Lace

Lace isn't just for nighties anymore. Young designers are giving their spring collections a generous frosting of the old-fashioned and romantic fabrication. Lace shows up in miniskirts, trousers, sportswear and garden-party dresses. What a pretty picture.

Toward the end of the summer, I was up in Cape Cod and visited this adorable vintage bridal shop with my future mother-in-law and bridesmaid Lindsey. I found a great veil with three rows of satin edges that was both beautiful and inexpensive, so I bought it. It has been in my car, in a bag ever since. Two weekends ago, I went to Betsy Robinson to try on my dress for two out-of-town bridesmaids. I brought my trusty vintage veil only to discover that vintage equaled really, really yellow.

Lace is a fabric of celebration, whether it lingers at home for an intimate evening or steps out for a grand entrance. It is wondrous stuff, spun of a blend of fragile filaments and allure. It is magic in its duality -- revealing while it conceals -- and a touch of it promises memorable evenings.Styled by Pascale Lemaire. Assisted by C. Hampton Jones. Makeup by Eric Spearman/Zoli Illusions. Hair by Jefferson/T.H.E. Artist Agency. Models: Rori and Stacey/New Faces. All furnishings and decorative objects courtesy of Gaines McHale Antiques Ltd.Pub Date: 11/07/96

Joe Flacco isn't above trying something different to become a better quarterback. But the Ravens starter said one change he won't consider is wearing a glove on his throwing hand. After joking that he thinks a glove “looks stupid” on his hand, Flacco said he prefers being able to touch the laces and ridges on the leather of the football while taking a snap or attempting a pass. “I like to feel the football,” he said after Wednesday's practice. “Even growing up playing baseball, I never wore batting gloves.

It's back-to-college time, and if you want to get off to a fashionably great start, the last thing you need is to get stuck with a bunch of nice outfits, with no clue about what shoes to wear with them. Sneakers make a great selection because you can do so much with them. You may be happier with your purchase if you get a pair you can add style to. Just by lacing your shoes in a different way, you can enhance a once-dull shoe, as well as the look and feel of your whole outfit. There are ways to make a regular sneaker go from basic to flashy, typical to unique.

What do two little old ladies, a mass murderer who travels with his own plastic surgeon and a man who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt have in common?They're all related. And they're all crazy.The South Carroll High School Stagelighters will bring these and other characters to life in Joseph Kesserling's play "Arsenic and Old Lace" at 7:30 p.m. today and tomorrow in the school auditorium, 1300 W. Old Liberty Road, Winfield.The all-student comedy relates the story of two elderly sisters who poison lonely old men and bury them in the basement of their home.

Women armed with huge, padded cushions, thread and pins, gather twice a week in the cozy basement of Nancy Wass' home in Ferndale. It is a time for them to sip tea and share stories as they busy their fingers making intricate lace.Wass, 50, has been teaching bobbin lace-making for about seven years, and is one of two people in the Baltimore area who hold such classes -- the other is in Odenton. It is a European technique that involves using dozens of bobbins -- round devices about four inches in length around which threads are wound -- to weave lace by hand.

Back in the 1940s Rita Hayworth put on that black lace nightie and became World War II's No. 1 pinup. Lace was back in style, even if you only peeked at it. But the postwar world turned its back on lace for the living room. Much too frilly-fussy for all that "contemporary"-styled furniture.Now lace is back again big, really big, and not just in the dress world. Interior designers who only months ago were reveling in the "arts," both deco and nouveau style, have taken to the lacy trend. What Mrs. O'Leary hung on her front windows back in 1891 (and sometimes even made herself)

Once a week for the past six years, Aurelia Loveman has buried herself in a storage room of the Baltimore Museum of Art, gingerly removing pieces of lace from the boxes, linen envelopes and silk sheets that have concealed them for 55 years. Elegant cuffs and collars that once adorned royalty in the 17th-century court of Louis XIV, delicate Chantilly lace parasol covers, gauzy shawls and intricately woven 19th-century needle-lace fan leafs are among the valuable remnants hiding inside their dusty tombs.

Baltimore's fabled Cone sisters, Claribel and Etta, were inveterate collectors who over the course of nearly half a century amassed one of the most important collections of Matisses in the world. How did they do it? Simple: They shopped till they dropped! Or: Practice, practice, practice. Remember, the fine arts weren't the only arena for the Cones' passionate buying. In addition to the 161 paintings, 79 sculptures, 685 prints and 398 drawings they acquired, they also bought illustrated books, fine furniture, skeleton keys, mortars and pestles, Turkish towels, postcards, travel guides, costume jewelry, fabrics, curios and antique lace.

German wine. It's one of the most magical wines on earth. It is delicate yet full-flavored. Aromatic, yet firmly chiseled. Like scrimshaw, it is etched. Unfortunately, so many of its low-end offerings still give the entire category a bad name. German wine is not sugar water. Far from it. And the good stuff is not coming at you at $10 a bottle. Take the Donnhoff Estate Riesling Trocken 2011, Pfalz ($23) The nose is all talc, delicate and slightly pollen. On the palate there is jasmine.

The nation's leading travel organization Friday urged the Obama administration to block the sale of E15, a new ethanol-laced gasoline, that could damage as many as 228 million vehicles that are not designed to run on it. After years of controversy, the Environmental Protection Agency in June approved the sale of E15, a blend that contains up to 15 percent corn-based ethanol, for cars made after 2001. But AAA said its survey shows that 95 percent of consumers were unaware of E15 and the potential that it could damage engines and void warranties.

  I wonder if Darren O'Day's heart has started back up yet. Because when the Orioles' reliever was pranked recently by manager Buck Showalter for a Major League Baseball Fan Cave video, you wondered if the poor guy was going to need a defibrillator before it was all over. This was an absolute classic. It went like this: before a game against the Mets in New York, O'Day was supposedly being interviewed by a Wall Street Journal reporter to talk about something called a "Solowheel.

The leaves on my azaleas are turning white. They look dirty underneath, too. How can I stop this? Your azaleas are infested with lace bugs. These ubiquitous insects insert their mouth parts into leaf undersides and suck out the chlorophyll. Each piercing makes a pale spot, known as stippling, and eventually the entire leaf can turn yellow and fall off. The black dots under the leaves are fecal spots. Lace bugs themselves are hard to see because they have translucent "lacy" wings.

Submitting sports notices The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. Monday. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). Questions? Call 410-332-6578. Running The Maryland Half Marathon and Dozer's Dash, an 8k race within a race, will be held Sun., May 6, starting at 8 a.m. in Maple Lawn. The race benefits the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center. Go to http://www.mdhalfmarathon.com. The Atholton Elementary School PTA is holding its second annual Panthers Pounding the Pavement 5k and 1-mile Family Fun Run/Walk June 3 at 9 a.m. at Atholton Park in Columbia.

Submitting sports notices The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. Monday. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). Questions? Call 410-332-6578. Running The Storm in the Swamp 5k and Mommy Trot will be held Sat., Sept. 24 at Reservoir High School. Race day registration is $17; the Mommy Trot (one lap of the track) is free. The race is a combined effort between the Long Reach and Reservoir field hockey teams. Donations are accepted and proceeds will be split between the ALS Foundation (Long Reach)

Tombstones sprout like mushrooms in the Center Stage orchestra pit, seeming to grow loose and wild among the grass. We don't even notice them at first. Instead, the audience's gaze lingers on the artifacts of Victorian gentility crammed into a rooming house in Brooklyn in 1941: the lace tablecloths, crocheted doilies, cut-crystal decanters. If there was a grandfather clock in the Brewsters' sitting room, it would chime decorously. But once we notice that cemetery, it's hard to focus on anything else.

CHICAGO -- Traditionally, the American male finished dressing for success each morning by tying on a pair of highly polished lace-up shoes. But, today, men can get on the fast track even sooner by slipping into a pair of loafers."

Mother Nature must have given us winter so that we would do flips at the sight of the first daffodil of spring. Even the most serious winter trekker welcomes this life-breathing season. Fall/winter is Seventh Avenue's “bread and butter” but spring is its masterpiece of color, life and fun. You will find that spring 2011 is an entire garden of bright and fanciful daffodils, just waiting to awaken your wardrobe. Here are four top trends. Color Popping. Think bright and you cannot go wrong.

Many Special Olympians competing in the national games this month in Lincoln, Neb., will have one less worry while they are running, jumping or playing ball: Their shoelaces will never come untied. A Glen Burnie entrepreneur is donating 3,000 pairs of Lock Laces, a shoe-lacing system that features elastic laces combined with a spring-activated locking device. Eric Jackson, 41, made the first pair for himself so he would not trip over loose laces while jogging. He soon had requests from friends and family and the basis for his own business.