Jane Partridge wrote: > Check the way the pairs go in and out of the trails to do the plaits and > tallies - Beds > trails carry passive pairs that go in and out of the trail, keeping the > trail workers to work back and forth, but Cluny swaps the trail workers > into the plaits.
It's not as clear cut as that. I had a bursary from the Lace Guild to study the techniques used in a book of fine Bedfordshire lace samples dating from the 1860s. It had originally belonged to the Rose family, lace dealers in Paulerspury, Northamptonshire. The book contained 870 samples, some duplicated so there were 729 samples in all excluding exact matches. I found the that 38% had the Beds technique mentioned above (30% only this technique) and 44% had the Cluny technique (27% only this technique) and that 40% had variations of these techniques for dealing with plaits joining and leaving trails. I think it's only since techniques have been published in books that the sharp distinction between Beds and Cluny techniques has been made. The old lacemakers, working to earn money, did whatever worked best to give an acceptable result. I'll be interested to see a detailed photo of David's friend's handkerchief. Jean in grey Glasgow - 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/
