Dear Elise Just to add to what has been written already. As Jean has said, it is (fairly typically for East Midlands laces) traditional for the worker to make catch pins in the lace or not depending on what seems easier or better at the time! I've ended up not using them where the pattern is floral in the sense of having more or less naturalistic flowers or leaves, but putting them in whwere there is a stylised feature with a vertical line. You mentioned Geraldine Stott's Visual Introduction to Bucks Point Lace. When I made "Helen" I tried both methods by the straight section of the scroll and, as in Geraldine's sample, found the catch pin much better. There's a similar choice in Yvonne and Cameo, and interestingly the former has catch pins, the latter hasn't, and both, to me, look good. In the Waterlilly, which is all floral in the sense I'm using, there are no catch pins except a couple at the tips of the leaves, and the sample shows a little of the gapping Jean mentions along the side of the leaves, but the overall effect works, though if I reworked it I should try what Jean suggests, extra pairs allowing a few extra ground stitches. I do agree that the best way of learning, and indeed making, lace is to try things out and see - but I also like to use others' experience, and I find looking, even in a photograph, at the lace produced by someone like Geraldine a great help in deciding what to do to get the best effect. Comparing her photos with my last repeat was more helpful in the end than just looking at her diagrams and trying to reproduce them.
As Jean says, nook pins can involve a stitch or just have a pair around them. There is a third possibility, for ones at the top or bottom of the cloth rather than at the side - do both! This is mentioned in Miss Channer's book - just the original, not the reprints revised by others. She mentions as a problem in "going floral" (page 52) "The difficulty of seeing where to stick up when working a section of leaf or flower which must be finished before a gimp can be brought round it to a nookpin above. Sometimes in this case the nookpin hole can be used in the cloth work, and the pin taken out to stick up the gimp when the cloth work is finished". This only made sense to me after attending Marjory Carter's classes; basically, you use the nook pin twice, once inside, and once outside the gimp, once working a stitch and once just taking a pair round it. Like Miss Channer, I don't think it's possible to explain in writing! But it does allow you to get the gimp around shapes without using the loop the loop technique of other point ground laces, and also makes the cloth much more even; it avoids the tendency for a gap to appear under a nook pin at the top of the cloth. Using this, I was able to negotiate the cog-wheel flowers in a piece of admittedly Beds lace with just the one pair of gimps, and the work eventually flowed very easily. It is illustrated in Julian's web site at http://www.margorsson.com/Margorsson_Design/Leonard_Bazar.html Interestingly, I was working this at Knuston in Barbara Underwood's class, and plucked up the courage to ask why her diagram of this in her Traditional Bedfordshire Lace Technique and Patterns p.31 just has the nook pins used to support a pair with no stitch. She said something along the lines of "There's only so much you can get in a diagram, and I expect you to think for yourself, dear!" If you are moving into floral Bucks, you will discover that at present the best book is of course Pam Nottingham's "Technique". However, could I recommend for someone who is eager to move to patterns without instructions, and enjoys trial and error as a learning method, and likes looking at teh finished result rather than a diagram, "Marjory's Buckinghamshire Point Lace for Beginners in 8 Lessons" published by The Lace Society. It deliberately moves the learner gradually into floral-type patterns, adding and throwing out pairs and dealing with irregular shapes, providing full written instructions with some diagrams. Her introduction to pattern 8 sets the tone "We are continuing our gentle rogress towards more floral patterns and this one involves quite a bit of adding and disposing of pairs to keep the cloth adequately full. I do not, therefore state a specific number of pairs. Be prepared to introduce new ones as they are needed. It must be understood that there could be a considerable amount of choice about the order of working etc., and the pairs to be used at any point, so I hope those who feel competent to tackle this design will do so without following my instructions. For the others I give quite detailed instruction." And she does! Unfortunately, in this book she does not cover internal catch pins or nook pins, but she does give the traditional East Midlands way of turnign the corner, by making just one 90 degree turn rather than 2 of 45 degrees, which I haven't seen described elsewhere, though once you're aware of it, you can see it in several old pieces, of course. It really does save time and effort in more elaborate pieces, as well as making designing a corner easier, and limiting the restrictions point ground can impose. It allowed me to turn the corner of the cog wheel flower handkerchief by adding all of 6 pairs, and the corner worked far more easily than the large central leaves. One attraction of this book is that it is a fine record of a great lace teacher who almost spanned the lasst century and was a genuine bridge between the 19th century workers and 20th century amateurs (in both senses). She was born in 1915 and died in 2006, making lace almost to the end, having learnt first aged five, and seriously aged 11 from someone who had been taught in a lace school, and made lace for a living. Sometimes her teaching methods did resemble those of a 19th century lace school, but I know I was very fortunate in having attended some of her classes at the Springetts, and it certainly made a difference to the way I make all my laces, not just Bucks. - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]
