Gentle Spiders,
I've been away a week, and came back to only 170 real messages and 30 spam ones; will miracles never cease? <g>
I started on my trek relatively early (finish packing, reassure DH that I would try not to wreck the car this year and that I had all my insurance cards with me, post a couple of booklets for which the checks came the day before, gas up the car...) on Thursday (Oct 7) morning and headed for Pittsburgh. Where Robin Panza (who'll be an ex-Arachne till the end of November, when she moves to Los Angeles) threw me a curve ball: "Since you can't drive my car" (it's a stick-shift), and any moron can drive an automatic, let's take your car and share the driving", she said. I conferred with the car, and it was willing, as was I, so that's what we did. The car is still trying to come to terms with the sudden change in the usage pattern; after the steady diet of about 50 miles a week in a sleepy little town, it was asked to traverse 1400, over the highways, in the same period. And I was the driver for over 1200 of them! I think I am now truly American :)
Friday evening's welcome reception was great fun... This was my third visit to the Ithaca Lace Days and with every one I enjoy it more, as I make personal contact with more and more lacemakers, particularly those from Arachne. The real icing on the cake this year was meeting, face to face after 6 or so yrs of correspondence, Martha Krieg (hi Martha, I'm so glad your luggage caught up with you, if 24 hrs late <g>). She was rooming with me and Robin, making the expedition much more affordable (and the Saturday shopping that much more excusable <g>). This had to be the most orderly reception on record, BTW; it was scheduled for 7-9 PM and at 8:45, the room was almost empty - everyone rushed off to watch the presidential debate on TV :)
I'd rather draw a curtain on my Saturday morning excesses; there was very little in the vendor room I *really needed*, but... I wanted some wire from Lenka Suchanek, and she said she was going to be away for several months, traveling in Europe... So I bought twice as much, to be sure I wouldn't run out. I "had to" get the Ulrike Loehr's new book on butterflies in PG - she was there and could sign it for me. And the patterns for the Polychrome - in English, yet! - couldn't be passed up either. Ditto for the Piper's silk floss - it was melting away too fast. I excused this spending orgy easily - buying it from Holly in situ, cost me a lot less than if I had her ship it... :) A few other odds and ends, a few raffle tickets dropped in judiciously (didn't win anything this time, but it's still *the best* raffle IMO; you get to put your tickets on specific items)... My pocket snake rejoiced mightily, when it was time to retire to the lecture room :)
I loved Devon Thein's lecture on the laces which had been donated to the Metropolitan Museum by the wives of the Robber Barons. The pictured laces were, of course, spectacular, but I expected no less having seen some of them last year, during the IOLI Convention. What really blew my mind away (apart from the amount of work that went into the lecture - I'd never have the patience - to use the old phrase <g>) was the presentation.
Devon must have taken to heart the expert advice she received this summer at the IOLI Convention about writing for specialised magazines... :) The lecture *pulsed* with life and people, all kinds of odd bits of info (all fully illustrated with - sometimes - the most startling pictures) being woven into and around the story of lace collecting by the richest women (by marriage) of the late 19th/early 20th century. And all of it "served" with Devon's usual dry wit. Superb, and I hope that the lecture - now that it's been put together - can be repeated before other audiences; it deserves to be heard by many, and not necessarily the lace-freaks only.
My personal high point of the lecture - possibly not even intended as funny, and certainly not "transparent" to everyone - was the beginning and the end juxtopposition. In the beginning, Devon quoted someone as saying that the rich Americans were grabbing all the European laces, thus rendering them inaccessible for the Europeans (I believe the British were mentioned specifically) to study. But... The last but one photo in the lecture, taken at the Metropolitan during the last year's IOLI Convention, clearly shows Jean Leader (of UK) intently studying those laces (and, being taller than most, getting a better view <g>). I cracked up when I saw it... :)
The lecture over, I decided to skip lunch and prospect the classroom situation instead; I like to stake out for myself, as soon as possible, a well-lit place to work at. The classrooms were unlocked, so I started shifting all my gear from the room to the classroom; three trips, and I was all installed (one of the advantages - other than financial - of driving over flying: my set-up was almost a perfect mirror of the one at home).
Unfortunately, at that point, the teacher came in, and thought I'd do as well in the alcove attached to the room, rather than in the main room - the class had been somewhat oversubscribed (15 instead of 12), everyone needed space to spread out, she was sure I'd understand and do as well behind the scenes... Well... OK, but I wouldn't do it for anyone else but Cathy <g> As things turned out, I did very well in my unsociable corner; I could turn my back on the rest of the class and participate or not as I chose, while having Armistice Turtora (who isn't on Arachne, I think, but who *is* from "my back of the woods") for company, and a very pleasant company it was, too.
The class went from 2 to 5 PM and I got so engrossed in it (read: so tangled up), that, for once, I decided to break my rule of "no homework at workshops", and lugged fully half of my gear back to my room. Only to find both of my roomies getting into their finery. For a wild, hopeful second, I thought they were demonstrating their best, to be worn at the banquet, the said banquet to take place the next evening. Alas... The banquet was *that night*, and I barely had enough time to shower and don my own finery (not so fine, really, but I'm not much "into" clothes any more). That will teach me never to break my own, self-imposed rules <g>
The theme of the Ithaca "do" was "tickled pink" but, mindful of the pillow waiting for me in the room with the unplumbed depths of Rosalibre on it, I decided not to get "pickled tink" - a stage which some others seemed to reach. I enjoyed Lenka's lecture but, as I'd heard/seen most of it in March in California, it wasn't as revelatory to me the second time around.
Sunday and Monday were full-time workshop days - 6 scheduled hours each day, plus stolen minutes here and there (before and after, and at each end of the lunchbreak, to make up for the unscheduled cigarette breaks <g>). During class, I finally understood where the name - Rosalibre - came from. "Rosa" was easy; the first motif - the flower - looks like the wild, single-layered, rose. But, "libre"? All was explained... Whenever we asked: "how many twists here?" or: "should I do this on the left, or on the right side?", the answer, almost invariably, was : "it doesn't really matter". A truly liberating experience :)
What can I say about the lace itself? I was excited about it before the workshop, I'm almost breathless (a good thing it doesn't stop me from yammering, though <g>) with awe now...
Imagine lace, made with 7-10 pairs... Sometimes "part lace" (you start and finish the flower, then you start and finish another motif), yet, sometimes, almost "continuous lace" (a whole branch of leaves). A lace where "what goes in, comes out" - you don't add in or take out pairs, either by gobs, or one-by-one. Since I hate hanging-in and taking-out, this was right down my alley (my cup o'T <g>). A lace where, if the pattern hands you a lemon, you make delicious lemonade of it: Extra pairs? Carry them in a roll (bundle), and strengthen the whole design while you're at it (waste not, want not <g>). We admire the little "pearl" in Rosaline, but hate working with a needle? We'll make it with half of the pairs, while the others have other business to attend to, and, when that's done, we'll use all the bobbins to a better purpose... We've always envied Needle Lace the ability to be 3-dimensional? Why, we'll do it in Bobbin Lace just as pretty, and "on the cheap", too - fast, and with just the same few pairs... And we'll beg, borrow or steal techniques from other, established and more "respectable" laces as necessary to achieve it... I absolutely *adore* it.
Our class was, in a way, "An Association of Midwives" to the baby Rosalibre; as we worked on our projects, we kept our eyes on both the book/class notes and on the diagrams Cathy was drawing as the class went on. Eventually, the "Ithaca special edition" of the book is to become a real book, de-bugged by us. Cathy kept a log of the names of those participants who successfully hunted a mistake; each of us was to get a chocolate for each mistake spotted. Since I don't like chocolate, Cathy's promised to email me cigarettes; I'm to print them out, roll them up, and smoke them... :^)
Those of you who like colour in lace, who can't be bothered with hundreds of pairs (either all at once or in spots), who are enchanted by the way magic can be performed with a minimum of pairs if you only know how... those of you whose eyes can no longer cope with 140/2 cotton thread but can still appreciate beauty in a bolder format... I *highly* recommend that you grab that class whenever it becomes available in your area.
The *only* thing I have against this class/lace/Cathy... I *thought* I had all the threads I'd ever need, in all the colours I was ever likely to use... Wrong as usual; now I seem to need the whole range of Colcotton colours, and I don't have a single spool of it. I managed to trim the "want list" from the 130 (or so) available to 75 of "must have", but, when DH asked if I'd had enough money during the event, I could only laugh bitterly, and explain that I haven't even *started* buying...
Of course, trying to keep up with the development of this lace is going to be hard; we all know how fast babies grow, and this is just the beginning... Another flower is almost ready to blossom, and Cathy's talking about developing a ground (it would then be a bit like Honiton, I think; I've seen it with ground - older - and without - more modern). And I spent a couple of almost sleepless nights thinking of a) different ways of playing with colour in the exisiting motifs and b) creating other motifs (more flowers) using the same techniques... Once I get the Colcotton, that is :)
The more people are "in" on this lace before it solidifies, the more ideas are likely to spring up to enrich it. I count myself lucky to have been there early on. Thank you, Cathy. And thank you Holly, and all the Finger Lakes LG volunteers who've organised the event, year after year, so it's now seamlessly smooth for the rest of us to enjoy.
Yours, "beat" after hours of driving from Pittsburgh, then wading through the accumulated mail, then watching the presidential debate, then writing this report... Time to feed and wind down for the night.
---
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.
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