I seem to remember a tip about using suedde or chamais leather under
continentals to stop them rolling - anyone know if this is a figment of my
imagination or if it actually works?
jenny barron sunny Scotland
It actually works. And it's important to keep the pillow as flat as possible so that gravity doesn't work against you. I use "Ultra-Suede", which is a man-made alternative to suede.
<VBG> I think the reason Clay and I are such good friends is that polar opposites attract; we differ on almost every issue... :) I'm the person who's so devoted to a crochet hook for sewings, that I never could get the hang of the sewing-in hook that Clay is so happy with... And, like Liz (thelacebee), I make a hitch through two loops and don't worry my little head about the Z- and S-spin of the thread and the direction of winding; never had a speck of bother with Tire (or any other thread) untwisting or slipping...
I too use the Ultra Suede for my work cloths (and from the same shop, which Clay so kindly discovered for me <g>). But that's because it's so thick and supple that when folded, it lifts the threads off the pillow nicely, which I find useful when working Milanese (pins pushed in all the way but, alas, not below the pillow's surface <g>). And since it doesn't shed, one can make those work "cloths" with a small circular hole in them without the effort of hemming -- I prefer those to the "horseshoe" (never could make *that* work for me properly, either <g>).
But as for Ultra Suede (or any suede) stopping the bobbins from rolling... IMO, it's only a very tiny step above "diddly squat", and that only at the beginning, before it gets slick from use :) *Even* with an absolutely flat pillow...
I use my "T-squares" (which Neil Keats in Oz makes for me) exclusively, for all laces. They slide easily, but do not roll (or only if pushed really hard), no matter what the workcloth is made of. But, at the IOLI Convention in August, I picked up a lovely "pair" of black Bayeux bobbins, each celebrating the 50th anniversary, but each with a different design. So, naturally, I wanted to use them immediately :) And where better than as a gimp pair in my class -- the gimp bobbins do not have to be exactly the same as the rest; it's actually desirable to be able to distinguish them easily...
Although it was called gimp in the supplies list, it turned out not to be -- it was a thick pair, at the outer edge of each sample triangle (an outline) and cloth stitched throughout. I was using a single ply (composed of 5 strands) of Kreinik's Silk Serica for it. And what I noticed -- very soon -- was that the inner bobbin of the pair (kept somewhat in check by the outer one) behaved well; the thread remained loosely twisted, with excellent coverage. But the *outer* one -- with nothing to stop it on one side -- did not; it kept twisting the thread tighter and tighter, till it wanted to kink up and till it was as thin as the base thread. I had to do the "pick up, roll in the opposite direction, pick up, roll in the opposite direction" trick all the time (or far too frequently for my taste, at any rate <g>).
The pillow was the block one from Gabriele -- as flat as yesterday's beer. The workcloth was Ultra Suede, freshly washed (ie with it's nap up again). The pair was sometimes on the right-hand edge, sometimes at the left-hand one... *None of it* made a blind bit of difference -- the outer bobbin rolled till I was nearly distracted. So I rewound the thread onto a pair of squares and think of the Bayeux pair as "Christmas tree ornament". I *may* one day use it again as a gimp but only if I'm certain that it'll remain surrounded by other bobbins (which will keep it from rolling)
----- Tamara P Duvall Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland
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