Hi Yes you are correct Lyn. If you have worked through the basic patterns of a type of lace first, then you should recognise certain elements of the pricking. When I first started to learn lacemaking in the early 70s there were only the prickings which the teacher held. If we wanted a copy of that pricking, we copied it by making a new pricking using the existing pricking, at that time there were very few photocopies we could use and I certainly didn't learn how to graph a pattern out until a few years later. And most of the prickings did not have any lace attached to them so we had to rely on our earlier lacemaking experiences to understand the pricking or do our own thing and hoped it was right.
Nowadays there are plenty of lacemaking books on offer which should show how to work the various types of lace, there are books on how to graph out lace patterns and even how to design lace from scratch. But if you are a virtual beginner to lacemaking, then the best way is to try and find a teacher who could help you through the early stages. There are some beginners books on the market which may help. So the best way of going about it is to study the pricking, from which you will hopefully recognise the type of lace, see what elements you recognise and then refer to a lace book for anything you don't recognise. If you do not have a book on that particular type of lace, then it can normally be borrowed from The Lace Guild (if you are a member) or maybe someone in your local lace group will either be a teacher, or be prepared to help you. Maureen E Yorks 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://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
