#lacelike

[improbable-implosions]

Time for another traditional embroidery mend! This time, we're trying out the Puncetto Valsesiano stitch, which, after I finished this up, I've found, is an entire style of needlelace! For this patch, though, we just did stitch after stitch after stitch, no fancy patterning. (I might do fancy patterning later, to be fair! been reading up on things, and I've got a few smaller repairs to make that would suit it quite nicely!)

One row of stitches in, and I was thinking, oh this can't be so bad! this is actually quite soothing, all these repetitive actions, and with such a delightful, knitting-like texture!

This many stitches in, and sure, I'm still having a good time, but mostly, I'm finding out how much thread this takes! Poor razz, @razzmatazic, I thought this was going to be a simple, small patch, so I borrowed her thread to work on this one! You can't quite tell in this shot, but I'm actually about to run out of thread!

After likely much, much more fuss than was strictly necessary, including accidentally picking a slightly different color of floss because of some mislabeled strands, noticing I'd dropped enough stitches to need to throw some extra ceylon stitching in a gap, and a probably pretty noticable shift in texture because of single vs. double threading, we've got ourselves a patch that, even despite its shortcomings, I really dig the look of!

Unfortunately, I didn't make this patch wide enough generally, so I've got a few more holes that'll be getting filled by a big 'ol sashiko patch that's going to layer overtop the puncetto, eventually! Stay tuned, I'm just as curious as you are as to how that'll look.

[jewellery-box]

Underdress, c. 1835, American

The extraordinary decadal morphing of dress forms in the nineteenth century begins in the late 1810s with the shift away from the essentially columnar, high-waisted shapes that characterized the Napoleonic period. By the 1820s the corseted waist shifted from the previous Empire line directly under the bust to a lower point at the mid-ribcage. Simultaneously, sleeves began to balloon into the gigot, or leg-of-mutton, puff together with a similar expansion of the skirt into a full bell shape.

As the volume of the skirt increased in the 1830s, the hemline retreated, ultimately to a point slightly above the ankles-promenade dresses in the 1770s were similarly revealing of the lower leg. This fashion, with its sudden emphasis on the feet and ankles, precipitated a range of increasingly decorative stocking designs. This relatively unornamented dress, its crochet lace inserts appearing only discretely at the shoulder line, might therefore have been worn with hose, also white, embellished with similar lacelike openwork. A wide belt with a gilt buckle would have introduced further visual interest to the ensemble.

The MET Museum

[disease]

"AUTOMATIC DRAWING" ANDRÉ MASSON | PARIS, 1924 [ink on paper | 9 1/4 x 8 1/8"]

André Masson began automatic drawings with no preconceived subject or composition in mind. Like a medium channeling a spirit, he let his pen travel rapidly across the paper without conscious control. He soon found hints of images—fragmented bodies and objects—emerging from the abstract, lacelike web of pen marks. At times Masson elaborated on these with conscious changes or additions, but he left the traces of the rapidly drawn ink mostly intact.

[tiarascrowns]

Garland High Jewellery Diamond and Pearl Tiara

"Elegantly entangled, an intricately intertwined knot motif, as symbolic of eternity as the diamonds in which it is realised, sweeps around our high jewellery Garland tiara. Its scalloped silhouette brings a lacelike delicacy to the design, with radiating rows of freshwater pearls and diamonds recalling the iconic Lover’s Knot tiara, crafted by Garrard in 1913 and recently worn by Catherine, Princess of Wales, formerly Duchess of Cambridge.

The tiara’s long association with royalty lends it a prestigious beauty that distinguishes it from all other jewels. Ever since it was appointed Crown Jeweller in 1843, the House has crafted some of the British royal family’s most iconic tiaras, many of which are still worn today, and the designers at Garrard continue to dream up contemporary interpretations of time-honoured designs, crafted in the same traditions as they have been for centuries. Read more"

- Garrard's

[ehlnofay]

Summerfest Day 2 - SECRET

All the air in the room shivers and gusts like an expulsion of breath; the sluggish, oil-slick water below resumes its flowing; Arabella, liquid metal curled lacelike over her skin, starts laughing.

It’s dark, in this dank cavern. Karliah left the lamp she carried outside and did not suggest lighting another. Perhaps it would be sacrilege. For several minutes, all had been shadow; but now if Arabella squints, she can vaguely make out the motion of the water, the distant shine of filigreed armour, the bird-mark on the floor. She can make out Karliah on the middle plinth and Brynjolf on the distant one; she can make out the cracked stone below her; she sinks down, low, into a crouch, hood pulled down over her forehead, and cackles. It echoes in her mouth, against the fabric-smoothness of her mask.

“Well,” says Brynjolf’s voice, blankly, from across the room, and again, “well.”

“The first meeting can be… overwhelming,” Karliah says, tactful. Like Arabella’s cracked under the pressure of watching someone talk to a big not-light in a hole so soggy-stale it feels as familiar as the cistern. She is still laughing – she can’t help it (it’s either funny or it’s very serious, and she’d rather not take it seriously) – as she rolls her shoulders back the way she practiced in the armoury, lets the metallic carapace unravel itself, shrinking and sinking again into her skin, to the cold metal mark she pressed like tattoo ink into the back of her neck. (She’s been branded – she’s been gulled – perhaps she should be taking it seriously, but it’s so ridiculous that she doesn’t want to.) The armour goes away. She can, just about, see her skin again.

She is still laughing, birdlike high and delighted.

Brynjolf shakes his head – she catches it only because of the way his eyes glint in the mask – and says, “Didn’t wake up this morning thinking I’d be meeting a Daedric Prince.” He sounds very deliberately careless; taking everything, very intentionally, in stride. “Suppose I’m honoured.”

“Oh, yes,” Arabella crows, “most honoured bargaining chip –” and she goes off in peals of laughter again. Her language is bleeding into Bos, a little – she’s getting her grammar mixed up in her head, blending her words in ways that should give them layers but instead just turns them to gibberish. Most-honoured, ill-weighted, played like lamb-tendon lute-strings, all an unintelligible mess of sounds. It’s all so patently ridiculous.

Brynjolf pauses, asks, “Does this happen, often?” with a nigh-audible furrow of the brow.

“Arabella,” Karliah says. “Arabella. What, the hysterics? No, or, I’ve never – Arabella, pull it together.”

“Lest your Lady think –” and the rest of it is lost to scrambled syntax, but then Arabella wipes her mouth – probably smudging her paint, she realises after the fact, damn it – and stands up straight and says, gleeful, “You liar. Well done.”

“Are you listening, now?” Karliah asks; when she moves, she gleams, ever-faint.

Arabella echoes, “Will you tell us, now? You’ve been so dreadfully surreptitious.”

Karliah gleams again. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy. I’m sorry I’ve had to mete out information so slowly. But now that you’ve transacted the oath –”

“Such a vague oath,” Arabella remarks, shark-toothed.

“I would like to hear more about the oath,” Brynjolf puts in, “and whatever else, but do we have to have this out in the dark?”

“I would like to hear about how it’s supposed to make us more powerful,” Arabella says, “and why I can’t feel any bloody difference.”

Karliah moves – coils her fingers, maybe, so her armour can slink off to puddle in her hand, pulled night-dark in toward the mark at her wrists – and Arabella can see her a little better, then, a ghostlike shape standing ill-defined on the platform. “That,” she says, soft-voiced, “relates to what I was going to say; Mercer’s –”

“Do you feel a difference, Brynjolf?” Arabella calls.

Sharply, Karliah says, “Stop interrupting.”

The water burbles quiet below them. Arabella’s smile is pinned so broadly to her face that her cheeks sting.

“We’re going back into the hall,” Brynjolf decides. His armour sloughs off as he starts picking his way back down the shadow-cracked stone. Halfway down, he looks over, his face a smudge in the dark. “No. But it’s new.”

“New indeed,” Arabella agrees, the soles of her shoes ringing against the marks in the stone; she holds her arms steady for balance as she steps onto the spit of rock. “Whatever power we expect, Karliah – it won’t come up until we’ve made amends with your goddess, will it?”

She is so very spectral, in the dark. Blue-grey, distant-pale. “Nocturnal’s favour alone is a powerful thing,” she says, clipped. “It will give us an edge.”

“Will it,” Arabella says. It is not a question. She is putting considerable effort into not giggling again.

Even in the dark, even without the masks, she can just about catch the shine of Karliah’s eyes as she looks at her. There is a lengthy pause. “It might.”

Brynjolf, a shadow almost at the end of his stone-spit tightrope, pauses. “Ah,” he says, and then, faintly disgruntled, “Really?”

“She played us well,” Arabella tells him with airy unconcern; her teeth scratch against the meat of her lip. “Very cleverly. I bought it just about enough.”

“It might help,” Karliah insists, dogged; “I – I hope it will. And I couldn’t tell you the whole truth if you remained outsiders – we would have been ineffective, barely a chance –”

Arabella slides the last half-metre of damp stone on the flat soles of her shoes, skirt flaring, hair in her mouth. She says into the dank cavern, “You sold us to curry favour.”

“Yes,” Karliah snaps; she strides down back to the ground, quick and practiced, a blur against the stone. “Yes, all right – we need her favour if we’re going to be able to return what Mercer stole, which you still won’t let me tell you about, we need – it’s been a decade.” (Arabella remembers the thick patterns of dust in these strange halls.) “It’s been a decade, Arabella, this is my life, and if bringing it back isn’t – maybe it won’t help! But I told you, it’s business.” She tosses her head; she’s still hooded, and it’s still dark, so this conveys very little. “Yes. I negotiated acquittal. And if you want to be angry about it, that’s fine, but do it less obtrusively so we can actually start –”

“I’m not angry,” Arabella says, and she licks her teeth. Karliah looks at her; in the dark, her eyes don’t flash. Her face is an ink-smudge. Arabella grins. “I just wanted you to admit it. That’s truly astoundingly selfish.”

“In fairness,” Brynjolf says, before Karliah has a chance to rail at that, and he gestures, quick and loose and just fast enough for her eyes to register it, to the lax little circle they stand in, like the points of a lopsided triangle. “Would you expect anything less?”

It’s still so dark – so little light comes in even through the entryway – but the water sounds cold and quick as it runs, and Arabella is good at taking up all manner of sensory space. “Touché,” she says through beaming teeth; shrugs, exaggerated, the motion rippling the metalline mark pressed into the back of her neck. “Really, Karliah, I don’t mind. Nocturnal can have my soul. What worth is it to me?”

[birgittesilverbae]

thinking of mary stumbling out of shannon’s sick room with blood on her hands, dizzy from the smell of ozone and cooked flesh, the raw and precise circle of ruined tissue. recalling the lacelike tracery of the halo’s mark before, and how it leaked blood and fluid onto her hands as she held shannon, shouting for the others to move. certain that she would die right there. her, both of them.

now, in the quiet, she’s pulling strands of shannon’s hair out of the wound. her back splayed open, showing knots of muscle and the pink-streaked white of bone. blackened where it touched the halo.

looking at shannon’s hand fisted loosely in the sheets, her head turned sideways, eyes closed, breathing tight and irregular.

associations fly at her and shannon is icarus, patroclus, achilles.

but she’s not. she’s sleeping, and it’s not her fault how similar survival is to death.

it strikes her then, in the dark room they wheeled shannon into, that in another life she is standing over a corpse. flipped as easily as a coin and in that world shannon’s body is torn open so they can find what killed her.

mary wipes a palmprint of blood absently onto her shirt, resisting the urge to kneel beside shannon, to touch her face. to remind herself that even if her rib bones are demarcated where little rivulets of blood and plasma have followed the lines of her body, this shannon is alive.

going outside. for air, for the smell of incense, or warm stone. anything that’s not cedarwood overpowered by iron, copper, by the harsh metallic scent of the halo’s absence.

running into suzanne - headlong, grabbing at the sleeve of her habit in blind panic. blinking at the streaky stain it leaves; just a patch of darker color that barely betrays itself in the low light.

‘is she…?’

‘asleep. i have to… i left bea in the-’

torn between them both. watching beatrice stand pale under the candlelight. pews casting shadows onto shadows. holding her hand and listening to the burn of bright light. again, twice. how many times will i lose what i love inside this luminosity?

mary tears away from the memory, feeling a hand touch her shoulder. ‘it’s okay.’ suzanne’s voice is steady. a rock (upon which i will build)

‘i’ll watch over her. go and check on your… on beatrice.’

moving past her, still hazy but looking back. the silhouette of suzanne staring at the doorway like it’s a tombstone.

‘how long does it take?’

suzanne looks at her, but in the dimness mary can’t make out any expression.

‘what do you mean?’

‘for her to heal? i just- it looks bad and i just want to know how long she’ll be…’

(in pain. struck open with her bones visible. a kind of nakedness that cannot be dressed over. thinking of tipping shannon onto her side to drain the wound because it’s only partially cauterized).

there’s a sound like a sigh, or just like the wind. suzanne looks away again. ‘it’s best to focus on what you can do for her now.’ a sad smile, half-glimpsed in the antique lamplight, ‘the worst thing is to be alone with your pain.’

and then mary leaves. she cries the whole way to bea’s room.

suzanne lets the quiet gather again. rolls her shoulders against the prickle of damaged nerves. and then she opens the door.

inside, she finds shannon lying on the gurney like something out of a painting. sheets tangled around her waist, musculature of her back exposed and shining with sweat.

the bedclothes are red and white. someone (mary. who else?) has pulled shannon’s hair into a careful smoothness. away from her face and the wound of her body.

she’s small again.

suzanne thinks of her, years ago arriving with fading bruises, a sort of blunt, scrappy fighting style that made her see - in the darting, brutal motions - a girl accustomed to fighting when cornered. then, in the way she took punches, suzanne saw a girl who knew when she had no choice but to accept a blow.

(she prays this will be the last one. the last hurt they force her to carry)

there’s an old folding chair against one wall and suzanne drags it over, slips shannon’s limp hand into both of hers.

raises it to her lips.

[archivist-crow]

On this day:

MILK HILL SNOWFLAKE CROP CIRCLE

On August 8, 1997, the most spectacular crop-circle design of the year was created at Milk Hill, Wiltshire, U.K., in a field of wheat. A version of the Koch snowflake—a fractal that represents the mathematical illustration of an infinite perimeter enclosing a finite space—was graced with a six-petal flower design in the middle. Amazingly, the flower pattern mimicked an inverted snowflake fractal. Smaller lacelike circles bordering the edge of the flower included every technique used in the making of crop circles, from twisting stalks into a plait to winding them up as a cone. The formation contained a record-setting 204 exquisite circles, laid in clockwise rotation. The diameter was approximately 200 feet.

The night it was created, a column of light was seen streaming down from the sky. Eyewitness accounts of the creation of crop circles are rare, yet there have been enough documented instances of formations appearing out of nowhere to discount the argument that they are produced by people or random natural occurrences. Reports include powerful windlike forces that can lay a crop circle in less than a minute. In genuine crop circles, plant stems are, by and large, bent without being broken anywhere from an inch above the ground to halfway up the stalk. Grain from inside crop circles is molecularly altered and has a 40 percent higher growing rate than its counterparts.

A survey company said the circle would have taken humans at least a week to complete and that 340 reference points would be required to accurately lay out the fractal.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009

[eranthiss]

🎁 (Steven Stone)

send 🎁 so my muse can give yours a gift!

"Hmmm... Gimme a sec."

Iris vanishes for a second, and then comes back with a empty pokeball. It's had all the paint stripped off it, so it's a clean and smooth stainless steel- but she's very carefully etched in some highly intricate lacelike pattern.

"Someone gotta take this off me. Here"

[sandimexicola]

Marble clock

Midjourney prompt: A detailed clock face with intricate gears and cogs, surrounded by swirling figures of angels and demons in an ethereal landscape. The central figure is the Earth King covered with delicate lacelike patterns. All depicted as 3D art in white marble, hyper realistic, hyper detailled, full frame --chaos 25 --weird 25 --style raw --s 5 --v 6.0

[duckprintspress]

Lacelike white blossoms are bursting from the plum tree: fragrant fireworks.

by @theirprofoundbond

Celebrate National Haiku Day, April 17th 2023, with Duck Prints Press!

[ofdarklands]

i'd put myste to fold widow and orphan's laundry in rhalgr's reach if the game allowed me to make him do something useful instead of summon fucked up ghosts that make people think they're going crazy. better use of my aether

mitr'a desperately going through his lacelike mental face registry: ah, is that so,,,,

mitr'a, internally: yeah i got nothing. who are you people

mit'ra, outloud: that's rough

[osmanthusoolong]

Last night’s dream:

I was in my bathroom that wasn’t My Bathroom (kind of an amalgamation of the bathrooms in old Victorian places in my hometown), and there was a moth, the size of my palm and the colour of dust fluttering around. I got closer to gently take it outside, when I noticed two things: the lacelike pattern on its wings were strands of silk tangled around them, and more importantly, it passed through my hand. It flapped around more, eventually passing by a spiderweb, which held a small, but not that small wrapped up figure. Understanding, I gently herded it toward the window, opened it, and the moth vanished as it left.

My alarm then woke me.

[kiskadee91]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Anthropologie Ranna Gill Wide lag Pants XXSP.

[ainews]

Batting, also known as wadding or padding, is a soft, flexible material that is used for a variety of purposes, from quilting and sewing to insulation and packaging. But why is this material often described as "lacelike" when it comes to eaglets and goddesses?

For eaglets, batting is used as a protective layer in their nests. Just like human babies, eaglets are delicate and vulnerable in their first few weeks of life. The mother eagle carefully arranges twigs, branches, and other materials to create a sturdy nest for her offspring. However, she also needs to provide a soft and comfortable environment for the eaglets to prevent them from getting injured. This is where batting comes in.

Batting has a light and airy texture, similar to lace, which makes it an ideal material for nest building. It can easily be shaped and molded into the right size and thickness to provide a cushioning layer for the eaglets. It also has insulating properties, keeping the eaglets warm during cold weather. In addition, batting is soft and gentle enough that it won't harm the delicate skin of the eaglets as they grow and move around in the nest.

Similarly, goddesses are often depicted as ethereal and delicate figures, with flowing garments that seem to be made of delicate lace. This is where the connection between batting and goddesses can be made. In ancient times, fabrics like batting were considered precious and used for making the clothing of goddesses and other important figures. The lightweight and delicate nature of batting gave the garments a sense of grace and elegance, befitting the status of a goddess.

Furthermore, batting is also used as a symbol of purity and divinity in some cultures. Its white color and soft texture are reminiscent of a heavenly or celestial realm. The intricate and delicate patterns created by the loose fibers bear resemblance to the intricate designs often associated with goddesses and their divine powers.

In conclusion, the use of batting as a comparison to lace for eaglets and goddesses is due to its delicate and lightweight nature, as well as its symbolism of protection, grace, and divinity. Whether in the form of a soft nest for a newborn eagle or a flowing garment for a goddess, batting holds a special place in both the natural and mythical world.

[ehlnofay]

tagged by @everybodyknows-everybodydies to post the last 10 first lines I've written... I'll be honest I don't keep track of which piece I started writing which day and they're all spread over different documents so it's hard to pick out the order. but much of what I've been doing lately is prepping for summerfest so here is what I can find from that collection (subject to change - a few of these pieces still need editing)

Efri leans over the scaled black fence until her feet are off the ground, spelled light quavering in the air above her hands, and says delightedly, “Oh, can I touch them?”

On the hoary street outside Aventus’ house, the children are throwing snowballs.

The Dragonborn knows how to hold her sword, but Lydia insists on showing her, anyway.

They find the beginning of the temple in the mouth of the mountain, the thing pock-marked and poked through, airy as a loaf of bread.

They find the Augur of Dunlain in an empty room.

“You’re not supposed to ask that,” says the Nerevarine, somewhere deep in the hollow heart of Red Mountain.

All the air in the room shivers and gusts like an expulsion of breath; the sluggish, oil-slick water below resumes its flowing; Arabella, liquid metal curled lacelike over her skin, starts laughing.

It’s quiet, in the throne room; would be a nice change of pace if it wasn’t so concerning.

In the cave underneath the derelict white-stone ruin, just as they were told, there is a tree.

It’s been so very many months, and still Arabella can’t come into the Bee and Barb without arousing suspicion.

[chrisnottijewels]

Van Cleef & Arpels: Masterpieces of Elegance

In the world of high jewelry, few names shine as brightly as Van Cleef & Arpels. For over a century, the French luxury brand has produced exquisite pieces that are the epitome of elegance. As a jewelry enthusiast, I'm utterly enchanted by the artistry and refinement behind each Van Cleef creation.

The stunning Van Cleef cosmos earrings immediately come to mind, when I think of Van Cleef. Unveiled in 1965, these clip-on floral bursts feature intricate lacelike petals carved from gold and centred with dazzling diamonds. They perfectly capture the House's passion for bringing poetry and femininity to jewelry design. Another iconic Van Cleef 3 motif earrings is the three-stone motif collection, including the timeless vintage Alhambra earrings. With their quatrefoil shape encasing diamonds, rubies, sapphires, or emeralds, these earrings epitomize understated elegance.

Attention to detail and expert craftsmanship is evident in every Van Cleef piece. Each gold and diamond creation requires hours of meticulous polish and finishing to achieve a smooth, lustrous effect. The brand's artisans even set diamonds on a slight curve to maximally reflect light. Such refinement makes each earring, bracelet, or necklace feel like a true work of art.

When it comes to precious stones, only the most exceptional make it into Van Cleef designs. The Maison travels the world sourcing unusual gemstones like mandarin garnets and Kashmir sapphires. Precision gem-cutters then hand carve and facet each stone to enhance its color and brilliance. The result is vibrant bursts of life that distinguish Van Cleef's creations.

Of course, the essence of Van Cleef is its abiding elegance and femininity. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the ballerina collection. Inspired by the grace of ballet, these pieces feature delicate ballerinas hand-carved from gold and dressed in tutus of diamonds and gemstones. Each dancer evokes motion and vitality in a jewel. There are also charming vintage ballerina brooches I adore, with moveable legs and arms.

Despite forays into more modern motifs, Van Cleef & Arpels never loses its luxurious spirit. Today you'll see daring asymmetrical designs alongside signature feminine flowers and fairies. There are also one-of-a-kind statement pieces featuring lush flora and fauna crafted from countless colorful stones. Each Van Cleef creation feels like a mini work of art that brings joy both to its wearer and admirer.

For over a century, Van Cleef & Arpels has produced jewelry that is the epitome of elegance, sophistication, and technical mastery. Their dazzling designs are true masterpieces meant to adorn, delight, and captivate.