Hi! Recently someone wrote in and asked what the differences were between Idrija and Russian tape laces. I've been thinking about that ever since, and decided to answer. What I'm about to say is based on books, so it is useful only so far as the books accurately reflect the tradition. For Russian I use DMC's Die Kloeppelspitzen vol 2. For Idrija Cook and Tratnik. And Lia Baumeister for Schneeberger.
In Russian tape turning stitch is done CTC, and the pair nearest the mass of other passives returns to the edge as weaver. One uses careful tension control to keep the passives flowing smoothly. Idrija does turning stitch CTCTC and uses the pair nearest the central passives as weaver. Russian seems to avoid sharp turns in its designs, Idrija uses them often. In Idrija sharp turns often involve sewing the weaver inside the sharp turn itself. Also sewings often occur at the deepest valley of a turn. Russian does sewings when the tapes are far apart and need attachment, or occasionally when they are close, for stability. Idrija often adds a single pair around the outer perimeter of the lace, so that a tape may have varying numbers of pairs: 6 perhaps for most of it, but 7 when the tape is making the outer edge of the lace itself. In this situation Schneeberger would use a braid (plait) around the outer perimeter, instead of the single pair of Idrija. My impression is that Schneeberger does turns more like Russian. Russian usually has a tape with a constant number of pairs, and a constant width. When the tape widens Russian usually switches to half stitch because it is so expandable. In the same situation Idrija and Schneeberger switch to wholestitch (doublestitch TCTC or CTCT) with extra twists on the weaver to take up space and expand the tape width. Russian goes for large areas with complex braid based (plaited) grounds in large pieces like tablecloths. The published patterns for Idrija and Schneeberger don't. But this may be a factor only for published designs intended for modern lacemakers who don't want to spend a year on something. I have no idea at all about historical pieces of these forms. One can see historical Russian laces in some books published in Russian by Aurora Press which have photos of museum pieces. These were often bed linens and towels. I don't recall seeing tablecloths. I'd be interested to hear from someone who might want to add to this, or clarify. Lorelei - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED]
