I was looking at more vintage patterns (for humans) this morning and out of the blue, decided I wanted to try making some lace collars.

Embroidery Designs has quite a few beautiful free-standing lace collar designs, so I purchased one and I’m sewing it out this morning.

I started it around five thirty, and it’s been just at three hours now. I am using my Bernina 700 and have the speed reduced to fifty percent. My machine says I have an hour yet to go.

I’m using two layers of Vilene (water soluble stabilizer) and chose to use 60wt Presencia cotton thread in the palest cream. I wasn’t sure about stitching out both collars at once, as that required my maxi hoop.

That’s a lot of stitches on two layers of stabilizer in such a large hoop, but it is completely pucker free.

I chose thin cotton thread because I would like the collar to be soft and supple. I haven’t tried a heavy lace design in cotton thread before, so this is a fun experiment for me. Will I be able to wash out all the stabilizer in cool water so the cotton thread doesn’t shrink? I guess I’ll find out!

There was quite a few free-standing lace collars there I added to my wishlist, and I’m going to spend some time looking at their vintage lace files if this one works out like I hope.