On Jan 28, 2007, at 22:22, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Orla) wrote:
Yep, it came from Le Pompe (pattern B on page 17).
That's Le Pompe Book I, BTW, for those who have the Levey/Payne version
of Le Pompe that Jeri wrote about. While Levey/Payne reproduced all the
woodcuts from book I and only "selected pages" from Book II, there's
page 17 reproduced from both books, and both have more than one pattern
on that page.
It looks like it's about 20 pairs of bobbins and is made of Kreinik
cord
- which has become my favorite thing to use for metallics. The biggest
pain for it is that there are sewings all over the place. Every
vertical line in the footside requres sewings as does the triple loop
at the top. I use Bayeux bobbins and can't imagine how anyone would do
this pattern if they were using midlands.
Midlands wouldn't have been "in period" anyway; they're post-1600. But
I'm troubled by your statement that "there are sewings all over the
place". There *shouldn't be any* -- this is a plaited lace, not a tape
one. I'm not a member of SCA myself, so I don't know how insistent the
Society is on the accuracy and how much leeway is permitted, but
plaited laces made before 1600 had few -- *if any* -- sewings; all the
joins were achieved by skillful manipulation of the bobbins themselves.
I know there are no instructions for that pattern in the book and,
anyway, you make your lace "the old-fashioned way"--interpreting *a
pricking* the best you can (that info came in from private e-mail
exchange, in case anyone's wondering). But most of those early
lacemakers had formal training (the author of the Neuw Modelbuch speaks
of having students, for example, though the unknown author of Le Pompe
dedicates his work to "virtuous ladies", thus suggesting dilletantes),
so their guesses weren't likely to be wild; they were informed. And
there was a certain "canon" of techniques on which the lacemakers based
their interpretations.
Levey/Payne interpretation of Le Pompe patterns is wonderful, because
it began to unlock some of the mysteries of the earliest laces for us.
But their interpretation, by necessity, based their conclusions on a
different (more modern) set of techniques -- the ones *they* were
familiar with. Burkhard's interpretation of the Neuw Modelbuch, though
published only 3yrs later, seems to guess at the 500yr-old realities
much better.
And the work continues, in several countries.
In US, an Arachnean, Devon Thein, volunteers for the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in NYC. Which not only has a very large collection of
lace, but also one of those techno-wonders -- the awesome microscope.
One can view laces, stitch-by-stitch, and see how they're constructed,
without having to take them apart. And one can capture each bit in a
photo, for further study and possible reproduction. Which is more
likely to be really accurate, since it draws on more than just the
study of the original woodcuts; it considers actual laces made in the
same period (if not, necessarily, on the same patterns), gaining
insight into the techniques used at the time.
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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