Fans for the four elements

I made the first fan in this series for an exhibition at Valtopina Lace and Embroidery Museum several years ago. The theme was a fan based on one of the four elements: earth, air, fire and water. I chose water for my theme and incorporated a bobbin lace design of water droplets into silk paper to make a small pale blue fan – you can see how I did it in a blog I wrote in September 2014.

I was pleased with the water fan and decided that I’d like to make a series of three more fans for the other elements. I made the ‘fire’ lace a while ago in red and orange threads but then got diverted into other projects and put the other pieces to one side. Looking through some images of my lace the other day I came across one of the water fan and as I have nothing on my pillow at the moment I decided to make the lace for the air and earth versions. I’ve now chosen a palette of grey, silver and neutral threads for air, and brown, copper and green ones for earth and have finally started on the lace.