Well, I've fallen into the temptation of joining the Channer debates. They've approached a subject dear to my heart, working floral Bucks (or Beds) without a diagram, but the real trigger is the acquisition last week of a copy of the original 1928 edition of Miss C's "Practical Lacemaking Bucks Point-Ground". It was updated and republished in 1972, and reprinted in 1984, in all cases by Dryad. While they do have most of the original, the differences are very instructive. Miss C. quite clearly was providing instructions leading as directly as possible to working floral Bucks: the revision was aiming to allow people with little or no access to ready-made equipment or teachers to make the patterns in the book.
This comes out very clearly in the section on honeycomb. Miss C.'s instructions are, I think, virtually unintelligible if you do not know at least what you're meant to be doing, while the revision's version is a model of clarity. However, Miss C.'s confusing method is, I think, mainly due to the way she sets out how to find the pairs to use for each pin hole - once understood, this would allow you to work the very tricky small irregular areas of honeycomb that crop up in floral Bucks, and do need care and accuracy to look good. Similarly, the original has one more floral and two less basic patterns than the revision. In the "semi-floral" and floral, Miss C. takes great care in setting out general principles to be followed when the feature being described (eg nook pin) recurs in a more complicated form, and stresses the need to keep cloth even and ground regular by looking at the lace, and thinking. The floral pattern has two heads worked (the same photo and pricking in both versions) - and they are different! The motives are placed in different bits of the ground, and the net forms differently around it. One quotation for Patty; "An experienced worker will exercise her own taste and judgment in working a pattern of this sort. There is much scope for ingenuity in arranging the gimps, in making the ground even round the buds, and in arranging the threads nicely round the rings. The beginner will learn gradually how to get a good effect, and will, at first, probably cut off and hang on bobbins much more often than is necessary." In other words, what you've found for Beds applies to Bucks as well - and she explains why this is the way to go - nothing is worse than wanting to put extra pairs in three rows ago! The section on teaching, only in the original, goes on at great length on this: "Lacemakers have no need to know how many threads a pattern contains or how many bobbins are needed for the work; they need not know how many stitches are required for any part of the work, and such counting and efforts of memory are detrimental since they distract attention... The essential thing is to learn how an effect is obtained...[the student] will not help herself by counting.. The habit of counting exact numbers in simple Torchon laces makes it a bad foundation for learning other laces..." I don't think she would have approved of diagrams!! She has tips on the different ways of teaching adults and children (adults learn better from wider patterns, children from narrower - and being keen-sighted learn in fine thread as easily as in coarse), and how to manage "mixed ability" classes. She thinks using different coloured threads to help learn probably doesn't work but "If, however, the making of a coloured lace is desired, there is no objection to the use of coloured thread when it is no longer looked upon as a help to the learner, but as an end in itself". Her views on which lace to learn first are equally sensible - "Do you admire and wish to make Honiton or fine Brussels, and are you prepared to take great pains and spend a considerable amount of time? Then do not hesitate to begin straight away on Honiton. If you wish to make point ground or Point de Paris then begin with it, and do not waste time on Torchon or anything else..." But the best advice, which I would love to follow, is at the beginning, on why you need not prick your own patterns: "The parchments can, however, be bought ready pricked, and any pattern can be pricked to order at The Lace School, Northampton." All in all, as interesting historically as useful in practice! [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
