Gold Bedfordshire butterfly

Its the Lace Guild’s 50th anniversary in 2026 and for their legacy project they’re creating a cape decorated with gold pieces of lace with a theme of the natural world. The cape will be displayed at their golden anniversary weekend before being available for groups to borrow and display.

In deciding what to make, there were lots of potential options in my patterns and books and I also liked the selection of patterns the Lace Gold provided on their website, but in looking through the first issue of the Guild’s magazine Lace from 1976 I noticed that there was one small pattern which met the theme – a half stitch butterfly motif in Bedfordshire lace.

The pattern was attributed to Mrs A.F. Stillwell but in a subsequent issue of the magazine it was corrected to Mrs S.E. Dawson of Speen, Buckinghamshire.

I hadn’t done any Bedfordshire for a while, and there wasn’t an image of the finished lace, so I thought it wise to do a practice version first. I used a metallic thread which turned out to be too thick and didn’t show the stitches up well. It did help me figure out the order of working though.

For the finished version, I used Pipers silk threads, with gold for the main work and antique gold for the outline of the butterfly’s wings, body and antennae.

I’ve had an acknowledgement to say it has arrived safely and hopefully it will get a place on the finished cape.

Also in the magazine were some extracts of letters which had been sent in to celebrate the creation of the Lace Guild. As is still the case, there was a desire to connect with and learn from other lacemakers- which is something being a member of the Guild can facilitate – and a difficulty in finding classes and groups. Whilst this situation improved through the 80s and 90s, with many local classes and the introduction of the City and Guilds qualification, the majority of these have now closed, and the qualification is no longer offered. Lacemakers are, however, finding new ways to share, celebrate, and learn the craft to secure its future. I’m currently working on a project with the Wolds Lacemakers to support learning of the craft and will post details soon!