Today, I am sharing a Hemstitch project I did a couple of years back. I was fascinated by this kind of needlework in my teenage years but I forgot about it because I concentrated on Quilts. When I saw a spanish old lady in her front door, I asked her what it was called in spanish, she said "Vainicas"! Since we live in Andalucia Spain during winter time, I researched on books about it , but later found out that this is a favorite past time of the older spanish women in the Pueblo (town).
And so, I also found a way how to get copies of their special edition magazine called VAINICAs published by Muestras y Motivos . I have ordered a dozen of their crochet magazines long before I bought this special edition of Vainica magazines by mail order and they sent them to my Austrian address.
In this project, I used a loosely woven white cotton fabric and pull-out the thread in the center where I wanted to work on. I decided to make the center of a square tablecloth, measured the supposed to be hole and started pulling the thread. The thread pulled were set at the end of the square hole which later on have been stitched about 1 cm back into the fabric.
I used a crochet thread that was the same size of the thread I pulled-out. There are many designs to choose from the magazines I got. I just can´t show you the magazines I have because they are now packed in boxes for our transfer to the new flat... But I will show you next time when I feature the other hemstitch project I have done.
If you look at the macro shot of the stitches, it is not difficult, I just followed the thread directions as to where to put the stitches....
The hemline of the cloth had been stitched too but definitely according to the lace I have already crocheted before I started the project. This crochet lace had been crocheted in advance long before I decided to make my Vainica Project. Otherwise, if you make the vainica first, then you´ll have difficulties fitting the crochet lace.
You have to have a crocheted lace first so you can measure the size of the cloth to be used for this project. I attached the crocheted lace by stitching it to the cloth by hand. When the cloth was finished, I washed it and starched lightly, it helped the cloth become stiff and crisp, the cloth looks wonderful when its surface is smooth.
I will show my 2nd beige tablecloth with the hemstitch and crochet lace next time when my boxes are unpacked in the new flat.
@gremayo