On Aug 13, 2004, at 16:42, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Julie in Baltimore) wrote:
I am working on a Chantilly fan and I am thinking about pins.[...]
I decided to use the long and thin pins for the figures and my usual pins for the ground.
Not Chantilly, but... When I took a class (with Pompi Parry) in Polychrome de Courseulles, that's *precisely* what she had us do; we used thicker pins for the ground, and thinner ones for the motifs, where the pins were spaced closer together (sometimes twice as many as in the ground). I ended up using the same mix as you do - the IBC pins, 30x.5mm ("my usual") for the ground, and the 38x.4mm, "Mechlin" ones, for the motifs.
That way my fingers got a bit of rest from pushing the thin pins and I wouldn't use very many thin pins at a time so I wouldn't run out.
I didn't have much trouble with pushing the long-and-thin pins in (I work on a felt-filled pillow) but I also found them a bit "bendy" (even though I do have the stainless steel variety) the first time I worked with them (before Parry's class). So, when they were requested for Parry's class, I bit the bullet, and bought 4 tubes of them (they're not only "bendy"; they're "spendy", too, so the bullet was very hard to bite <g>). And yes, some of the first lot got bent out of shape quickly - being so thin, they're also v sharp, so they seem to think "the hole is *here*" when it's not... But, after I used them for a while on the same pattern, they seemed to miscalculate less, and slide into the pre-pricked holes correctly more. So, fewer got bent, as I got the rhythm in my *fingers*, not in my eyes... :)
What made this idea particularly feasible is that the difference in the lengths of the
pins meant I could easily distinguish between the two types when I was reaching into
the thicket for a new pin.
I don't use pins directly from the pillow; for all it's faster, somehow I never was able to get *that* rhythm right... So I pull them out when they're no longer needed, and put them into their rightful pincushion (and yes, I keep two separate ones, and it *is* a nuisance <g>), from which I then pull them out again, as needed. Sometimes, I'd put the wrong batch of pins into a pincushion and, reaching blindly, I'd pull a wrong-sized one out. But, within a few hours, my fingers learnt to distinguish the size - by thickness, not length...
The holes have gotten much farther apart and easier to see as the weeks have gone by.
Yes, and the thread is much thicker, too; it would take a lot of special effort to break them. Isn't it a miracle? <VBG> It never ceases to amaze (and amuse) me to observe how adaptable our bodies (eyes and hands, in this instance) are... Much quicker than our minds <g>
Now I'm thinking that maybe I could have used my usual pins on the half-stitch figures after all?
Possibly... But, equally possibly, you'd not have a series of dots, but one long "trough", through holes overlapping.
How do pins fit into the grand scheme of things? I mean, what is the theory about which types to use and how does it all tend to work out in practice?
When I bought my first batch of "Mechlin" pins (the long-and-thin kind), it was on Holly's (Holly Van Sciver) reccomendation; supposedly, they allow one a better look at the lace when the pins are so close together they become a forest. I wasn't entirely convinced, but experimented (a piece of Toender, where one repeat was pinned with the "bread-and-butter", and the other with the "platinum-priced"). And discovered for myself that she's absolutely right <g>; it *is* easier to see the lace beneath, when the the pin-shafts are thinner, and the pin-heads slightly higher up...
I had problems with the short pins, but perhaps that was only because I wasn't used to them and is not characteristic.
I never liked short pins, but, equally, could never tell why; it was instinctive. Come this summer, I took my "bread-and-butter" pins (.5mm) with me to Prague. Where I worked on lace which used a thicker-than-I'm-used-to thread, and *much* harder tension... And kept hearing from the teacher: "your pins are so thin, you have to push them in deeper. *Deeper, deeper*; at least two-thirds in, to hold the threads without bending". I was very happy my pins weren't any shorter than they were, since they didn't have the ball-heads that the Czechs use on their laces, and the stitches - being made in thick thread - would have slipped entirely off them, had I to push them in any deeper... :)
I guess, a forest of pins is like any other forest; the deeper the tap-roots of the trees, the stronger they stand :)
--- Tamara P Duvall http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) Healthy US through The No-CARB Diet: no C-heney, no A-shcroft, no R-umsfeld, no B-ush.
- To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
