Re: [lace] Demonstrating lace
Much as I feel every day can be (and often is) knit in public day (yes, I had my knitting out at the cafe on Saturday for the 'official' day), my lace pillow with the simple little nine pin edging comes with me all sorts of places (mostly SCA events, but not entirely!). Every day can be lace in public day! Heather -- who is still chuffed to bits that my darling SiL used some of my knitted lace as part of her wedding dress this past weekend. On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 8:48 AM, Lyn Bailey lynrbai...@supernet.com wrote: The real point is, demonstrating lace wherever you are is important, and doesn’t take much. Just bring along some lace where you don’t need total quiet in order to concentrate, and make lace in a public place. It does make a difference. Lyn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA where we’ve finally turned on the air conditioning. Hot and humid. - 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/
[lace] Demonstrating lace
Whether there is a special day for it or not, we should all, especially in the US, where they still almost universally think bobbin lace is tatting, do lace in public places as much as possible. Kathryn Roberts and I demonstrated lace at the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen Makefest. The Guild took over a block of Queen Street, and the demos were there. Including 3D printing, and T shirt screening, and glass blowing, and wood carving. Lacemaking had been mentioned in the newspaper article, and some people came looking for the lace. I will be teaching a class in October, and had a haveago pillow with me. Each person did a row of linen stitch, 7 pairs total, in #10 colored crochet cotton. For my purposes, getting people to try it on a pillow, (2 over 3, 2 over 1 and 4 over 3, 2 over 3) showed them that it wasnât nearly as difficult as they thought it was. I remembered that what kick started me was doing a haveago pillow at a craft show in Noonan, Georgia, USA. It certainly makes a difference in oneâs mindset as to whether this is possible. One woman remembered my demonstrating lace 3 years ago outside of Central Market here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA, our local farmerâs market that goes back to 1730. The real point is, demonstrating lace wherever you are is important, and doesnât take much. Just bring along some lace where you donât need total quiet in order to concentrate, and make lace in a public place. It does make a difference. Lyn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA where weâve finally turned on the air conditioning. Hot and humid. - 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/
[lace] demonstrating lace
Don't give up - enquire as to next year, or the year after - museums often book schedules 18 months to three years in advance, so that they can get their publicity material printed and distributed in time. Write to them with your proposal, and suggest that you could arrange to call in if they wished to discuss things further. Some years ago I spent some very nice Friday afternoons demonstrating lacemaking at our local castle (which is also the town's museum) - in the courtyard, but retreating to the Great Hall on wet days. It has meant that I have had invites back when they have had craft events, and also led to photos in the local paper. (I have a photograph of one of our (male) newspaper photographers having a go, too!). I was working on my Hearts Flowers Snowflake at the time, and got quite a bit done on those Friday afternoons, the challenge was to get past the slightly complex bits before being besieged by visitors! On one occasion, due to the speaking model in one of the displays, one young lad was too frightened to go into the castle at all - so he stayed making lace with me whilst the rest of the family went round the castle - I was in the courtyard, and they could see and wave to him from the battlements! In message 20111021013244.I6W50.106231.root@cdptpa-web28-z02, hottl...@neo.rr.com writes Hello All! Looks like everyone was thinking about how to promote lace/lacemaking today--Bravo! Well I took the plunge contacted Flagler Museum. There is a lovely place to make lace on the south porch in the shade of the bougainvillea. Their schedule is already booked for the season. Oh well, I tried. Sincerely, Susan Hottle, Erie, PA USA -- Jane Partridge - 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://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
Re: [lace] demonstrating lace
Oh well, I tried. Sincerely, Susan Hottle, Erie, PA USA Dear Susan, et al, Don't give up yet. The other question is whether there is a place in public where you can make lace. Is there a place at the Flagler that has benches? I can virtually guarantee there are no signs saying, NO LACE MAKING ALLOWED. Anything stopping you from making lace at the local mall where people can sit? Preferably close to the craft or yarn shop. Can you bring your lace to the local knitting store that has knitting in the evening. At the local crafts fair, are you allowed to sit and make lace without paying for a booth if you're not selling anything? You do have a sheet of paper to give out listing places where interested people can get more information, but nothing for sale, certainly no financial benefit to you. If you list suppliers, would that change anything? Is there an art school nearby where they have textiles as a subject, so to speak, and may you make lace in the lobby around lunchtime? Is the local library open to you sitting and making lace? We like to take cruises. You get spoiled rotten for really a reasonable amount of money if you do your research properly. When I was working, the days at sea was when I did a lot of my lacemaking. Doing that in a public place gets all sorts of people to stop and ask questions. That's really all you want. In the Carribean, there's a lot to be said for lacemaking by the pool, in your chaise. I never go into the pool. I have a picture of someone taking a picture of me making lace on the Commons in Bar Harbor, Maine, USA, which is a tourist town. Now that cruises stop at Bar Harbor, it is even more busy. Demonstrating at events is an excellent idea, but generally they come around only once a year. With some thought, there are plenty of other places, especially when the weather is nice, where you can simply sit down and start making lace. Bring your own chair, if necessary. When it gets cold, go indoors to public places. Not the tired old mall, but the new vibrant one. Our local mall is large, with spokes going out from a central hub, where sometimes there are seats. Perhaps your local quilting shop is amenable, if you don't take up too much space. There are two approaches to indoor events, or even outdoor ones where you're not sitting at a park bench or some other seating area. Just go, plunk yourself down so as to be very visible, but out of the way of foot traffic paths, and see what happens. Or go to the municipal office, or the safety office, and ask permission. I suspect either would work. This is for the US, where, as far as I know, there is virtually no insurance considerations to be met. There may be zoning ordinances and the like on the books, but the real question is whether they will be enforced against a respectable looking woman sitting down and doing what is clearly akin to her knitting. At the very worst, someone official will tell you that you may not sit here. Remember, the US is also the place where, to my knowledge at least, there is no law forbidding one to give out others' email addresses. It might not be a good or considerate idea, but there is no law against it. Our copyright infringement laws also seem to be a bit more lax, and I know of no library that pays a fee for the copying of book pages, although I may be wrong there, but I don't think so. It might get a trifle more tricky if you've got a have-a-go pillow, because that would carve out a larger space than just you and your lace table, but with thought it should still be possible in many places. That's how I got hooked at the Newnan, Georgia, US, craft show in 1979. The head lady was Betty, and she was English, but lived in Atlanta. I'd still like to be able to thank her. Does anyone know the lady, and what has happened to her? Some places for the summer include, but certainly are not limited to: the outdoor concerts on the lawn in the park, where people gather before the concert to get a good place. In Central Park, in New York City, near the south east entrance, where there are people going to and fro all day. Ditto for Union Park near 14th street, where there is a farmer's market on Saturdays.. Or outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, especially on a weekend. There are vendors out there, and I don't know if a permit is required, nor do I recall if there are benches, but it's worth a thought. Outside Central Market in my own Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where the tourists come in the summer, and you can sit outside for as long as you want, making lace. Lyn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, US, where the weathermen got it wrong again, and we are in for a bright, sunny, beautiful fall day. - 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:
Re: [lace] demonstrating lace/NY
In a message dated 10/21/2011 9:16:33 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, lynrbai...@desupernet.net writes: Or outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, especially on a weekend. There are vendors out there, and I don't know if a permit is required, nor do I recall if there are benches, but it's worth a thought. Interesting question. What is the definition of loitering and is it still illegal? I recently read an article about the food vendors. It appears that the hot dog vendor pays $250,000 a year to have his spot in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is paid to the city because they own the side walk. It is one of the most valuable places to sell hot dogs in New York. However, there is an old law that veterans can sell on public sidewalks for free. So a rival hot dog vendor has gone into partnership with a veteran whose role is to nap on a chair by the hot dog stand and handle the paperwork. This is causing a lot of discord because those people who have paid for the spot feel that the value of their spot has been decreased. Do we have any veterans on the list? I am not sure that the issue of whether one may legally demonstrate lace on a bench outside the Metropolitan Museum is likely to come up, though, because a very interesting event involving young people in the fashion industry called Culture Push was looking for a lace demonstration, and I couldn't find anyone who would take a lace pillow into New York for it. It was billed as collaborative skill sharing which meant unpaid, but still... It would have been a good event, but we couldn't figure out how to make it work. I even implored people at the regional meeting of my region at the convention to go, but there was not much enthusiasm. In fact, almost immediately the conversation shifted to the idea of teaching elementary age children in scouts, and hoping that they would come back to it as adults. I realize that many of us, myself included, are not up for exciting city driving, expensive parking, and hauling a ton of goods to a demo in the city. I really can only do it if my husband drives and hauls the equipment. Perhaps we need a lace swat team, ready to drop in, like the fire jumpers, to difficult locations in need of a lace demo. The Church of Craft , is dedicated to the idea that craft is good for the soul. I went to one of the monthly events in Brooklyn in which young people just gather and do crafts together and there was some interest among the young people who were there in it. I met a young man who knits platypuses, who was quite interested. There is another entity, Etsy, which has evenings in which people get together to do crafts. In fact, at one time they were looking for people to lead others in a craft activity that might even be videotaped and beamed to all the other Etsys. This would be good if someone were interested in doing it. It has to be short and it has to be something that people arriving at different times can do. The fish would be an obvious choice. Why don't you look up these places if you want to do a demo that would be seen by young people. Of course these events tend to be in cities, and we tend to be in suburbs, at least in my particular metro area. But then, the other problem is what do we do if they want to learn? Because there is no lace instruction in New York, and most of the young people do not have cars, and are unable to travel to New Jersey for lace instruction, which, while it exists, is not that easy to access. There are several textile/craft schools in New York that would probably be happy to add lace to a curriculum that already has felting and shibori on it, but there is no one to teach at these places. (Anyone who has ever tried to learn anything from me will confirm that I am a lousy teacher.) Also, a curriculum that includes design and non-traditional fibers would be more interesting than a more traditional one. But designing such a curriculum would take time and skill. Devon - 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://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
Re: [lace] demonstrating lace/NY
Without going to my handy dandy crimes code, the crime of loitering is something like being in one place in public too long, without a legitimate purpose. It is used when they want you to go away, and whatever you are doing doesnât qualify as another offense. So respectable people who stand on a corner and just stand there are not approached by the cops, but if youâre standing on a corner, in a nice part of town, but you are unkempt, unwashed, and donât blend into the neighborhood, AND refuse to leave after being told forcibly to leave, they might arrest you arrest you for loitering. Regulation of vendors is not my area of expertise, but I suspect the cops, who are the doorkeepers of the loitering law, would not take an adverse position to someone sitting out of the major foot traffic, merely sitting making lace, who clearly is not selling anything, nor creating a disturbance, does not look unsavory. You bring up another issue for demonstrating. Lugging equipment. Since I am used to lacemaking whilst traveling, my cookie pillows are polystyrene, and I have pared my equipment down to exactly what I will need. Everything else stays home. I have a stool that folds and weighs 2 pounds (1 kilo) and yet holds my Queenly weight. If my weight were at goal Iâd use the one that weighs a bit more than a pound. My lace table folds down and down. It is an InStand, which is the gizmo used by court reporters to hold their machines, (instand.com and amazon.com, usual disclaimers.) If I were 10 years younger, I could carry all that from my home in Lancaster, on the train, on the subway, to the Museum, no problem. As it is, with issues of walking and carrying things, Iâd probably put it all in a wheeled carryon, and do it that way. Still not heavy. Devon, if thereâs a nice sunny day left this year, call me and if Iâm available, Iâll take the train (3 hours each way) and meet you at the entrance to the Met. Bring a chair. We can test this out and report to the list. But you provide lunch. Lyn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, US, where the sun has gone away, and maybe the weatherman was right after all. From: dmt11h...@aol.com Sent: Friday, October 21, 2011 10:09 AM To: lynrbai...@desupernet.net Cc: lace@arachne.com Subject: Re: [lace] demonstrating lace/NY In a message dated 10/21/2011 9:16:33 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, lynrbai...@desupernet.net writes: Or outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, especially on a weekend. There are vendors out there, and I don't know if a permit is required, nor do I recall if there are benches, but it's worth a thought. Interesting question. What is the definition of loitering and is it still illegal? I recently read an article about the food vendors. It appears that the hot dog vendor pays $250,000 a year to have his spot in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is paid to the city because they own the side walk. It is one of the most valuable places to sell hot dogs in New York. However, there is an old law that veterans can sell on public sidewalks for free. So a rival hot dog vendor has gone into partnership with a veteran whose role is to nap on a chair by the hot dog stand and handle the paperwork. This is causing a lot of discord because those people who have paid for the spot feel that the value of their spot has been decreased. Do we have any veterans on the list? I am not sure that the issue of whether one may legally demonstrate lace on a bench outside the Metropolitan Museum is likely to come up, though, because a very interesting event involving young people in the fashion industry called Culture Push was looking for a lace demonstration, and I couldn't find anyone who would take a lace pillow into New York for it. It was billed as collaborative skill sharing which meant unpaid, but still... It would have been a good event, but we couldn't figure out how to make it work. I even implored people at the regional meeting of my region at the convention to go, but there was not much enthusiasm. In fact, almost immediately the conversation shifted to the idea of teaching elementary age children in scouts, and hoping that they would come back to it as adults. I realize that many of us, myself included, are not up for exciting city driving, expensive parking, and hauling a ton of goods to a demo in the city. I really can only do it if my husband drives and hauls the equipment. Perhaps we need a lace swat team, ready to drop in, like the fire jumpers, to difficult locations in need of a lace demo. The Church of Craft , is dedicated to the idea that craft is good for the soul. I went to one of the monthly events in Brooklyn in which young people just gather and do crafts together and there was some interest among the young people who were there in it. I met a young man who knits platypuses, who was quite interested. There is another entity, Etsy, which has evenings in which people get together to do crafts. In fact, at one time they were
[lace] demonstrating lace
Another place without quite as much traffic... the car dealership! LOL My car needed some work so I brought my tatting and sat in the waiting room, in the sun, and tatted! Time passes a lot quicker that way, as well :_) Lauren in WA - 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://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
RE: [lace] demonstrating lace
I've done tatting at the dentist And the doctors, in the queue. Now I'll add tatting in my pocket When the car is serviced, too ...Noelene in Cooma nlaffe...@ozemail.com.au Another place without quite as much traffic... the car dealership! LOL My car needed some work so I brought my tatting and sat in the waiting room, in the sun, and tatted! Time passes a lot quicker that way, as well :_) Lauren in WA - 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://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
[lace] demonstrating lace
Hello All! Looks like everyone was thinking about how to promote lace/lacemaking today--Bravo! Well I took the plunge contacted Flagler Museum. There is a lovely place to make lace on the south porch in the shade of the bougainvillea. Their schedule is already booked for the season. Oh well, I tried. Sincerely, Susan Hottle, Erie, PA USA - 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://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
[lace] demonstrating lace...and the tatting lady! and some Honiton lace
Hi All, My apologies if this isn't lace-y enough to be here. I was recently in the US to give a presentation on European bobbin laces at a textile/needle arts festival that my mother helped organize in Hammondsport, NY, and also took one of my pillows and some bobbins so that I could do some demonstrating. Nearly all of my slides were from the VA's wonderful collection in the open galleries. OK, so they have a lot of needle lace, but it was useful to be able to show the differences between various types of lace (crochet, tatted, NL, BL). One thing for those of you perhaps planning to photograph in those galleries: you can use flash, although not having the reflection of the flash show up on the glass can be difficult. If you ask ahead, you can arrange a tripod permit, and that will let you shoot without a flash. The lighting in the gallery is fluorescent, so if you do not use flash but want colors to be normal rather than the disgusting yellow-green that film gets under fluorescent, you need tungsten-balanced film. I used Kodak (no ties at all to the big yellow box people, just a satisfied customer) 160T, so the ASA was 160. Using a tripod and no flash, I could do half-second exposures at f-stop 2.8, and generally get a good exposure. One hint, though, a shutter release cord is good! There are a lot of my slides where my ghost shows up in the glass. Oh dear. Anyway, I helped hang the exhibit (quilts, lace out of my collection, and various types of stitching) on Friday 30th April. I was expecting someone to make a comment during the exhibit itself about tatting, but NO. One of the other volunteers and I were discussing where I live, why I had come all the way back to the US for just 5 days, and so on. I explained that I would be demonstrating bobbin lace all weekend and was looking forward to the time at the pillow. She told me that evening as she left that she hoped I enjoyed my tatting! What topped it off, though, was one of the first visitors through the door on Saturday 1st May. This one walked up to my mother, who was sitting working on a needlepoint canvas, and said oh, my such lovely tatting you're working on! Oh dear. It really was quite fun. I worked on Wedding Bells from the Cook/Stott 100 Traditional Patterns book, and managed to get a whole repeat and a half done in two days. what progress! But it was a good time; I managed to really intrigue some people, including a college junior who will be spending the coming school year in Brussels, and who wanted to see bobbin lace being done and ask questions so that if she was interested enough she could actually get stuff and find a class while in Belgium. Great fun to see someone her age so fascinated by the whole thing. Unfortunately, I didn't get the Beds lace cap done that I had started. In fact, I ended up stealing bobbins off of it and my Honiton piece, which is lesson 1 from the Thompson book, so that I could have enough bobbins to demonstrate with. But, many thanks for the suggestions on working it. Someone on this list a while ago said that Beds lace was an exercise in bobbin management. Whoever you were, you were right! I've got 120 pairs mounted, and I feel like I spend more time shuffling heaps of bobbins (strapped to flat pieces of wood, don't worry) than doing anything else. Regarding Honiton, I apologize, I don't remember who asked about getting all new toys for doing Honiton. Anyway, all of my pillows when I started playing with Honiton were about 26/66cm squares, and that just wasn't something I was interested in trying to deal with. So I cut out a circle of styropor* that's about 12-15/30-38cm across, cut two circles of fabric larger than the pillow, and pinned the circles to the pillow with them overlapping on the sides. My first project I don't remember what thread I used, but it was thicker than what Thompson recommends, so I had to reduce the number of pairs. Pain in the neck, that is! I have now gone and gotten some real Honiton thread from the Honiton Lace Shop, and am now using I think 170/2 for the same little flower. It's astounding how fine it is, and how darned easily it snaps. For bobbins, I've been using unspangled Midlands bobbins. I CAN NOT (and I have tried!) work with spangled bobbins, but unspangled Midlands let you pack a lot more bobbins onto a pillow than the Continentals. I have found, though, that the completely smooth Mids bobbins are hard to grab, both for picking up between the thumb and forefinger and for grasping between the fingers of my clawed hands for tensioning. It's much easier when they have a tiny bit of decoration on the spangle end. I haven't had any problems with them snagging on anything, although the only Honiton I've done is the flower one-and-a-half times, and the hanky corner 1/3 of the way. * Styropor is I think the name for what I'm using; it's sold here in Europe, or at least in France, in about 70cm x 140 cm sheets, and is a very
