Experimenting with Needlelace Tassels

I made these tassels for a friend's event some months back. I have wanted to try to recreate the style of woven tassel heads I have seen in some extant Elizabethan pieces, and this was my first experiment.

  The tassels are created in by winding threads over the hands, as seen in this picture tutorial: : http://broidermebethan.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-century-challenge-simple-tassels.html

The tassels were made out of crochet cotton because I wanted a fairly robust tassel. Silk would look very nice, I think.

Once the tassels were made up, I took a length of crochet cotton and anchored it with a big knot inside the head of the tassel, bringing the thread up near the centre of the tassel head. I then worked a detached buttonhole stitch around and around the tassel head, anchoring it to itself with a discreet knot when I reached the bottom. I then hid the tail of the thread back inside the body of the tassel before trimming the length.

The final part of the exercise was to add the rings of blue and white buttonhole stitch around the base of the tassel head. 

I'm really pleased with how these turned out. I would like to experiment a bit more with this style of tassel and examine images of extant ones. I think I remember seeing tassel making in Jacqui Carey's Sweet Bag book, but, as is always the way, I did not have a copy to hand when I needed it, so I had to work from  vague memories and imagination.

A selection of sixteenth and seventeenth century French tassels from the Met Museum metmuseum.org

 via Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/292945150746851405/

 

A&S Century Challenge - Simple Tassels

Today I made simple little tassels to go on pouches.

The first step is to take the thread you want to use and wrap it around your fingers. I used three fingers because these tassels will be small. Four or five fingers would make bigger tassels.
I used crochet cotton for these tassels.

Take a longer piece of thread (about 25-30cm) and thread through the centre of your loops. If your thread is extremely fine, you may want to use a thicker thread in a similar colour, because this thread will become the attaching thread that secures your tassel to the project you are making it for (e.g. pouch, clothing, hat, sash etc.)

Once the thread is in the centre of your loops, tie it off securely. I do it a couple of times with a double knot at the end to make sure it is very secure.

Next, smooth the loops out and make sure they are all lying together and there are no big bulges. Take a smaller piece of thread (15-20cm approximately) and tie off the loops. The distance you tie off down from the first knot will be how big the ''head'' of the tassel will be. Continue to make sure all the threads are laying nicely and nothing has got caught up or is bulging out. I tie off and then wrap and tie off again to make sure everything is nice and tight and strongly secured.
Cut the loops.

I thread the ends of the tie off threads through a needle and thread them back under the horizontal wrapping so that they end up sticking out with all the other thread ends.

Finally trim off the ends of the threads so they are neat and the desired length. I tend to trim the edge ends a little shorter so that the tassel ''skirt'' has a slight bell shape rather than being cut straight across. This is a matter of personal preference.
If you wanted to decorate the ''head'' of the tassel, you could do it now.

The finished product ready for attachment.