Look, if you don't like pricking then photocopy, stick and film
That's what I pre-prick -- a film-covered "sandwich", with the photocopied pattern as the middle layer... At the beginning (in '89) I did try to prick through a pattern and then put in all the markings -- honest Injun, I *did* try... And messed up every time when drawing in the markings; all that sea of pinholes confused me no end. Since you put the markings with a waterproof pen, the mistakes were permanent. Which meant back to the pricking board and starting from scratch. Bleech; it got "stale" very fast :)
So then I'd draw the pattern (in pencil) on a piece of graph paper (became an avid collector of different;y-sized graphs <g>), erase and correct the mistakes to my heart's content, draw over the the correct lines with a pen, tint the pattern with a lightly-coloured crayon, then slap a bit of clear Contact over it. The whole thing was flimsy, so I started to glue it to a piece of cardboard. Thus re-inventing *the first* wheel of my lacemaking "career" (there've been many since; it is specified in my will that my tombstone should say: "she's re-invented the wheel; frequently and with zeal" <g>)... When the town got its first commercial photocopying place, it was like Christmas in July, for me :)
And - if like me and Tamara you don't like winding the bobbins get a bobbin winder
I do have a winder, but half the time it's not worth pulling out; there has to be more than half a yard of thread per bobbin needed before I bother... What I do to break the monotony is wind a few pairs and hang them in, then work as far as I can, then wind a few more and hang them in and work some more. In essence, I'm having my veg and my desert at the same time :)
But there's no such relief possible when pricking (unless you break the monotony of that with winding bobbins <g>); you have to finish it before you get to the "desert" of making the lace. I don't prick through two parts at once (even if they're perfectly symmetrical) because I worry (with reason, as an experiment had proved <g>) about not being prcise enough; my needle skews a bit, and the hole is no longer through the centre of the dot, but on the edge of it.
OTOH, I never prick all 4 sides of a hankie-with-corners, either; I prick two separate quarters of it, and alternate them on the pillow to work. The upside of that is that I can do one quarter and start working sooner... I do the second quarter in bits -- a bit every time I run into a problem on a pillow which needs thinking to resolve. As pricking doesn't require much mental effort, the two go well togeter and, usually, the second quarter is ready by the time I need it :)
Here's a story
<VBG> A classic case of what DH would call "and how are you fixed for spit?" (reference to someone who "borrows" a cigarette, then a match, then an ashtray, then a fan to dissipate the smoke...
I had given her 4 metres of handmade lace as a thank you
A "thank you" for what? For removing herself from your orbit? Might have been worth *something*, I suppose, but not 4 meters of lace; not even if it was a piece of 8-pair lace...
we all have bits of the process we hate - me it's mounting the stuff,
I hate mounting too :) There are even times when I hate working on the pillow (if it's a piece of yardage and longer than, say, a yard or so; by then it's all "demystified" and I start making mistakes through lack of attention). But the "rush" of coming up with an idea, working it out -- at least partways -- on paper, getting the possible "knotty technical points" solved in pre-sampling, then getting the "magnum opus" on the pillow (choosing the threads -- heaven <g>) and off it (triumphantly and with much chest pounding. Thereafter it can get stashed into the back of a drawer; who cares? <g>)... That "rush" is unbeatable...
---- Tamara P Duvall Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/
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