You have raised several interesting topics. I've been making lace for 18 years. I started when I was working full time so I had limited time to put on lacemaking. I've done more since retiring.
Lacemaking is not fast. Some people are faster than others...true for most activities. They move their fingers faster. The fastest lacemaker in our local group learned in Belgium from a teacher who expected people to work fast. Practice is the key. A bit of urging from a teacher can stimulate the faster practice. Yardage is certainly repetitive. If you are making a pattern just for the practice, and have no goal in mind, you might be ready to quit with a foot or two or three. If you are making it for your granddaughter's wedding veil, there is a bit more incentive. I like to do a variety of laces. My longest yardage piece was three yards. I have ended some at 12 or 15 inches if I lost interest in the design. There is always a yardage piece on my travel pillow so I can take it with me at moment's notice, or use at demos if I have nothing else suitable at that moment. The old-time professional lacemakers were in it for a living. If they weren't making lace, they would be in the fields or kitchens or scrubbing floors or whatever. A warm, dry lace factory was more pleasant that some of the alternatives. But it was not easy. They depended on the sun for light and worked sun up to sun down. It made for long hours in the summertime. This was long before labor laws. Children started as early as age six. They could wind the bobbins used by the lacemakers. When they got old enough (big enough?) to sit at a lace pillow, they started with the simpler patterns. When yardage lace was gathered onto garments, mistakes in a pattern did not show. No time was spent taking out mistakes. Just get back to the pattern and keep going. How much can be made in a day? Well... depends on the pattern, the thread, and the skill of the lacemaker. When viewers at a demo ask..and they WILL always ask...we say "a square inch an hour". That is a general average for medium thread in Torchon. I also add a comment that thicker thread will cover the pattern faster, and thin thread or a complicated pattern will take longer. (I may have a piece of lace made with very tiny thread nearby, and comment that it took four/five times longer because of the tiny thread.) If a lacemaker worked 12-14 hours on a summer day, with the same pattern all the time, she might have done up to 20-25 square inches. This is a guess. I have no documented evidence one way or the other. I have a basic rose pattern that I have made many times. The first time I made it, I took 14 hours. I can now make it in six. I also had an experience recently when I made a collar as a gift. I spent three months on it, and made two mistakes. I wasn't willing to give away a flawed item, so made a second one which took only three weeks. Knowing the pattern well made a big difference in time spent doing it. Know a pattern can only come from using it...which takes you back to PRACTICE. Just doing it constantly, persistently, determinedly (you get the picture) leads to skill ... i.e. competence and speed. Relate it to playing a musical instrument. If a person practices for only half an hour a week, no skill will be developed. As a kid, I was required to spend an hour a day at the piano. I could play church hymns and general music, but was never suggested as a concert pianist. Those people spend 6-8 hours a day at the piano. Don't even try to equal the speed of a lady in Belgium who has probably been making lace for 50 years and has done that pattern many times. Just appreciate her skill. Try to make your lace every day...even if just for 15 minutes. Let your fingers and brain get used to the movement sequences, and switching between the basic sequences. Speed will come with experience, but let it come naturally. Take pleasure in the movement of the bobbins, and watching the pattern develop. Enjoy the products of your work, and show them off. By the way... if you have to work on a higher table, try to raise the seating. Use a cushion, or stack two chairs together (if they stack). Most hotel and convention center seating stacks. The chair/table height must fit you properly to prevent back/shoulder/neck aches. Most of all...have fun with your lace. Alice in Oregon ... with our first hot day on the first day of summer. - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
