Dear All, Great to hear the cruising lace pillow brought in by-standers; a ship is a great place for it, as Denise Watts and I found when returning home from OIDFA at Caen last summer. Faced with four hours and nothing to do, I begged a trip to the hold for our lace pillows, and they were obliging enough to allow it. Denise and I then talked solidly all the way back, as extremely interesting people stopped to investigate, and we learned about them as they learned about us.
One person had made lace in the past but abandoned it; the contemporary approach appealed to her very much as a way of using long-forgotten skills for something useful. It also helped that Denise and I take very different paths, Denise with gold thread for her designer necklaces, and me working on a belt in thick Czech knitting yarn. One party was an American anthropologist with her family and her elderly Dad who'd fought in the War and had been visiting Normandy battlefields. What the anthropologist thought of us, we'll never know, but she certainly knew the right questions to ask to get Denise talking about the strong bond she feels with lace and the benefit it does her. Maybe it helped that we were just 'doing it', minus the acoutrements that might have put people off, the display, the extra equipment, etc etc. For us, it's just a great solace in our day, a natural part of life; that's how it needs to be seen, rather than the big-production curiosity. Everyone used to sit and knit, and no-one thought anything of it. Maybe we just need to take our lace pillows out with us more often, any time there looks like time to fill. And then people will accept it as normal. Cheers, Jane Atkinson Dorset, England - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
