Several of us seem agreed that many bobbin laces, certainly floral Beds, and some of us (at least me) floral Bucks, are for "thinking" persons, what about Binche? It's generally thought the most complex now widely made, and I should have thought at least as much brain power goes into it. It seems different in that now at least the thinking is done in making the diagram [...]
I work out which order to do bits in so that the bobbins are moved less [...]
Indeed, in the fairly basic floral Beds and Bucks I've worked, I've been impressed by how well the designer/patternmaker has planned the pricking so this can be done. It's not that difficult to cope with nearly 100 pairs if you use no more than 20 of them at
any time!
Is it the same with Binche?
I've never done any Binche (except the snowflake grounds, recently, in Loehr's class), but I have done quite a bit of Flanders. Which is a sort-of primary school to the Binche's University, and quite sufficient shock to the system -- thank you very much -- what with the *double* number of pairs required for the same width of lace (and having only *half* the number of pins is hardly enough consolation... pins are cheap; bobbins are expensive <g>).
But it is my (considered <g>) opinion that *all* continuous laces are made in the same manner: you work a segment (be it 6 prs or 20), you come to a point when you can't work it any further, you push those pairs out of the way, and work on the next segment till parts of them meet. And form a new segment.
The diagram tells you which stitch to use in which place. It shows you how the pairs move and where they join the next segment. Some may even tell you how many pairs to add/throw out and where. What they *do not* tell you is the order in which you need to work, so that you don't hop all over the pillow, shifting gobs of bobbins each time, but move like a tidal wave, always from one segment to the next nearest one, not to the one 3 segments away. And without boxing yourself in...
*That* part you still have to figure out for yourself... :) And it still requires a good deal of brain power and is a challenge to yourself. Because, it's sometimes *possible* (and often tempting <g>) to work a segment past its "due date"; the necessary bobbins are there to hand, you've caught the rhythm of it, might as well push it... But is it going to be *efficient* as well as possible? Alternatively, you think you've pushed it as far as it'll go, start on the next segment, and find out that you need 4 more pairs coming from the previous one...
Sometime in the early spring, I doodled a bit with Danish Little Hearts (a Tonder pattern) and trippled it "a-drifting" (there already exists a traditional version of the pattern, where each heart is on top of the next heart; I wanted a heart on top of the "flounce", the "flounce" on top of the next heart)... Got it *almost* to where I wanted it, then broke off to work on other projects -- all Milanese.
So now I've gone back to it -- at least partly as a preparation for the upcoming Ithaca class (Polychrome de Courseulles) -- and found that I've forgotten almost everything about PG (exctept CTTT <g>) and *everything* about this particular pattern.
By itself, the pattern is of the "piece of cake" variety; even tripled, it only uses 27prs, plus 3 single gimps throughout, without anything added, removed, carried, etc... The repeats are *frequent* (always a help in getting into the swing of things)... I have a diagram; drew it myself (in spring)...
Even so, the first couple of days (today was the third day) it was like "blood from the nose" -- drip, drip, drip slowly. Headside, footside, catch those three pairs in the middle; ooops, I shouldn't have gone down quite that far, now I have no room to work that bit... I was spending more time *shifting* the bobbins than *using* them. Today, thankfully, I caught the rhythm, and began to make progress in an orderly way.
Diagrams, IMO, are like the *old fashioned* maps; they stop you from going around in circles, but they still give you several options on how to get from point A to point B, and it's up to *you* to choose the most efficient route. They are *not* like the maps you get from the computer and which tell you to travel 3/4 of a mile and then turn left...
----- Tamara P Duvall mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland
- To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
