I have a favor to ask.
Could some obliging American spider who has a copy of Ulrike Lohr's
Hausdragon box of patterns go photocopy the first page of pattern #12, a black fan
with 2 bird heads and two dog-like heads, and mail it to me? Email me for my
address. I can pay, although I'm thinking it will only put you out about 60
cents. The favor is the inconvenience of doing this. The last page of the
pattern booklet would also be nice, although not as important.
That's the important point of the post. Now here's just some random lace
babble:
I decided a few months back to try to make this pattern. I therefore
went to my local Office Depot to make several photocopies of the pricking.
Lamentably, my original copy of the pricking somehow got lost in the process. So I
have the pricking--the photocopies of it--but I don't have the stuff that was
on the back of the page that had the pricking. The stuff on the back was the
first and last page of the pattern booklet.
The first page of the booklet has a picture of the completed fan. I think
I would like to have that. The last page in the entire box of patterns also
has a picture of the fan, but that picture is too small to make out details.
I've been working on the fan for a few months now. Today I was looking at
what I've done so far and I thought, boy, that gimp sure is thick. Is it
really supposed to be that thick? I wonder if I've got it right. Maybe a good
picture of the completed results would clear this up.
I think I'm using the right threads, although I can't doublecheck since the
names of the threads are on the first page of the pattern booklet. My thread
is Van Sciver's "Danish Silk 250 3-ply Chantilly Silk unboiled" which,
bizarrely, comes in a film canister. This thread seems to fit the pattern
reasonable well. My gimp is Piper's Silk 6-fold 140/2 spun silk. This is the thread
that seems really thick. I use it just the way it comes off the spool. I've
wondered if, instead of using all 6 folds, I was supposed to separate the folds
and only use 1 or 2 or 3 of them instead of all 6. Against this idea is a
gimp diagram (although it is for the coarser motif and not the fan) which shows
the gimp thread forking into 2 pieces, with a "3" written next to it. This
implies that the original gimp used all 6 folds and now was being separated
into 2 pieces of 3 folds each.
The other thing that bothers me is that I somehow got the idea that all
the figures were supposed to be done in half-stitch. So I've been doing them
that way. They've been easy to make since Ulrike Lohr provides an extremely
clear and comprehensive working diagram. However, the working diagram clearly
shows cloth stitch, not half-stitch. The passives all go down vertically, as
with cloth stitch, not slanted, as with half-stitch.
Now, one might think that if the working diagram shows cloth stitch then
the question is definitely answered. Ha, no. Each line in the diagram
represents a pair of bobbins, not a single bobbin. This is important, since the
diagram would be unreadably cluttered if each bobbin got its own line. If each
line represent a pair of bobbins then what is the best way to illustrate
half-stitch, a stitch which splits the pairs? It seems to me that the best way, the
clearest and easiest-to-follow way, would be to make half-stitch use the same
working diagram as cloth stitch.
So I feel fairly sure that I am right to be working in half-stitch, but
maybe the picture would clear it up. I'm not sure that it will, since the
figures are so dense that they might come out just as a solid black patch in the
picture.
I said I "somehow got the idea" that the figures should be in
half-stitch. More specifically, I've been told that Chantilly lace is exactly the
same
as Bucks Point with the following characteristics: 1) uses black thread, 2)
footside sometimes has twists, 3) headside often has so many threads in the
reservoir that threads are bundled instead of being woven through individually, 4)
kat stitch used, 5) beautiful scrolling flower patterns, and 6) solid figures
always done in half-stitch.
This pattern has characteristics 1,2, and 3 but does not have 4 or 5.
Therefore, I voted that this was Chantilly Lace and all figures should be
half-stitch.
Speaking of half-stitch, here is a question. Do I actually need to make
all the figures in half-stitch? Why can't I make some of the figures in
half-stitch and some of them in cloth stitch? Or for that matter, all the figures
in cloth stitch?
The easy answer to this is that of course I can do anything I want.
That's not exactly what I mean. I want to know what people's experiences are. Why
is Chantilly done completely in half-stitch? Does something bad happen when
you throw in cloth stitch? Is it more pleasing aesthetically to make all
figures the same way? Is half-stitch more sturdy or something than cloth stitch?
Surely people have given thought to this matter. I'll want to experiment
myself, but my experimentation will probalby be more productive if I have an idea
of some interesting things to look for.
I know that the point ground laces, which in some ways all seem to be
indistinguishable, all have their own characteristic ways of doing things. So
you could say, well, you don't have to make the figures in half-stitch since,
see, here are a bunch of other point ground laces that use cloth stich for
their figures. But that doesn't exactly answer the question either. It doesn't
say how it changes the..the... the feel of the lace when you do things in a
different way.
Julie Baltimore MD
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