Hi Spiders! This is a staggeringly technical question, but I would like to
know the answer and can't think of who else to ask. I'm sorry. I'm hoping
the Arachne pool is large enough that someone will know. If you reply by
posting, make sure not to paste this whole message in your reply.
I am working through Chapter 3 Bucks Point of Pamela Nottingham's "The
Technique of Bobbin Lace Completely Revised New Edition". I started a new
exercise today, Fig 215 Cloth and Honeycomb Fan Pattern, and I worked through the
first repeat without consulting the diagram. This was proper, since Nottingham
encourages this.
When I then consulted the diagram, I found that my headside was done wrong.
I was sure, however, that I had done it correctly. So I looked really
carefully at all the previous exercises and found, to my surprise, that Nottingham
makes headsides in two different ways (it might be clearer to say "3 ways").
Here are the ways of doing headside:
1) This doesn't really count. This is the situation where there is no
problem with headside since there are the same number of picots as there are
outgoing pairs. Work one picot with each outgoing pair, going through pairs from
left to right. An example of this is Fig 212 Kidney Bean. There are 5
outgoing pairs, call them 12345, and picots are worked top to bottom:
1 2 3 4 5
Sheeps Head and Pheasant's Eye also fall into this category, but they
have their own type of weirdness since extra honeycomb stitches are put into the
headside.
This case doesn't matter. The aspect of headside I am concerned with is
the problem of what to do when there are more picots than there are outgoing
pairs. When that happens, some pairs must make two picots, and that is the
situation the next 2 cases deal with.
2) There are more picots than there are outoging pairs. Work a picot for
each outgoing pair, going through pairs from left to right. When done, the
last picot worked is the pivot picot P. P comes AFTER the most indented (bottom
of the valley?) picot.
Now perform the pivot. Count the number of picots that still need to be
worked and separate that number of pairs from the left side of your group of
outgoing pairs. Work the picots by going through the pairs from left to right.
Examples of this are Fig 196 Church Window and Fig 200 Little Heart. For
both of these there are 4 outgoing pairs, call them 1234, and the picots are
worked top to bottom:
1 2 3 4(P) 3. It turned out that the most indented picot was the
first one for pair 3.
This is the method that Nottingham told me to use! She describes it on
page 122, in the section for Church Window. She does not mention anywhere else
in the book any other way of dealing with the "more picots than pairs"
problem.
3) There are more picots than pairs. We force the pivot picot P to be the
most indented picot.
Work picots with outgoing pairs, going through pairs from left to right,
until the pivot picot P is worked. At this point, some pairs on the right have
not yet worked any picots. Dedicate these pairs to the very last picots in
the section. So think of these picots as being assigned to pairs, even though
you won't actually work them until the end.
Now perform the pivot. Count the number of picots that still need to be
worked, remembering not to count the very last picots which have been
dedicated. Separate that number of pairs from the left side of the group of outgoing
pairs and work the picots fgoing through pairs from left to right. Now bring
in the unworked pairs (which are all the way on the right) past all the other
pairs and work the very last picots going through the pairs from left to right.
Examples of this are Fig 203 Ram's Horn and Fig 216 Cloth and Honeycomb
Fan. It looks as if Fig 220 Pattern Interpretation and Fig 250 Cloth Stitch
Diamond With Four Pin Buds do it this way also. For Cloth and Honeycomb Fan,
there are 7 outgoing pairs, call them 1234567, and the picots are worked top to
bottom:
1 2 3 4 5(P) 4 3 6 7
Ok, so that's what I saw when I looked carefully at all the headsides. I
haven't gone into the details of moving pairs around since that would obscure
the main point, so just accept that everybody is moving around so that it all
comes out as in Nottingham's diagram. If you actually read through all this
and don't know Bucks Point, please understand that this is all MUCH easier to
actually do in practice then it is when I try to explain in words all the steps,
so don't be put off.
So, first, am I correct about this? Method 2 and method 3 really seem to
me to be truly different. Am I misunderstanding something?
Second, if I am correct, then why does Nottingham switch methods? She gave
very clear instructions about method 2 , implying that this is a method that
she likes, but every single one of the later patterns uses method 3, which
implies that she prefers method 3 . Is one method preferred over the other in
general? Does Nottigham prefer one over the other? What's the story with the
development of these two methods and who uses which, when? Don't say that I
can use whichever one looks better to me, since that is always true; I want to
know what other people do and what they have done historically and what the
party line is.
Thanks.
Julie Baltimore MD
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