This seems a logical place to pop in with... The North Carolina Regional Lacers enjoyed our Spring Lace Day today with a short workshop, and later a wonderful program, presented by Julie van der Wolf from the Netherlands. Some of you are looking forward to having her do a longer workshop soon, and your eager anticipation will be rewarded!! (all we had was the sneak preview, and it was full of good information - enough to get some of us off and running!!) Julie was delightful, and the lace she teaches (s'Gravenmoer) is lovely. (s'Gravenmoer is pronounced "s'Rav'n-moor" (soft 'a') which is as close as I can approximate given my English native tongue AND the limitations of email characters...)
The reason I responded to this particular message was that she mentioned the lace shops in Bruges (which she pronounced "BRU-gah"). She said that if you bought a handkerchief with the assurance of being hand-made in Belgium (a specific seal of authentication), you might expect to pay $500 for it. WOW!! NOW we're getting somewhere!! Still, you have to ask how much of that went to the lacemaker, and how much to the shopkeeper - and how much to the person who joined/mounted/embroidered??? Clay Clay Blackwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [Original Message] > From: Brenda Paternoster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: Claire Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: lace Arachne <lace@arachne.com> > Date: 4/16/2005 7:35:05 PM > Subject: [lace] Bruges - was laminating > > On 16 Apr 2005, at 09:33, Claire Allen wrote: > > > Claire > > Kent, UK, > > Off to Bruges in 2 days time. Yippee! Anyone recommend any good lace > > shops? > > > If you mean shops that sell lace, there are dozens, if not hundreds! > Just go for what you like the look of! > If you are after lacemaking equipment and threads there isn't much! 't > Handwerkenhouise in Katelejin Straat is the only one I know of - (still > there in October last year) but they only had a small amount of lace > supplies together with a variety of other needlework materials. I did > find two new-to-me threads there. There used to be a shop called > Orchidee in Maria Straat which was all lacemaking supplies but I didn't > see it in October, and there is a bookshop in Maria Straat which has > some lace books. > > As far as ready made lace goes, if you don't really know what you are > looking at the price is a good indication as to its origin. The > cheapest stuff is machine made (mostly chemical) lace, the next > priceband up is (I think) of Asian/Chinese origin. That includes a lot > of fairly basic needle lace and also the Battenburg type of tape lace. > Next group price-wise is Torchon, Duchesse and Cluny types of BL. > Again I think it must be made in Asia; I bought a hankie with a Cluny > edging for 8.50 Euros - about 5GBP. Doubt if any Belgian lacemaker > would work for that sort of money! Top of the range are a few pieces > (often unpriced because if you need to ask you can't afford it!) are a > few pieces of real Belgian BL. Point de Fee and Binche. I can't > remember the street names but one shop selling the expensive lace is on > a corner of a small square, with a horse drinking trough outside, on > the way back to the coach park and the other is near the antiques > market alongside one of the canals. Sorry can't be more specific. > > In October we just went on a day trip through the tunnel and I wasn't > really looking for lace. We had a ride on a canal boat and enjoyed > lunch al fresco outside one of the many cafes. DD and her MIL were on > the coach too and Sue (her MIL) was amazed at how I could tell machine > lace from hand made lace from the other side of the street, but if you > know what you are looking at it's easy! Apart from the hankie and lots > of chocolate the other souvenirs I got were some spectacular sunset > photos as we walked back to the coach. > > BTW, the museum that has lace is the Grotehouse museum and it still > closes on Tuesdays - made that mistake once! > > Brenda > http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/paternoster/ > > - > 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]
