In a message dated 21/08/2008 23:45:49 GMT Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Mary Peak's book refers to the pattern in "Lavori a Fuselli, edizioni "Mani di Fata". This seems to be a special edition giving the basics of bobbin lace, the front cover has a picture of a Cantu-type edging on a small bolster being worked, interestingly with the pin holes pre pricked, and the back cover has a cantu edging , just stems and tendrills, no flowers, mounted on an embroidered cloth. As ever, instructions or prickings for these are not included in the pattern sheet. I do not know how old the magazine is, but have a copy priced at lire 180 - and it's many decades since lire 180 was worth anything! It passed through the hands of Alec Tiranti Ltd Fine art booksellers of 72 Charlotte Street, London W1 with a price of 3/6, ie 17.5p new UK money, so not this century! [EMAIL PROTECTED] I have had a copy of this for many years, but I never considered it to be a magazine, just a book in magazine format. My copy is priced at L.1500 (so is presumably later than Leonard's) bought from the Art Needlework Shop in Oxford. The Art Needlework shop was a strange place - when I first knew it they would never sell you a pattern unless you also bought the materials, but they did display in their window a knitted lace table cloth I made when I was eleven (long before I knew anything about bobbin lace!) This conversation on Cantu has prompted me to take another look at the piece I started with a traditional lacemaker while demonstrating in Novedrate (close to Cantu) in 1998. Great fun; I spoke no Italian, my tutor no English and I didn't really have time to master even basic techniques before my return home with a part-worked sample still on the pricking, but I did later manage to produce a few tendrils and even, with the help of Mary Peek's booklet, some buds and spurs. Cantu lace is still made commercially and I think there is a reluctance to put information about 'commercial' patterns into print - as I discovered when I tried, unsuccessfully, to find Polish patterns for a new student Gil Dye in a surprisingly sunny Northumberland - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
