your Beds/Cluny(?) handkerchief sounds exquisite (I hope you didn�t put it under the vase of flowers!) It must have been the work of a skillfull and innovative lacemaker.
What strikes me most is the use of single and double-thread picots in the same piece - brilliant, I intend to try it. As far as I know, single-thread picots are not at all common in English laces, though they crop up in various parts of France.
Incidentally, its not all that difficult to work raised tallies from the 'wrong' side - you work the tally first and then the half stitch on top of it. In some ways its even easier - less pins to get in the way of the tally. Of course for a hanky edging, there shouldn't really be a right and wrong side, you want both sides to be as perfect as possible!
The difficulty of 'placing' such a piece just shows what close cousins Cluny and Bedfordshire laces are, and I�m sure in the past the techniques were not as rigidly defined as we like to think.
My first OIDFA congress was at Le-Puy-En-Velay, in the heart of 'cluny country'. I took along a pillow to demonstrate what I thought was typical English lace - one of Christine Springett�s Bedfordshire hanky edgings. Browsing in a junk shop in Le Puy, I found an old pricking for the identical pattern! However I soon discovered that when you demonstrate English lacemaking in France no one looks at the lace - they�re all too busy marvelling at the spangled bobbins!
Bridget in Watford, England
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