<<When I have groups of students at my school I begin with a sampler of different stitches to analyse the structural qualities and visual effects of each so that the students begin to build a vocabulary of stitches with which they will express their own ideas. Then I pass immediately to an analysis of how to construct individual moftifs and each student chooses a form and has to use their "vocabulary" to fill it in, it is a very free exercise of drawing with threads, from there I pass to techniques for joining such pieces together and in the second half of the course we look at the more complicated task of working the ground and motifs together. I have had very good results with this approach and in the coming years I hope that my students will begin to contribute to the various competitions that are around.>> When you do your beginning sampler, do you go beyond half stitch, whole stitch and linen stitch to include grounds such as Dieppe Ground, or Paris Ground? Are the individual motifs constructed in the way of a tape lace, worked horizontally, or do you incorporate grounds, such as the Dieppe Ground, as in, making a tape and filling it with a ground? Where does plaiting come in? I find young people are very interested in Russian lace grounds since you can get a very elaborate look with a minimum of skills. Your approach sounds fascinating. Devon
- To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachnemodera...@yahoo.com
