If this company are asking for hand made Raschel lace they are asking for the impossible! Raschel is WARP KNITTING which is very different from hand knitting or domestic machine knitting, both of which are weft knitting.
Weft knitting takes one yarn/thread backwards and forwards (or round and round) through lots of loops. The hand and machine versions are very similar in appearance, though some of the more advanced hand techniques are difficult to reproduce by machine and machine weave knitting is very difficult to do by hand.
Warp knitting requires lots of threads each of which lops through itself several times and then swaps places with the one next to it. Virtually impossible to do by hand. Just imagine lots of crocheted chains (US single crochet?) lying parallel to each other then pull the thread from chain A through the loop of chain B and vice versa. The simplest pieces of warp knitting are the string bags which are sometimes used to 'wrap' vegetables for the supermarket. Raschel machines take the techniques a LOT further and include extra threads woven in with the pillars of 'crochet chains'.
If you have examples of machine lace to look at the way to identify Raschel/warp knitting is to look at the back. If it has what looks like parallel lines of chain stitch on the back then it's warp knitted - but don't confuse that with the twisted lines of threads in some Leavers type lace. Usually warp knitted lace is from the lower end of the market.
Brenda
On 5 Apr 2004, at 13:50, Jeff & Lee Daly wrote:
Dear Ladies,
I have an unusual request to pass along.
There is a marketing company in New York City which sent a request to at least 2 lacemakers for help. They are looking to have a sample of lace made using their pattern (no diagram or details, just a color picture) in a short space of time. They are willing to pay for this.
I have spoken to the company making the request and I do believe it is legitimate though bizarre and uninformed. The gist of it is that there is a company with an old Raschel machine that wants to sell to the US. The marketing company wants to have 8 1/2 x 11 samples to do a marketing study to ensure the designs are acceptable to the public. Fortunately, I have a copy of Pat Earnshaw's books on Lace Machines so I could look up what a Raschel machine was!
I told him that anything we would do by hand would have no resemblance to the output of the machine (it is sort of a knitting machine) and therefore would be useless to them. It would also take significantly longer to make than the one month setup that the company needs per pattern.
If anyone has any ideas, feel free to contact me privately. I will forward you the information I received. I have no interest in the companies involved; I just find the idea intriguing.
I had considered sending this to lace chat ---- who ever hear of a request for handmade lace to replicate machine made lace and in a shorter space of time?
Lee Daly
Pondering in New Jersey
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Brenda http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/paternoster/
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