About Us

Bobbin Lace as an expressive and versatile art medium.

The right way is your way, always.

The Adventurous Lacemakers is a collective of lace artists* brought together by a shared desire to ask what else lace can be. We noticed a gap: plenty of patterns, but little space for exploration; many instructions, but few invitations to think, invent, and take risks.

Our work begins at the core of bobbin lace. We teach structure, logic, and principle—not to constrain you, but to set you free. When you understand how lace is built, you are no longer dependent on a pattern. You can draw with thread, improvise, revise, and design with confidence.

Our Patreon is your portal to cutting-edge courses by some of the world’s most innovative lace artists and designers. Around this learning, a vibrant community has formed: an international forum of over 200 lacemakers on Discord, where questions are welcomed, experiments are celebrated, and curiosity is the common ground.

This is a place for those who are willing to look closely, think deeply, and make boldly. We are here to support your practice, your questions, and your adventures in lace.

*Jane Atkinson, Pierre Fouché, Dagmar Beckel-Machyckova, Denise Watts, Lieve Smets, Tina Koder Grajzar, Lindy De Wijn & Cordula Pröfrock
Our Story

Reimagining Lace for a New Generation 

August 2025

Five years ago, lace artist Pierre Fouché launched a modest online teaching platform to share his contemporary take on bobbin lace. Today, this initiative has grown into one of the most dynamic forces in the international lace scene—an online learning hub, an art and design school, and a thriving creative community that’s redefining what lace can be.

What started as Fouché’s solo project soon evolved into a collective endeavour. After initially collaborating on a book project, Pierre joined forces with fellow lace artists Jane Atkinson (UK), Denise Watts (UK), and Dagmar Beckel-Machyckova (Czechia & USA). The group quickly realised that the creative freedom, audience reach, and collaborative potential of an online platform far outstripped the limitations of traditional publishing. Thus, The Adventurous Lacemakers was reborn—not as a book, but as a vibrant online community that blends education, mentorship, experimentation, and global connection.

In 2023, Belgian lace artist Lieve Smets joined the team of mentors, bringing her deep knowledge of technique and quiet innovation to the mix. The following year, three more unique voices were added: Slovenian designer Tina Koder Grazjar, whose crisp and lyrical designs bridge tradition and modernity, Australian artist Lindy de Wijn, known for her bold public interventions and radical approach to lace as social commentary, and German native Cordula Pröfrock whose curiosity about the creative process has led to a career in education and lace that balances intuition, gestalt and political thrust.

With over 400 subscribers on Patreon and 200-plus active members on Discord, The Adventurous Lacemakers is intimate enough to be personal, yet wide-ranging enough to create impact across continents. And that impact is already making waves.

In 2024, TAL’s mentors had their first group exhibition as a collective at the World Lace Festival in Pieštany, Slovakia. The event marked a significant moment: the debut of a truly international group of artists who, while rooted in lace, are as concerned with pushing boundaries as they are with honoring tradition. Their growing influence is set to consolidate in 2027, when they will headline the Contemporary Lace Biennial of Girona.

What sets TAL apart from traditional lace schools is its focus on design from day one. Rather than teaching students to follow patterns, TAL encourages makers—regardless of skill level—to explore their own creative voice, to ask questions, and to take risks. The result is not just a place to learn technique, but a space for artistic development, critical discussion, and collective discovery.

Over the past five years, the group has been central to some of the most exciting stylistic developments in contemporary lace. Signature techniques like Point Fusion, Two-Toned Tulle, Multi-Pair Plaits and Tallies, and the use of layering and its illusions, and sculptural lace have all emerged from this fertile community. Even humble Torchon lace has undergone a renaissance, reimagined as Diamond Mesh—a sophisticated and flexible structure that’s appearing in exhibitions, publications, and classrooms around the world.

One of the community’s most influential contributions came from Dagmar Beckel-Machyckova’s courses Taking Your Thread for a Walk and Drawing with Thread. These classes initiated a quiet revolution in contemporary lace, inspiring artists and designers to work with only one, two, or three pairs of bobbins. This radical limitation has opened up an expressive aesthetic unlike anything seen in lace before—spare, gestural, and difficult to classify within traditional lace frameworks. It’s a profound shift in how lace is approached, understood, taught and made.

In its fifth year, The Adventurous Lacemakers has become much more than a teaching platform. It is a movement: artist-led, globally connected, and unapologetically experimental. Its members are shaping the future of lace with courage, creativity, and generosity—and they’re doing it together.
Let's get personal

The Adventurous Lacemakers

Meet your new instructors and mentors:

Jane Atkinson

Jane Atkinson has spent half her life pursuing a dream – that bobbin lace could establish a place in modern life. She sees it not as an arcane hobby but as real currency – on the wall as Art Lace, around the house as a colourful furnishing, or as Wearable Art. She has taught lace design around the globe, exhibited across Europe, and counts as her greatest achievement that she persuaded Arts Council England to back her solo show, Ebb’n’Flow, in Dorset in 2018; With Dagmar, Denise and Pierre, she exhibited in ‘Lace, not Lace’ at the Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey in 2018, and shared ‘Fils Comuns’ with Denise Watts for Arenys de Mar Lace Museum, Catalonia, the following year. She has also written three books.

Dagmar Beckel-Machyckova

Dagmar Beckel-Machyckova fell in love with lace as a nine year old girl in the mountains of Slovakia. While she grew up in Prague, Czech Republic, where she also attended the Institute of Art Manufacturing, earning a degree in lacemaking, she now lives and works in Wisconsin, USA. She is equally fascinated by the historic peasant laces of Central Europe and the potential of contemporary lace. She has taught lacemaking across the United States for local guilds and since 2012 has been regularly invited to teach at the International Organization of Lace, Inc (IOLI) Annual Convention. Dagmar’s articles have been published in both European and American magazines. She has also participated in local juried exhibitions: Arts West, 38 (2017), Confluence of Art (2018); statewide exhibitions: On Wisconsin Fiber Arts Biennial (2019-2020), as well as international ones: Lace, not Lace (2018).

Pierre Fouché

Pierre Fouché trained to be a sculptor, but he fell in love with thread early in his art career. Crochet was a gateway drug to bobbin lace for him around 2009, and today he introduces himself as a lacemaker. His work has been shown in Cape Town and beyond, forming a part of the exhibitions Women’s work (2016) and Materiality (2020) at the Iziko South African National Gallery, Crafted: Objects in flux at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (2018), as well as the touring exhibition, Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, first exhibited at the Leslie + Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York (2015). His work is represented in the public collections of the Iziko South African National Gallery, The Norval Foundation (Cape Town) & the Artphilein Foundation, Switzerland. Fouché lives and works in Cape Town.

Denise Watts

Denise Watts’ love affair with bobbin lace started with the doing, but quickly became a fascination with what it could do, and through this process became a language for self-expression. Exploring simple techniques and investigating what they can achieve is her adventure, and using it to make lace that is relevant to today is imperative too. Denise has taught, (to exam qualification standard), lectured (including the National Gallery in London), exhibited (including international juried Exhibitions) but her magnum opus was experiencing women’s change in perspective on how they viewed their lives during her 2019 Exhibition ‘The Little Women” shown in London and Dublin.

Lieve Smets

Lieve's quietly unassuming and delicate art lace shows an interest in the aesthetics of decay, which she uses to elaborate on repeating themes of memory, loss, the body, and nature. It is her acute awareness of how materials, techniques, concept and intention are interwoven that put her on our radar as a perfect candidate to help you take your lacemaking to new heights. We are delighted to welcome Lieve as a TAL mentor.
Lieve is no stranger to the international lace and art world. She achieved a Masters in Fine Arts degree at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp in 1998 and has since then been actively exhibiting and teaching art and lacemaking. Her most recent solo presentation "Raaklijnen" was shown at the Stedelijk Museum Aarschot: an opportunity afforded her for winning the Aarschotse Cultuurraad Prize in 2022. Her work has appeared in numerous group exhibitions and publications, notably "Moderne Gründe", Deutscher Klöppelverband, 2013, "Lace in Flanders/Kant in Vlaanderen" by Martine Bruggeman in 2018, and "La Dentelle dans l’art contemporain" by Blandine Pouzin in 2021. Lieve lives and works in Rillaar.

Tina Koder Grajzar

Tina Koder Grajzar grew up in Idrija, the center of Slovenian lace-making. She started making lace at the very early age of five. When she was six years old, she visited the Idrija Lace School where she learnt lace-making for the next 9 years. After finishing Idrija grammar school, she studied Fashion and Textile design at the Faculty of Natural science and Engineering in Ljubljana. She got her university degree in 2003 with the thesis "Application of Bobbin lace on Clothing". In 2006 she began her work as a free-lance artist, working exclusively with Idrija bobbin lace, focusing primarily on contemporary jewelry pieces, fashion accessories and clothing applications. In 2009 she opened her lace gallery in Ljubljana where she currently lives and works. Apart from designing and making her own lace she also gives courses in Idrija lace design and often collaborates with the vibrant Slovenian lace community either as a mentor or lace-patterns designer. Her lace can be found in the permanent lace collection of the City Museum of Idrija which also hosted her solo exhibition in 2021. She participates in various group exhibitions in her home country and abroad. She primarily sees herself as a lace designer, creating "useful" and wearable objects, thus making bobbin lace a visible and valuable part not just of the heritage but also of the present moment.   

Lindy de Wijn

Lindy fell in love with bobbin lace as a child when she watched it being made by a family friend visiting from the UK.  She is eternally grateful to Margaret, a Lace Guild Member of Australia, who taught Lindy the basics and from here, she never looked back.  Lindy has built up her lace knowledge from various classes but mostly from the sharing of knowledge from the lace community that surrounds her.  Lindy loves experimenting and blending techniques in her lace design and believes lace is a living textile art and its story continues to evolve.

Lindy has a bachelor’s degree in Occupational Therapy and a Masters of Art – Art in Public Space and loves incorporating lace into her public art practice. She uses lace as a tool for exploring space, a medium for connecting with community and a means for expression.  Lindy is also an advocate for  the role of making and its relationship to health and wellbeing.  Lindy’s temporary installations have featured in various locations around Australia. Lindy is also the co-founder of InterLace Oceania, a group of contemporary lacemakers from Australia and New Zealand. 

Cordula Pröfrock

Cordula Pröfrock is a textile artist dedicated to exploring contemporary bobbin lace as a creative and experimental art form. Her fascination with lace began long before lace became her medium – not from a passion for lace itself, but from the rhythmic sound of bobbins, a sound that evokes quiet focus and shared creative presence. She is captivated by the process from idea to lace, especially those moments when control gives way to chance and unexpected forms emerge. Cordula’s work balances intention and openness, using sketch-based and intuitive methods to discover new expressions in lace. She co-founded the group Lace Artists 5.0 and has exhibited in shows such as Aspekte des Lebens with Lace Artists 5.0. Her practice includes workshops, experiments and collaborative projects that challenge traditional boundaries of lace and invite others into the creative process. www.lacebutwhy.de

Marian Tempels

Marian is our first guest teacher on TAL. For those who don't know Marian, she is the Leonardo da Vinci of bobbin lace -  striking an incredible balance between rigorous research and inspiring art. We are honoured to have her share some of her recent lace technique discoveries with us. They are very special, doubly so because we saw some of it germinate in discussions on the Point Fusion Forum (recently migrated to Discord). Marian has contributed two wonderful courses to TAL:  "Embellished Clothwork" - where she teaches us how to create otherworldly clothwork with assymetrical stitches on a more open clothwork configuration, and "GroundForge for Beginners" an overview of how to sample bobbin lace stitches virtually in the GroundForge suite of online applications.

Nicole Gammie

Nicole is our second guest teacher. She had the chance to learn lace at a young age after her mother learnt having seen it being made at a local craft fair in Australia.  Like many others, Torchon was the first option, followed by Buckinghamshire Point and Bedfordshire during high school.  It was a challenge at this stage due to the limited variety of patterns available that young lacemakers would find interesting.  With completing formal schooling and commencing work, Nicole moved around a bit providing opportunities to try other types of lace including Milanese, Honiton and other local variations.  More recently, she is experimenting with lace and embroidery and designing.

Nicole's course "Lace Books" introduces the concept of the artist's book as a creative option to when considering how to mount and display your lace. 
Take a look at what we can do for you