On Aug 24, 2004, at 21:50, Weronika Patena wrote:
Wow. I got up this morning, and the list of new emails didn't fit on the
screen...
You're not the only one.,.. :)
It seems like an unpleasant surprise to buy a lace pattern and then find out you
need another book to actually make the lace...
I don't *sell* my lace patterns; I publish them, for free, wherever I think they'll fit best. Most of them are likely to be in Milanese, and therefore appeal to people who are already somewhat conversant with the technique. And, if they are, they're already familiar with at least one of the books - intimately enough to own it.
Where do you draw the line? I assume you're OK with learning something like
roseground from a book, using it in your pattern and including a diagram - I
guess I see Milanese braids as being on the side of roseground rather than full
designs.
Only if you made a bookmark which used nothing but a roseground, would it be *in the least* comparable to a bookmark which used only, say, "Meander in braid". Add then only slightly; roseground, under many different names and in different guises (rose-ground can be executed in a multitude of way, counting each pin and the connecting stitches) is common-place; Milanese braids aren't. If I use roseground in a pattern, I don't diagram it; I either assume that the lacemaker knows at least one way of making it, or else refer her to the Stott/Cook Book of stitches.
if I can just look at the lace (which isn't designed by
the authors and isn't copyrighted) and figure out how it could be made (probably
won't be the same as the diagram in the book, but will give the same effect or
close), and draw a diagram of that, is that OK? Of course I have seen the
diagram in the book, so it can be hard to tell how much I'm relying on my memory
of that...
Then, why bother? I've re-invented many a wheel in my time, but never *knowingly*; life's too short :)
By the way, is the detailed method of making the braid (i.e. the content of the
diagram) copyright too, or just the image?
I'd expect the verbal instructions (ie: "leave the W; cl st prs 2&3, and prs 4&5" etc) to be *definitely* copyrighted; that's the way *Read and Kincaid* tackle those braids.
do all Milanese lacemakers, or most of them, learn to make the braids in the specific way described in the book, or do they come up with their own slightly different ones?
I can only speak for myself, not for "most", much less for "all"... I do not follow the verbal instructions at all. Mostly because the instructions follow the diagram pair-by- pair, and I don't often have the same number of pairs in my patterns... :)
That's the *single* "issue" I have with the books; some of the diagrams show a "clean" pattern (no true, inactive, passives on the sides of the decorated part), but some - especially in the earlier book - count those passives as part of the braid. If I change the number of those "inert" passives (or remove them altogether), then, "cl st W through2 prs" stops making sense. In cases where I do change the number of pairs (usually by adding to or removing from those "side issues"), I say so - the *core* of the diagram remains the same, so a reference to the diagram still holds, even though the verbal part has to be discarded.
did the authors of the book look at a made lace piece and come up with a diagram for the braids, or learn to make the braids from other lacemakers?
Ah... Now, here's a lovely story about that... :) Last year in Ithaca, Pat Read taught a class, and was also one of the featured lecturers. She described - with amusing detail - how she and her student (Lucy Kinkaid) would travel to museums and, having obtained permission, would climb up on whatever was available/handy for a close look at the displayed laces. And make drawings/diagrams from those. Then go home and try to dissect the piece and reproduce it. Then go back to check if their results matched those in the museum...
None of your learning how to make the braids from other lacemakers; it was an exercise in pioneer enterprise... :) But that's precisely why their two books are the "sine qua non" of every lacemaker who wants to make Milanese, including Sandi Woods (who took Milanese into another dimension)
--- Tamara P Duvall http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) Healthy US through The No-CARB Diet: no C-heney, no A-shcroft, no R-umsfeld, no B-ush.
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