After all, we at the newspaper have to finish weaving in our 19-year-old thread.