Hi, I did a huge fan last year and share Tamara's adversion for bobbins falling off the pillow. So I covered a large rectangle of building foam insulation with a bit of knit fabric, and stuck it next to the edge of the pillow. Actually I used two of these: one was the rectangle, but I also asked a local pillow maker to cut an arc shaped piece that fit around the outer edge of the circular part of my "pillow", which was fan shaped. Would work equally well with any round pillow. It really saved the day for me.
Regards, Carolyn Hastings Stow, MA USA > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On Behalf Of Tamara P. Duvall > Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 9:26 PM > To: lace Arachne > Subject: [lace] Pillows for large patterns > > > On Thursday, Dec 4, 2003, at 22:49 US/Eastern, Alice Howell wrote: > > > I haven't made a large pattern, but I tried to imagine making one. > > What > > pillow would I use..... Has anyone tried doing one on a large > > bolster pillow? > > It seems like that would be a practical method of working > with a very > > large > > pattern. > > A large bolster would probably work quite well. I don't have > a bolster > pillow but I have seen a large pattern (Russian Tape) made on one and > although to me it looked awkward, the lady seemed to be having no > problems. > > I've only ever made two largish projects in my entire lacemaking life. > > The first one was a a really big collar (4" wide, and made for a > deeply scooped-necked dress), and I made it on an ordinary 21" cookie > (long since passed on to another lacemaker; I only kept the 24"). But > it was Russian Tape (more or less; my own design, and an early one; I > was still stumbling in the dark <g>), made with just 6 or 7 > pairs, so > it was easy to unpin and re-pin in a more comfortable > position for work. > > The second piece was this summer, during Ulrike Loehr's > Snowflake Quilt > class (Binche snowflakes and variations; essentially, Viele > Gute Grunde > part II). She recommended we bring a block pillow, so I hauled out my > 24" square, all-blocks pillow from Kloeppelkiste. I love this pillow > for its feel but don't use it all that often; it's superb for things > with corners, but I don't make many things with corners. > Meanwhile, the > *pillow's* corners dig into my middle, if it's not positioned "just > so"; I was even contemplating cutting it down, to make an octagon... > > The piece I decided to make in class was just a plain hexagon (all > pieces were arrangements of equilateral triangles but, > depending on the > arrangement, you got different final results -- both as to size and > shape). One made a little one (6 triangles) first, then spiraled out > for the next "round" (18) of them. And the next, if one so wished, > though I didn't. > > I pinned my pattern centrally, as I always do on a cookie, and cursed > my way through the little hexagon, every time I had to work on a > triangle which placed the pillow's corner poking through to my > backbone. As it turned out, that was the easy part :) > > I almost finished the original 6 during the workshop but wasn't ready > to quit; my bobbins were overwound (I wound as much as I was told to, > then added a bit for breakage and, naturally, didn't break > any threads > -- the story of my life <g>), there were still 94 tempting > variations... I was having fun figuring out the flakes, had > no pressing > ideas for anything else... I decided to go ahead and do the second > round. > > And discovered -- fery fast -- that, while some of the triangles were > fairly comfortable to make, some were FMK9 (a bitch), depending on > whether I was working in or out. None poked me in the stomach > any more, > but, in some, the bobbins (36prs "basic" and 2 prs gimp) were falling > off the pillow. Grumble. But I wasn't in the mood to cut the project > off; I had too much effort "invested" in it, and I hadn't > "milked" all > the fun from those variations, either. Not to mention that a hexagon > with just 3 triangles in the outer round looks like h... and has no > place to finish unobtrusively... I was committed to finishing > all 18 if > it killed me... <g> > > And then it "clicked"; the classic "oh, DUH" moment... :) > > I started moving the blocks around. Not in the way I've always done > (for hankies and such), but so as to always have room, *on > the pillow*, > for the bobbins I needed. If it meant that a part of the pricking > (either to be yet covered or already worked and pins removed) was > off-centre -- in a corner even -- and spilling over the pillow, so be > it. As long as the most recently made part was on the pillow, > with pins > in it; as long as a good supply of bobbins was nicely fanned out with > the pillow support to them, I was OK. So simple... :) > > I realised then that my original order of blocks and spares had been > un-informed (to be kind to myself <g>); I had far too many > big squares > and nowhere near enough of thirds and of quarter-squares -- there'd > been times when I was "skating over *very* thin ice" (like, > nothing at > all under the pricking. Hair raising experience <g>). The > matter is now > being rectified, even though large projects are still, basically, not > "my cup of T". But you never know... And I'm sure glad I never got > around to remodelling the pillow into an octagon. > > Yours, busily making a Christmas ornament for myself (*small* > <g>), in > snowy Lexington > > ----- > Tamara P Duvall > Lexington, Virginia, USA > Formerly of Warsaw, Poland > http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/ > > - > To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing > the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write > to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
