By chance I recorded last week's episode of Victorian Farm on BBC TV. The farm wife was milking a cow and there was a really good close-up of the lacy tails of her cap. I replayed this in slow motion, stopped it and was able to see that the lacy tails were an example of Barmen Lace. I am 99 percent sure of this. It would have been the correct type of machine lace for her to wear, as it was comparatively inexpensive.
Last night I watched the final episode of Victorian Farm and was very pleased to see that my good friend Anne Dyer was demonstrating straw plaiting. Anne is the founder of Westhope Craft College, which is siutated not far from the Acton Scott Farm used for the TV series. Westhope College is where I both teach and study. I took my City and Guilds Creative Computing there, and teach occasional classes in embroidery and patchwork, as well as taking items from my Collection for the City and Guilds Lace and Embroidery students. Anne did extremely well, showing the farm wife how to make a straw hat from flait plaited straw, coiled round and sewn into place. This has been a fascinating series portraying 19th century farm life, and I only hope they repeat it. Angela, where the winer snow is fast melting and snowdrops are blooming -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 5.9 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 3345 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachnemodera...@yahoo.com
