Sally Jenkins

Lace Bio for Sally Jenkins

My co-worker Dorothy Ratliff persuaded me to attend the annual Lace Embrace, hosted by the Lacemakers Guild of Oklahoma, in 2007. Two minutes at the “try-it pillow” and I was asking about lessons! Debby Beever was my first teacher, and I received a thorough grounding in the basics of bobbin lace, for just a few months, at which time her husband retired and the two of them went a-traveling. Informal weekly sessions with lacemakers including Shirley Stone, Dorothy Ratliff, and other experienced lacemakers kept me going as I continued without a regular teacher.

In 2012 I left Oklahoma for western Oregon, where I promptly joined the Oregon Trail Lacemakers Guild. After a few years I began teaching Beginning Torchon, in an effort to increase our membership; this has been rewarding, though we are suffering just now by not being able to meet in person.

I attended Bartlesville, Oklahoma’s Lace Embrace every year that I lived there, and have gone several times to the Portland Lace Day in Portland, Oregon. Very early in 2020 I attended the National Folk Organization conference, where, with assistance from Maria Provencher, I presented our guild’s audience-participation project of making bobbin lace using rope; this combination of Maypole-dance moves and bobbin lace was very well received and a lot of fun.




Roses and Scallops, from Using Colour in Bobbin Lace by Jo Edkins, made by request in "hippie colors" of black and "the darkest purple you have." I felt the need to lighten it up with some gold metallic for my own sanity while making this thank-you gift for a friend who had done me a kindness. The purple and black are Finca size 16 pearl cotton; the gold is Presencia 50, two-ply.





This bookmark is nothing more than 14 pairs of basic roseground, with two of the pairs being a contrast color. I have made this pattern many times and never get tired of making it or looking at it. To get this particular thread path, all stitches are either CT or CT(p)CT.


This was from page 96 of Ulrike Voelcker's Discover Torchon. The red thread is Gütermann S303 silk and the black is YLI silk size 50, quite a bit thinner than the Gütermann, but by then I was out of the German brand and wasn't willing to order something non-essential during the Covid lockdown. Except for the fans and the obvious cloth-stitch sections, everything you see is a variation of 2-pin roseground! This was challenging and enjoyable to make.


Lotus Edging pattern by Melanie Runge. I think this was in one of the IOLI

CD-ROMS distributed following Convention recently. I've always wanted to make it. I had some Gütermann S303 silk in blue left over from another project, and used it for the background. The white and red are the same kind of thread; the green gimp is 2 strands from some standard 6-strand embroidery floss in my box of gimp threads. I started with white flowers but switched to red. In the future I would choose a different color for the ground stitches, and probably the same gimp and red for the flowers. The gimp follows a more complex path than you would think. This is not something I would do in a public setting such as a demo, because the gimp takes concentration. I loved the pattern and am glad I made it, and will make it again.



The Kununurra bookmark was designed by Jenny Brandis of Perth, Australia, and is named after a town she lived in some time ago. I made it using Gütermann S303 silk.