"Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 22:48:02 +0000 From: laceandbits <laceandb...@aol.com> Subject: Re: [lace] Freehand Lace with 6 pairs or less
"A large fully-dressed pillow with many bobbins and dense pattern is discouraging and elicits the usual "I don't have the patience!"." Oh how I agree with Jeri on this one. And it can be a real act of diplomacy to try to tell potential volunteers that their 'boasting' pillow with 200+ expensive bobbins and fine Point Ground lace completely hidden by pins is not going to be an inspiration to new lacemakers. On the contrary, it will frighten them away. One of the best show pillows I have seen is Arachne Leonard Bazaar's. Â From memory it is a largish circular cloth (maybe a metre or so across, but I'm sure he'll let us know), worked in a 5 pair braid lace, all cloth stitch (is that right?) with minimal plated fillings, Bruges style. Â I seem to remember the design is made in thirds, and when i saw it last, at least one third was finished and hung impressively at the front of the pillow. Â The work in progress is so basic that I have seen Leonard invite people to do some for him when there is a queue for the have-a-go pillow. Â They can immediately understand how this simple stitch and braid can make a beautiful and even complex design. Jacquie in Lincolnshire" Dear Jacquie Many thanks for the kind commendation; cannot of course miss the chance to elaborate! The pillow to which Jacquie refers appears at the annual Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace, and is very much, I hope, the right horse for that course. The visitors are serious textile hobbyists, and also textile students and school parties, so interested in a new craft, and also want to learn about lace on a technical and practical level. The pattern's from Anna, July 1993 (yes, I have been working it for some time!) and the design is from Vogtland/Erzegebirge, though Russians have assured me it's from there. It's in 20/3 linen, ie young string, and the tapes/braids use 6 or 7 pairs. It's built up of a centre 30cm/12inches in diameter, and the centre can be surrounded by 4 trapezoids, making a cloth of 70cm/28" in diameter (that's where I am now) and the outer 8 trapezoids bring it up to 120cm/48" - some time this millenium! The original's braids are half in cloth stitch, half in half stitch, with leaves in the filling. I am following the variant with cloth stitch braids, with a twisted passive pair on one edge, and the filling is plaits. This shows how even a beginner can modify a pattern. The bobbins are plain, made from broom handles or similar, and the pillow a flat one about 2 foot/ 30 cm across, so no visibility issues. As Jacquie says, anyone can work a few rows, and we have found the best way to teach, on a one-to-one basis, is to forget all about whole stitch, half stitch, cross, twist, left, right, numbers above 2, and simply say "all you do is move a bobbin over its neighbour; you have two hands, each can hold a bobbin, so you can use two pairs at a time". Then make stitches, just saying "in the middle, other 2, in the middle - see they've woven through - move them, and do the same with the next ones". People pick this up in a few minutes, and seem to have no problem copying, however young or old; I suspect it's because they are using just the bits of the brains that control the fingers, with none of this rational nonsense; rather like we can "remember" numbers when tapping them out on a key pad, or when guitarists can memorise music, even with chords, in a way other instrumentalists find harder; I learnt the flute at school, and the guitar aged 40; I can play the flute much better, but memorise guitar music much more easily, even though it's chords. We can then say they've learnt the basics much quicker than they learnt to knit, and point out how other laces are similarly structured. Having seen this tape, Honiton makes sense. With the inevitable questions about fine thread and time, we can then say that of course when using thread finer than ordinary sewing thread it takes a while to make anything, but if you want to work that fine, it's the only way - you can't knit it. There's usually a scarf worked in thick wool on display, and we can say making it took less time that knitting would. This year's example was mainly in torchon ground, so I could point out the rows of weaving, just as done on my pillow but with twists, and they can see how little work, relatively speaking, is involved in making a desirable object. I take a couple of the Terra books, and the one on Brugs Bloemwerk lets me shoe how this sort of braid can be used to make striking collars and cloths, easily designed and customised, and the one on Russische kant starts with various braids and trims, suing colours, which can readily be used or adapted to customise and trim a classy garment. We hope our double-act helps students etc understand lace, and be tempted to learn and use the techniques creatively, and other craft workers may well be inspired to add lacemaking to their skills. Certainly ladies with old pillows bought or inherited and not used or abandoned have made the right noises, and taken details of classes local to them, and I think Jacquie and I have sold all the beginner's kits sent by Lace Guild HO! This pillow is transported in a bicycle wheel carrier, which I find ideal; it's strong, waterproof with a little padding and convenient handles. Strongly recommended; not sure what would happen to something stored in it for a time. It was bought to transport a Beds pillow with a few hundred bobbins on it to Japan and back; plenty of bubble wrap, but it survived in the hold both ways without breakages. That was for a very different type of demonstration; as part of the store's British Fair, mainly selling very expensive whisky, tea, clothes and the like, the object was to amuse people and atttract them to the antique fabric and lace stand. In case you want to know, the Japanese equivalent of the organ grinder's monkey is the panda that attracts the children so the parents stop and buy! I was working a reasonably elaborate Thomas Lester Beds pattern, with a fair amount done, and that worked very well for a very different audience. I did have fliers for those who wanted lessons, and of course could clear a space at the back of the pillow to show the basics using pairs thrown out, but the main object was to be a side-show. It was doing this, however, that did bring home the importance of just showing how to do it rather than using words like twist and left. Though the lacemaking ladies who wanted to know how to make a double-thread picot gathered a large crowd as we chanted ichi ni san shi go pin! (Pin is the Japanese for pin, the rest 1-5). leonard...@yahoo.com, in a surprisingly sunny London - with that Beds piece, in its next version, also still on its pillow. - 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/
