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?
Well, there's Binche and there's Binche. ;-)
I have found that in many Binche patterns, you don't have very large or very logical segments. You can't work even the smallest motifs without having at least one pair that trundles all the way across the pattern from the furthest reaches, crosses your little bit of work, goes all the way to the other side and comes all the way back again, making you leave your little segment and move all across the pattern. These pairs, annoying as they are, have a structural significance - they tie your lace together and give it a soundness as a textile that I think would not otherwise exist.
So, you can't divide your pattern into logical segments the way you can with simpler laces. Usually even the smallest motifs must be made in stages, interspersed with other stages of making other bits of other motifs. But the rule is the same - in order to avoid brain fever you make *as much as you can* in one spot before you move those 50 pairs to one side so you can go back to the other side for your next bit of a bit of a piece of the puzzle ... even when "as much as you can" is only a row or two.
On a slightly different topic -
I have to admit that I prefer the earlier Binche to the more modern patterns. Why? When I make the earlier patterns I feel that the shape of the design is paramount. The lacemaker did whatever was needed to realize the artistic design. Sometimes the threads travel in a rather bizarre manner that modern technicians wouldn't like, but they get the job done. I feel that modern patterns are almost mechanical - the threads travel as perfectly as possible, but some emotion is lost.
It is difficult to explain, but here's an example - in the older patterns if there's a series of snowflakes around another element they would be evenly spaced with reference to that other element, even if it means taking them out of the straight lines of the snowflake ground. In the modern patterns, though, the snowflake ground marches across the lace in military fashion, each snowflake exactly spaced with reference to the next, but all of them ignoring the placement of other design elements. It is almost as though the ground and the other design elements were cut out of different pieces of lace and just glued into the puzzle, and the effect jars my aesthetic sense.
Adele North Vancouver, BC (west coast of Canada)
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