Dear Lacemakers,
I've been away from lacemaking for more than three years - getting in
some part-time education meant giving up all but the most vital daily
activities. (I think I've always managed to clean my teeth and provide
clean shirts for my husband: every other thing has been missed at least
once!)
Now at last I'm trying to start making lace again, and I thought I'd go
back to a favourite of mine, a torchon book-mark. It's simple, one of
the first patterns I learned, and I know I've made quite a few over the
years for gifts, sales-of-work, and so on. But now I can't work out
what the thread is supposed to be, and I can't see anything in my box of
thread which seems to be right. So I'm hoping that someone out there
will recognise what is meant in the pattern, or tell me an equivalent,
or at least tell me how to work out a substitute.
The pattern is from Raie Clare's "The Dryad Book of Bobbin Lace", the
book from which I taught myself . . . quite a long time ago. It was
published in 1987, in case that helps. The thread prescribed is
"Swedish linen thread no. 90".
Although I've looked through Ian Austin's chart, and Brenda
Paternoster's invaluable booklet, "Threads for Lace", there is no
mention of a thread with that name, so I'm guessing that it's not a
brand name but something generic. This doesn't help me, as I've never
been any good at understanding all that business of turns and wraps and
deniers.
However, I do have quite a lot of thread, (most of it still has the
labels attached, too!), so I'm hoping you will be able to help me to
find something to wind on my bobbins. After that, it's just a simple
matter of throwing the bobbins around, of course . . .
Well, I'm grateful to think that I'm sure I can turn to my Arachne
friends whenever I come on yet another blank spot in my memory.
Yours optimistically,
Linda Walton,
(in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, U.K.).
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