[lace] Simon Toustou
Well, I don't want to rain on anybody's parade; and I do agree that Simon's work is of superior quality and beautiful indeed. However, my own experience was somewhat ambivalent: I bought a "portable" stand from him some seven or eight years ago. It was certainly beautiful; and far from portable (in fact, heavy as lead)! I ended up making a present of it to a friend of mine who is a gifted lacemaker. She uses it, and loves it, and finds it portable indeed. Go figure. (P.S. I have since bought a portable stand from somebody else -- negligible workmanship, pathetic to look at, but it weighs nothing, goes with me wherever I go to make lace ((went with me to Convention!)), and so from time to time I think wistfully of Simon and his beautiful workmanship, and settle in with my pillow on my present piece of junk. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Miss Channer's mat
To those of you who can't get the pricking; or don't think the mat is particularly attractive; or are getting rather tired of all the fuss...but are left with the ghost of a vision of a mat... could I turn your attention to a book (not exactly a book; more, a large booklet) which won't frustrate anybody, as it's available (copyrighted by Christine Springett in 1994); it's got patterns in it which really are attractive and beautiful; if you get tired of mats, there's a fan; there are birds... the prickings are exquisitely trued... Dear Arachnes, let go Miss Channer and have a look at "Fine Buckinghamshire Point Lace Patterns Belonging to the Misses Sivewright and Pope." You will love it. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Doreen Wright(as per Aurelia)
--- Forwarded Message --- From: Aurelia L. Loveman, 103364,1155 To: Jane Read, INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, Aug 27, 2003, 4:10 PM RE: [lace] Doreen Wright Well, since you ask... she was indeed "quite a character." Endless, boundless energy, and she would let nothing and nobody stand in her way when she was out to accomplish something, even if it meant protracted struggle. I was not anything like a close friend; but we knew her well enough that she stayed with us overnight when she travelled in this country (U.S.). We first met when my husband and I drove down to her cottage at Chalfont St. Giles one day (unexpected and unannounced except for a telephone call an hour earlier to say we were coming and to get driving directions -- which I guess makes us "characters" too). This was in the early 1970's. I had learned how to do Torchon and was frantic to learn more. She welcomed us briefly and got right down to business. She put me in a window with a pillow and bobbins and a pattern of Duke's Garter, gave me half a dozen brisk words, and I was on my way, too terrified to object or to ask any questions (the ultimate result of that beginning rests on the sleeves of a blouse that I still have and love!). She had another student in the room that same day, an Australian woman as I remember it, who had come to study with her a year earlier, and was living in the house. The study year was just coming to an end, and I think the two of them had gotten pretty sick of each other; the day that I was there they weren't on speaking terms; and Doreen told me all these various details, at intervals over the whole afternoon, in a perfectly audible voice (the Australian didn't say anything). She was the author of a book, "Bobbin Lace Making," which, although written in a somewhat rushed style characteristic of her, was helpful at a time (1971) when there weren't that many books around for the ardent student of lace, and I was grateful for it. And she gave me one of the most wonderful presents I have ever had in my life: "Dentelles de Notre Temps," by Elena Holeczyova, a stunning book that opened up a new world for me, the wonderful world of 20th century Czechoslovakian lace. Doreen didn't say much; she just gave it to me with a smile, and wrote her name in it. She really loved lace. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Roses and Thistles
Thank you, Edith! -- There it is, Christine Agambar's wonderful handkerchief, photographed in Barbara Underwood's "Bedfordshire Lace Collection." There's even the pricking for it shown, taken from an original Thomas Lester draft (and what a feat that must have been, to make a usable pricking out of it!). Thank you again, Edith! - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Change the Subject
Dear friends -- On this lovely, sunny, COOL, Sunday morning I am thinking it's time to stop slicing and dicing irrelevances (copyrights; "stealing" !) and return to thoughts about lace. One of the delights of actually getting up and going off to take a lace course is seeing what other people are doing. About ten years ago I toddled out of Baltimore and -plop!- across the ocean and in over my head to a class at Christine Springett's in Thomas Lester lace. My nearest neighbor in that class was making a handkerchief so beautiful, so complex, so breathtaking that really I thought I was in heaven with the angels. She had rows and rows of bobbins stacked up neatly on either side of her pillow, waiting to be taken in. And unhurried, unflushed, undisturbed, chatting, smiling, happy, she went about producing stars, flowers, leaves... Fast forward. I found a little booklet, "Bedfordshire Lace Old & New," printed evidently in 1998 by the Springetts, and what is the first thing in it? A picture of my long-ago neighboring lacemaker and her gorgeous handkerchief. I even have her cherished name. Christine Agambar. Christine Agambar, the maker of the most beautiful handkerchief in the world. Forget about Miss Channer's mat with its reprints, copies, copyrights, stealing and what else. Can anyone find out the origin of Christine Agambar's unforgettable lace handkerchief? Was it made from an original pattern? An antique pattern? A Thomas Lester pattern? How could one locate the pattern? (P.S.) One could even -- if a mat mentality has got such a grip on 21stC lacemakers -- alter a handkerchief pattern so as to form a mat. That would certainly fulfil the 23% alteration requirement. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Re Change the Subject
Thank you, Diana! Guided also by another Arachne, I found Christine's wonderful handkerchief in Barbara Underwood's "Collection." A truly precious experience, almost like having the actual piece. It still seems a miracle how Christine did it. Yes, I used to run back and forth to England three or four times a year, so it is likely that you and I did meet in Pam's class. Beds and Bucks and Pam and Springetts and Luton and Doreens Fudge and Wright and lots more are all right here with me on my pillow (I even took a class with Barbara Underwood) -- did somebody say on Arachne the other day that we don't need to take lace classes anymore because now we have CD's!! - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Your Bedfordshire colleague
Could your annual Beds colleague from Japan be the talented and beautiful Wako Ono, whom I met in 1999 during Pam Nottingham's farewell class in Bucks design? -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace] Lace for Apprentices 1-2-3
"I have in mind that what is developed might even be structured to become the beginnings of a journey toward a program eligible for a couple university credits! Where, I don't know. I don't want to scare the Arachneans -- yet. (Everything leads back to the concept of an International Lace and Embroidery Museum and having perceptions of these arts recognized in higher circles, or I don't have energy to spend on it.)" Thus wrote me Jeri Ames. I replied, "I would be glad to help. Could people elaborate here on how they imagine this idea could develop?" So, all of you Arachnes who might be moved to elaborate on Jeri's idea -- please respond. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Barbara Underwoods book
I must say I read Christine Lardner's report with considerable surprise. Making Barbara Underwood's beautiful Bedfordshire cuff, with its raised tallies, its central rose, and the bit of Point Ground center, was one of the most challenging, fruitful and delightful experiences of my lacemaking life. It is true, however, that there is a lot of decision-making to be done when you do a Beds pattern; and one person's idea of where a particular pin should go might very well not coincide with another person's solution of the same problem. That's all part of the experience of doing Beds. Torchon it's not. -- Aurelia Loveman - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] --Channer mat - reprinting
Your info about reprinting is very interesting, and I don't doubt that as a partial result of it, the number of Arachne-novelists is going to increase in the coming year! Good! Time we got past Montupet's "The Lacemaker." But it's also time we got past Miss Channer's mat! For the last 3 or 4 weeks I've been trying to get people to notice --other! more beautiful! more challenging! less bobbin-laden!!-- pieces. F.i., Misses Sivewright & Pope (ed. Christine Springett); or the gorgeous "Roses and Thistles" handkerchief made by Christine Agambar, a gem, a jewel, and printed in Underwood's "Collection" (publ., incidentally, by Ruth Bean!). Gorgeous! Miss Channer's mat is indeed very nice, but it isn't gorgeous. And for those who want to face eastward toward the continent, there is Michael Giusiana's staggering new book of Binche handkerchiefs. Again, Miss Channer's mat is pretty, but it isn't staggering. Arachnes, do hear me! Let's get off Miss Channer's mat! -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace] --Channer mat - reprinting
Well, you would think so, from the amount of prayerful attention it got. But what a tiger with words you must be, to have picked that up! -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace] Re: Binche - Was Thinking person's lace
How right you are. Time moves, and so do the passions of lacemakers. Right at the moment it's Binche Binche Binche or die. Would you be amused by this quote from a beautiful catalogue published in 1988 by the Walters Art Museum on the occasion of a lace exhibition there: "... Binche...never fully evolved in design...but now being revived as esoteric studies for accomplished amateur lacemakers." What? You're outraged? But compare the "fully evolved" (i.e. gorgeous) Thomas Lester designs with the best of the Binche, and you may think that the writer of the above quote perhaps had a point (in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I was the curator of that show and the author of the catalogue). -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [lace] amateur lacemakers
I would remind readers that the root of the word "amateur" means "love." If you have a choice of various meanings for a word, why choose the one that's "insulting?" Rather, choose the most suitable meaning. If we're talking about lace and lacemaking, "lover" would be the best meaning for "amateur." - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] For bobbin makers?
Anybody wanting a branch of Burning Bush can come by here and get one from the big tree in my garden (and a cup of tea too, if desired). -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace] Rippled pages - Mrs. Lowes' Book for the CD Project
And my copy of "Chats on Old Lace" is dated MCMVIII, and published in London by T. Fisher Unwin. The pages have a texture like that of fine blotting-paper, and if I think about "ripples" long enough (for 5 minutes or so), then yes, I do seem to see something like rippling. Otherwise it wouldn't have occurred to me. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] RE: Pin Boxes? & Ideas Needed For What To Do With Finished Projects
How about using an embroidery as decoration on a tote bag? I was given that as a gift, and have loved using it. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Ithaca - long
Dear Jane -- Wonderful piece you wrote about Ithaca. Almost consoles us forlorn types who couldn't get to go. What is "VBG?" I tried and tried. The best I could do is: Very Bad Girl. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Needlelace question
Dear Jane -- The needle holes need not be a problem, since all they are are the holes made by the couching stitch. You bring your needle up through your working base, over the cordonnet that you are couching down, and then the needle goes back down into the hole. I have used the same holey pattern lots of times! -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Ithaca, Polychrome tech
Well, thank you, thank you, dear Tamara, for sharing your Polychrome de C experience with that astonishing, ample and altogether wonderful e-mail! Next best thing to having been there personally, and not so far off, at that. However, now that I've had that experience, I guess I'm more stodgily convinced than ever that my realms of lace and gold still lie with Beds and Bucks and Needle, with maybe a little Milanese thrown in, when the hunger for color gets too great (although all of my needle lace is done in color). Again, thank you for taking us all to Ithaca and back! -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Milanese Lace Swan in IOLI
"Rolled edges" is a technique used in Withof lace, and is beautifully described and diagrammed in Yvonne Scheele-Kerkhof's book "Dutch Bobbin Lace Patterns." It isn't difficult to do, and to my mind forms a nicer edge than the regular sewing edge. It is done around a motif after the motif is finished. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Luton Patterns new book
I have tried and tried, but no luck, I keep getting "URL not found" messages. Do I have the wrong URL? http://www.gis.net/"scbarry/online_catalog.html Help! -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] oops...inscription ? again
I have dozens of inscribed bobbins. The message starts at the bottom of the bobbin and as it rises, the words read from left to right just as they would in a book; and they finish up at the top of the bobbin. I hope this helps! -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE:[lace] Celtic cross
Dover puts out a very interesting book of designs, "Celtic Art -- The Methods of Construction" which has quite a number of Celtic crosses in it. You might have a look at page 74, the "Aberlemno Cross;" or "The Eight-Circled Cross" on page 54; and there are numerous other crosses in the book. Page 79 has one, called "Aberlady Cross," really beautiful. You wouldn't have to do much to make a bobbin-lace pattern out of one of them. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] The "cachet" of lacemaking
Oh, no, Tamara, no, no. You have to set "embroidery and lace" or "lace and embroidery" into a larger context, such as a phrase or a clause, in order to get any good music out of them. You are a good writer: try making up a couple of sample sentences that will open up the rhythms implicit in those words! -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Springetts and Fountains etc
Springetts are the most marvelous people in the world. For many years they ran the British College of Lace, in Rugby; and they made the most beautiful bobbins. Christine's specialty is Beds lace, and there are some excellent videos by her, for beginner, intermediate and advanced Beds lacemakers. She has also got some charming books out: as, "Lace for Children of All Ages," "Designing and Mounting Lace Fans," and other things. A few years ago, they retired from the College :( :( :( and sold their lace supplies business to Linda Fountain. But they give a number of workshops each year; Christine teaches Beds, and David teaches bobbin-making, and they both spread their sweet and dear and inspiring presences wherever they go, and whoever knows them loves them. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Fw:
I think the "Madam/Sir" letter is rather touching, at least in its earnest (and on the whole, very successful) effort to cope with English. Don't you think the word "static" (the "unique static bobbin lace exhibition") must have been fished out of some Russian-English dictionary as a meaning for whatever the Russian is for "permanent?" So it's a permanent lace exhibit! Remember when we were all going so crazy, last year, about Vologda lace? I'll bet that this static exhibit has got plenty of Vologda laces in it. Any Arachnids finding their way to Russia any time soon will doubtless come back home ec-static (sorry! sorry! I couldn't resist) -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [lace] a new Arachnid from Italy
And ditto Robin's welcome, from Aurelia. I have done some Aemilia-Ars type of lace, from patterns in an old magazine; but I couldn't be more ignorant than I am as to the history, the range of types, the particulars of individual pieces...and I imagine there are lots of lacemakers like me, who would love to know more and perhaps to see examples of the work. Could you tell us more? -- grazie -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Aemilia Ars
Dear Bianca Rosa -- The article I mentioned is a two-page piece entitled "Aemilia-Ars Lace." It appears in a little volume called "The Gentle Needle Arts," pages 19-20. This is not quite a magazine, but not exactly a book, either. It was published in 1977 by Marshall Cavendish Books Ltd, 58 Compton Street, London W1V 5PA. The article was surely written for the lace maker, not the lace scholar. The illustration is really excellent, and would safely guide the ignorant needle from beginning to end of a sample piece of A-A lace. Of course, it's shown in heavy thread, looks as if it might be DMC perle #5, but rather ropy. Done in a really fine lace thread, like 120/2 for instance, it would make a tiny, but exquisite, motif. My scanner is currently on the fritz, but I am having it repaired. When it's fixed, I could scan that article to you and send it as e-mail. Yes, I do read Italian (or I like to think that I do!). I have read I Promessi Sposi easily; and have gotten around in Tuscany, Milan, Lago di Garda (where, contrary to popular superstition, NOT everybody speaks English) reasonably well: in Florence they thought that I came from Rome; in Milano somebody thought that I came from Florence... but reading a newspaper in Italian has me completely floored; the lingo, the rhythms, the I-don't-know-what simply will not penetrate my brain. But I am so curious: you write that you have "a suggestion" for me, if I can read Italian. What is it? Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Publisher's e-mail address
Dear Arachnes -- Might anybody have an e-mail address for Dessain et Tolra? They are the publishers of "Dentelles de Notre Temps," a wonderful book of photographs of the gorgeous work of Elena Holeczyova. I would be very grateful for the info. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace] Publisher's e-mail address
Thank you, Dora. That book ("Dentelles de notre temps") is the one that
Doreen Wright gave me as a present, that I mentioned some weeks ago when we
were remembering Doreen here. The book still electrifies lacemakers when
they come in for a visit and I take the book out and show it. What a genius
was (is?) Elena H !
What I was wanting was the e-mail address for Dessain et Tolra. I wrote
them a regular postal letter, asking for permission to reprint a bit out of
that book. No response. Not a yes, not a no, nothing. I was hoping that
maybe an e-mail appeal might bring results. I need it as an illustration
for a reference about Elena in an article that is being published in the
IOLI Bulletin -- should have thought the publisher would be more pleased
than not, to be asked for this!
Aurelia
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RE: [lace] Spangle Question
Oh, I can't agree with you, Robin, that Christine Springett's spangles are "loose and floppy." I have dozens of her bobbins, and they are perfect. If there were anything the matter with them (and there isn't), it would only be that we amateur spanglers have a hard time matching their perfection. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Fax number
Thank you, thank you, Sof! You sent me just what I was frantically looking for and couldn't find. I called everyone I could think of, I even called the French consul -- no luck. You really came to my rescue! Thanks again! -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Publisher's e-mail address
Thank you. I have the book. It is indeed "Dentelles de notre temps," by Pavel Michalides, published by Dessain et Tolra. All I need is the publisher's permission to reprint one picture, a tiny little minuscule fraction of what is in the book. I have written three times to this publisher, without getting the slightest reaction. No reply. Nothing. What people! - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] square bobbins raffle
Bev driving with square wheels -- who could ever forget that image? -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] another new person
Well, I'm not sure where "central" Kentucky is (remember that long-ago New Yorker cartoon about a map of the U.S. being about 85% New York and then all the rest of the country occupying the remaining 15%?). I'm no longer a New Yorker, but the mindset remains the same. However, we do have a Kentuckian outpost: the Heartland Lace Guild. Try this e-mail address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] But the real thing for a burgeoning lacemaker is to PLAN NOW to go to Convention next year. It will be in Harrisburg, PA -- not too formidable a trip from Kentucky -- and will no doubt be one of your life's great experiences! -- Aurelia Loveman - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Sally Barry's book
I got mine with no trouble at all from Susan Wenzel, e-mail address: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Re: Threads of antique lace
There's a discussion of this subject on pages 26 and 27 of "The Art and Craft of Old Lace" by Freiherr Alfred ven Henneberg. It is called "The Fineness of the Thread," and is written with the same smitten, passionate devotion with which this man wrote everything. Well worth looking up, both for the interesting information and for the fun of the read. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Re: Strangled Picots
Yes, I agree with Tamara about not using two sizes of pins, and also about leaning the pins well outward. (To tell the truth, I did not know that there was a problem with making picots! I learned picot-making from -- of all people -- Doreen Wright, and I would certainly have been too scared to fail!) I do make them, as Tamara says, with five twists before and two afterward. There is just this one other thing, which Doreen stressed mightily: after placing the pin, you must be sure to pull both threads down TOGETHER at once; then do the 2 final twists. I have made, I guess, thousands of picots this way, and just breezed through them. Goes to show: ignorance is bliss. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] lace
Lynn, get a book! Get a good start-out book, f.i. Pam Nottingham's "The Technique of Bobbin Lace," which I wouldn't leave home without! And there are others. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Insane spiders?
Yesterday's e-mail carried an exceptionally rude message, challenging the sanity of anyone thinking about putting a new line of lace-designed T-shirts out on our limited market. I thought I would sleep on this before responding; and I did; and still feel the same way this morning on the matter of the lace-adorned T-shirts. I myself personally don't want a T-shirt, but lots of us spiders apparently do. So, notwithstanding that there are already plenty of ways to acquire T-shirts, including lace-printed and embroidered ones, why should we be so short-tempered and hot-headed as to question the sanity of one of our own -- one of our valued own! -- when she offers to put her talent, patience, ingenuity and maybe even unsuspected entrpreneurial urge to work to create yet another source for lace-designed T-shirts? I say: cool it, spider, and watch your language. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Aemilia Ars Lace
Dear Sharon -- I will tell you what I know (which is very little!), and if you have access to a fax machine, I would be happy to fax you the four-page article which I mentioned a couple of months ago; it is really quite a perfect reference for a beginner, as it includes diagrams and stitch-by-stitch how-to. The name of the article is "Aemilia-Ars Lace;" the name of the very nice book in which it appears is "The Gentle Needle Arts": incredibly, neither book nor article gives any author's name. The publisher's name is shown as "Marshall Cavendish Books Ltd., 58 Old Compton Street, London W1V 5PA and is copyrighted for each year from 1971 to 1977. But the person you really want to connect with is a scholar of Aemilia Ars, which I am not. She is Bianca Rosa Bellomo, and she is on our Arachne list. Good luck, and I will be most interested to hear back from you. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] NL question
Yes, I cut the threads Grimwood's way (between the backing fabrics). It's easier than it looks. But the little cut ends are a pain, at the end, because they have to be taken out one or two at a time (sometimes with tweezers!). Still, it's worth giving it a try. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Machine vs Hand
Have been reading with much interest all the letters that Devon has inspired with her original query about valuing machine lace. Although it is nearly 200 years since the struggles with the machine first began to yield anything like lace, categories of thought do die slowly; and the antithesis that has been set up between "machine-made" and "hand-made" is still alive, if not altogether well. What feeds that sturdy antithesis, however, is a slowly-evolving change in our notions of the value of time. Originally, the big contrast between machine- and hand- was the difference in the amount of time it would take to make a yard of either sort. Two hundred years later, to our computer-oriented minds, that difference isn't so salient any more. It still exists, of course, but it doesn't quite matter so much. Nobody is going to smash machinery about it. The more important criterion of judgment (note, dear Spiders, that the singular of "criteria" is "criterION") nowadays is a much subtler and more difficult measure: whether it deserves to be included as "art" or not. And in this inquiry, handmade and machine-made have to stand up as equals before the bar. Give it time; ideas evolve slowly. Textiles are showing signs of edging their way into the limelight of "art." It's a fight, still; and in some dim-witted sectors, the art-vs-craft contrast still carries weight. But ever less so And there are harbingers of progress: for example, next October the famous Baltimore Museum of Art -- known internationally for its great collections of Picassos and Matisses and much contemporary art -- will be hosting -- what, us? -- yes, us! There will be banks of lacemakers, at work with bobbins and pillows, sitting beneath a display of the Museum's antique laces, and producing... art? in that hallowed venue? How times have changed! There are a lot of factors involved in the "Is It Art?" issue. Is a Warhol painting of a can of Campbell's Soup "art?" If so, why isn't the can of soup itself "art?" Is it "art" if there are 100 copies of an indisputably beautiful design? Would it matter if the design was originally concocted by Leonardo or an anonymous housepainter? Of course it would matter. It would matter in the price that the piece could fetch, irrespective of its intrinsic "artistic" merit. And the price would vary, too, depending on whether art-collecting was, at the moment, "up" or "down." Back to my bobbins; Art is a demanding mistress. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Corrections`
In case anybody surfing around has come upon my needlelace fan "Starry Night" described as having been made in 1986 (!!! where, oh where did they get that date from? I made it in 2001-2002), and located in the "Aurelia Loveman Gallery" (what gallery? I haven't got a gallery!), I would just like to set the date and place right. Date: 2001-2. Place: right here in my humble home. And how did all this info, accurate or not, get on the Web? Mystery. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] information ?
Dear Magda -- I think what Tamara was referring to is a three-day workshop on beginning Mechlin, to be given by Ulrike Loehr on July 31, and August 1st and 2nd. This is a sponsored workshop of the Chesapeake Region Lace Guild, and the cost is $100. As non-members have to pay an additional $8 to take the workshop; and as it costs only $8 to become a member of the CRLG, isn't it obvious that non-members should hurry up and JOIN? Go to the web site of the Chesapeake Region Lace Guild, and it will tell you all about it. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Re: lace-digest V2004 #5
Dear Laura -- I will be writing more in the coming weeks and months about the October 2004 Lace Day at the Baltimore Museum of Art; and just at the moment I must, must, must get to bed or I will fall asleep over my computer; so forgive me for being so brief. The date is October 30, 2004, it's a Saturday. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] books for the CDs
Tess, I would suggest that you contact the Metropolitan Museum (maybe even our own Devon). As you know, the relationship between the N&B Club and the Met was very close, and they would be likely to have the early issues of the magazine. -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Bookmarks
I have made a lot of bookmarks, each one different and each one pretty gorgeous (even if I do say so myself!), using the same pricking for all of them, namely, Christine Springett's fan bookmark on p. 81 of her book "The Christmas Lace Book," published in 1991. I think the book was self-published; ISBN 0 9517157 1 2. I have found this book to be delightful, wonderful, invaluable! -- Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Strangers to you?
Dear Devon -- Janya from Thailand is an old friend -- an old, old friend from the time that the CRLG was organized, and before that even. She was trying (it did not work out) to start some kind of handmade-lace industry in Thailand; and was studying Bucks and Honiton in England at the same time that she was teaching students back home in Asia. She sold us the most gorgeous, exquisite, beautiful -- I haven't words! -- silk thread imaginable, and if she still has thread like that available, well, it would be worth going to our embattled Convention just for Janya's thread. I have a picture framed with a mat trimmed with her silk lace, nobody in the world has ever seen tallies made to such perfection! I should have shown that to you when you were here visiting; but the next time you come in, I will. Speaking of which, please save Saturday October 30, the CRLG is having its Lace Day here at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and it will be quite a do, as the Museum will also be holding an exhibition of the Cone antique lace collection. Can't believe that you don't know Karen Thompson, as she too has been around since the earliest days of the CRLG, and a good friend. Sorry you didn't get your issue of the IOLI Bulletin. I sleep with it under my pillow every night, as its cover carries a needlelace fan of mine! Aurelia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
