A couple of weeks ago I sent a post saying that I had a point ground (Bucks
Point, Chantilly, whatever) pattern that was too big to fit on one piece of
pricking. I was delayed in starting this project, but now here is a follow-up
post.
You spiders were great! Your replies were just what I needed. I was so
worried about this problem. I think I might have been excessively worried
because I envisioned spending weeks on this project, finally getting to the
half-way point, and then finding out that, because I'd done the pricking joining
wrong, the whole thing was hopeless and would have to be scrapped. Or maybe I
would spend weeks and weeks and actually finish the whole thing and then find
that there was a hideously visible distortion where the prickings joined.
Anyway, I really wanted some advice on this problem.
Spiders were negative about the idea of overlapping prickings. Top
suggestions were:
1) Get a bigger piece of card so that pattern fits on one pricking
2) Make two pricking pieces that fit snugly next to one another (abut each
other)
3) Make two prickings and a flimsy paper "bridge" to connect them
4) Make two pricking pieces that overlap. When the time comes, move the lace
from one piece to the other.
I went with suggestion (2), prickings that abut each other.
Having decided to cut my pattern in half, the next question is: Where do I
cut it? 3 choices come to mind:
1) cut across the ground
2) cut across a figure
3) cut along a boundary, ie along a gimp line
I decided to cut along a gimp line, since hiding problems in the gimp
seemed like a very Bucks Point-ish thing to do. However, I am curious about the
idea of cutting across the ground. Would that cause a line of distortion to
appear in my ground? Well, of course the answer is no, it wouldn't, since I am
not the world's greated pricker so my lines aren't straight at the best of
times. I mean_theoretically_ would it cause a distortion? Tamara didn't seem to
think so in her post.
To make my pricking, I cut photocopies of the pricking so that I had two
overlapping pieces. I glued them to the card. I cut one piece mostly along a
gimp line. I put this piece over the second piece and traced in a sharp pencil
the place where the cut did not follow the gimp. Then I cut the second
piece. In both cases I first cut sloppily with big scissors and then used little
scissors to snip the card right up to the line. Then I covered both pieces of
card with contact paper and cut the contact paper off at the edges I'd made (
Somehow something has gone wrong here...).
Then I pricked an inch or at the edges since I was afraid that pricking
wouldn't work when the pinholes were right at the edge of the pricking.
Everything went fine. However, I wonder if next time I might try pricking an inch
or so of the soon-to-be-edges before I cut. No, wait, that wouldn't work
because the contact paper wasn't placed yet. Maybe I could put the contact paper
on before I cut, except I don't know if I can draw pencil lines on contact
paper.
Anyway, everything seems to be fine and the two pieces fit snugly against
each other. I am delighted. I was so anxious and now it's turned out not to
be hard at all.
Some people asked what my project was. It is a black fan, pattern #12
from Ulrike Lohr's Hausdrachen box of patterns. It is narrow but a bit long,
slightly too long to fit on a standard letter-sized card (it would have fit on
A5). It is good that it is narrow, since as it is it uses 80 pairs of bobbins,
which is twice what I am used to (my maxumum amount so far was 50 pairs). I
am excited to try this because, except for a pretty little Torchon handkerchief
last fall, I have never made lace that was not an exercise from my lace book.
I wanted to do something different because I want to take a break from
abstract designs. I like this fan
because: it has recognizable pictures, it is Bucks Point (the only laces I
know how to make are Torchon and Bucks Point), the design is simple (it's just
lots of ground with some big half-stitch figures), and it is fine.
As simple as the pattern is, I see as I look at the working diagrams that
there are all sorts of things going on that I don't understand. So I expect
I'll make all sorts of mistakes and end up with something that does not look
like the picture in the booklet. So what if I do? At this point I've made
enough lace exercises know that I will love the result anyway.
Logically, the right time for me to make a follow-up post would have been
after I finished the project and found out whether the abutting prickings had
actually worked, but, geez, that seems awfully far in the future, so now is
the time instead.
Julie
Baltimore MD
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