Patty's message below has reallly hit home.
The recent discussion of Beds at its more interpretive end of the spectrum
really comes home to me right now.
I took a class in Advanced Beds with Holly Van Sciver at the IOLI
convention. Of course I chose a rather complicated cuff (and finished a
good half inch). The interesting point in this is that I don't have a
working diagram and I don't have a picture of the finished lace [...]
Anyway, off I go to the lace group with my big pillow and a pricking that I
found in my storage - well, that's not exactly true - I found 1/2 the pricking
in my storage and made up the other half from that. It's a large piece -
about 20" long by about 14" wide and is a mix of beds and bruge.
Now what is interesting here is that I have no picture of the lace [...]
The thought flew in (and out <g>) when I read Patty's original message, but came back when I read Liz's...
Whenever you "meddle" with an existing pattern, you're sailing on uncharted waters -- no picture and no diagrams for the bits you're changing... You won't know whether the graft "took", until you've removed the pins from the first couple of repeats. Goes double for any pattern you design "from scratch"; there, you have nothing at all to guide you, except an "inner immage" of what you're trying to achieve.
Like Patty, I'm used to working with diagams and with the photos of the finished "product", and I miss them when they're not there. So, when I design my own stuff, I try to make as much of a diagram as I can *before* I start working on the pillow. If it doesn't look good on the pillow, I try to de-bug it -- on the pillow -- then draw the diagram for the "new! improved!" version, write "take 2" on it, and fold "take 1" to indicate a failed trial run. But I don't throw it away. Nor do I undo the bad lace; I cut it off... I want to keep it, to remind myself how *not* to do it the next time. That's one of the reasons I'd taught myself not to wind "enough for the project"; if I have to cut it off, there's not as much invested in either the thread or the winding effort, and if all goes well, I can always add more thread (as I would have to, if a thread broke)...
Mostly, I work with Milanese, so there's not a lot of diagramming that needs to be done; unless I devise a braid of my own to suit a particular purpose, I tend to use the ones on which the "donkey work" has already been done by Patricia Read/Lucy Kincaid in their two splendid books. But I've done a few patterns in other techniques (though none in Beds; it's not something that appeals sufficiently) -- either "meddled" or from scratch -- and found being able (and willing <g>) to do the diagramming beforehand to be of extreme value. *Especially if* -- as is the case with Patty's project (cuffs) -- it's something that will present *the same set of problems* (in mirrored image, yet <g>), pretty soon...
"Wing it" twice, and end up with two totally different pieces, just because I've forgotten how I'd solved the problem the first time, and have come up with an alternative solution since (and neither is documented)?
Definitely, not *my* cup o'T... :) But the world (lace and otherwise) is awash in tea (and other liquids), and different ways of dealing with the same problem/different "phisosophies" reagarding *viewing* a problem is what's kept me on this list since June of '95...
----- Tamara P Duvall mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland
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