Gina, The Pamela Nottingham book, "The technique of BL" (also published under the title of The complete book of bobbin lace) is a great book, as it has torchon, beds and bucks point laces in it.
Barbara Underwood's "Introducing beds in 20 lessons" is also an excellent book, as it takes you from the basic elements - plaits and picots, on up through tallies, etc. Her diagrams are good (and she's great to have a class with, too!). She has a couple of other books, which are progressions from it. The English Lace Guild also put out a wonderful basic beds publication a number of years ago, which is excellent for learning beds. Title: Basic Bedfordshire bobbin lace. You can also try to get a hold of the Springett series of videos (4 of them if I remember rightly), and start with the first 1 and work through them. They are excellent. Their titles are: Springett, C. Bedfordshire lace II intermediate skills. 1990. 1 video + 2p. AV 746.222 SPR.2 Bedfordshire lace I basic skills. 1990. 1 video + 1p. AV 746.222 SPR.2 Springett, C. Bedfordshire lace 3 advanced skills: gimp edged flower. 1992. 1 video + 1p. Springett, C. Bedfordshire lace 4 advanced skills: veined leaves. 1992. There are a large number of other books dealing with plaited laces - Pam Robinson has a good one, and there is also a Cluny lace book (I can see it in my mind - small, blue hardback, with a round motif on the cover) but it's title escapes me. If you're an IOLI member you can try to borrow them from their, or if your local guild has a library try them. Also try Inter Library Loan through you local public library. If you were in Denver, I'd say come see me, and I'd give you some help. Beds is quite different to torchon, although learning to do square tallies and leaves and plaits and picots and the variety of footsides, will help you with torchon, but the application is different. In torchon, every thread has a place to go - if you're short threads or have too many, you know you've made a mistake somewhere and are in for some retro lacing (I love that term :-) ). In Beds, that's not always the case. You can add in and throw out pairs, and in some ways is less restrictive - especially the more complex florals. That's what I love about it - it challenges me to think in different ways to solve the problems in front of me. Hope these titles help you out. Cheers, Helen, Aussie in Denver - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
