Re: [lace] teaching beginners

[Chris Brill-Packard]

I am currently teaching one student - a woman near my own age that saw lace
being demonstrated who wanted to learn.  I have only had the opportunity to
teach a few so my comments are just a couple of items that may help
with motivation and progress.  
 
I strongly suggest to any beginner - get
a notebook and keep all of your first pieces in it with the patterns and
notes.   It helps show progression of working the threads - tension and
stitches.  I show my ring binder from my first 6 weeks of lace making and
they are surprised that we all start in the same place.  I ask my student to
commit to lacing at least 30 minutes daily since we were meeting once a
week.   
 
Your choices of stitches are good.   I choose patterns that
are building blocks that continually reinforce the last skills taught to help
with memory (mind and muscle memory).    Humans learn by visual, hearing
and touch, so I try to do all three.   My first teacher had me take the
pattern and look at the piece of lace and I had to color code the pattern in
with my own colored pencils.   This helped me a great deal because I had to
think of the stitches, color it in and use the rules for when extra twists
were needed and where to mark them.  I did this with my student and asked her
to change the lace motifs or tapes or edges.  She had to tell me and show me
what was needed in the diagram to make it work.  Then she chose how she
wanted to lace it to fit what she wanted the lace to look like.
 
After just
4 weeks, I brought out lots of books and let her choose what she wanted to do
and then would guide her, letting her know what skills she needed to fully
understand to get to that pattern.   We would choose a pattern(s) to give
her the practice with more challenges toward her goal.  Then we would get
into the difficult pattern - talking it through first, reading the diagram –
giving her tips on how to avoid mistakes as one makes lace.  I now believe in
teaching leaves and tallies in the first four weeks.  I never spoke of some
of the statements I heard about leaves and tallies.   I want to her to think
of them as simple.
 
Additionally, we critiqued her work together.  I would
ask her where the mistakes were and what happened.   No unlacing – just
get the threads where they should be and start the repeat over.  This seemed
to help my student a great deal to stay motivated because of self
accomplishment and learning.  The first week I teach how to bring in a thread
when one breaks, how to hang in a pair so she knew what to do instead of
waiting all week for our next meeting.    I stress that when learning a
skill we are not striving for perfection – just learning and understanding
the specific techniques.  Doing multiple repeats in different small project
brings the improvement with tension and control.   
 
I let
her choose what she wants to use for thread.  My student loves color and
gets excited using color in all types of laces.   I let her watch the Color
in Torchon DVD for ideas about using colored threads.
 
I encouraged her to
take a 2 day workshop after 8 months.   I pushed her to go so she could
see how much she really understood.   I stressed to her “no unlacing”
just spend the time focusing on learning the techniques, learn the tips to
improve it and make all the lace necessary to keep up with the instructor so
that she did actually do all of the techniques that the instructor had to
offer.  She came back so excited with self confidence that she can think a
new challenge though on her own.  She made many projects in Bruges Bloemwerk
for the next several months – with each one there was improvement with her
application of technique.    
 
Lace instruction DVDs – I like the DVDs
for learning skills and setting the learning to memory.  I ask the student to
watch first, write down notes if necessary, then turn off the DVD; then think
it through with the diagram.  From my experience, the lacer needs to turn off
the DVD and work the lace using the diagram to stay on track.   The DVD can
become too much of a distraction – turning on and pausing, lacing and then
restarting DVD.  This amount of back and forth slows the learning curve. 
 
I believe all lacers need excellent reference books to look up techniques
that they may not use for a while as they work different types of lace.   I
strongly suggest: 
 
The Grammar of Point Ground – Ulrike Voelcker
The
Beginning of the End – Ulrike Löhr
Practical Skills in Bobbin Lace -
Bridget M. Cook
 
Chris Brill-Packard
Cleveland, Ohio

-
To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line:
unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to
arachnemodera...@yahoo.com