Alex wrote: < In my experience the majority of lacemkers will follow the diagrams <faithfully without understanding what is happening and also they believe it is <the only way the pattern can be made.
When travelling abroad to teach, a tutor has no idea of the experience/standard of work that each student has reached and usually relies on the student's assessment of her competence i.e. beginner, intermediate or advanced. When a student tells a tutor that she has reached an 'intermediate' standard, naturally the tutor assumes that she does not need as much attention/information as a complete beginner and is fully aware of the basics so will allocate a pattern requiring an intermediate level of skills. When giving a needlelace pattern to a complete beginner, the instructions give a 'route' to travel in laying the cordonnet (outline couching) for the pattern and there are several different routes than one may take, but I can't draw diagrams and written instructions for all of them , as this would be akin to writing a book, but always explain that there is 'more than one way of skinning a cat'! This is the basic and first lesson that one learns to do before actually starting a piece of needlelace - much the same as winding your bobbins, as you can't make bobbin lace without any thread on your bobbins any more than you can make needleace, without couching down a foundation on which to work. I had a student who was extremely rude to me because the instructions I had given her did not include the 'route' to follow for couching the cordonnet. I told her that if she was of an intermediate standard, she should know this; it was quite obvious to me that she was a complete beginner. I offered her a pattern with instructions suitable for a complete beginner, but she was adamant that she was of an intermediate standard! One of the main requirements of a tutor is that of patience. Catherine Barley UK - 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
