(No I am not raffling off the Mat, much as it has been the bane of my life at times!)
This week I finally finished Miss Channer's Mat and have uploaded some pics to the Webshots site - best to look at it from a distance actually as you can't see the gaps and other bits that I am not happy with! There are some parts that I wish I could do again, but overall I am very pleased with the result and glad to get it finished. Started in Feb 2004 and finished on 2/1/05, but it was packed away for 3 months during our move from South Africa to Suriname, so altogether it took 7.5 months of 1-2 hours per day plus the pre-pricking/winding time beforehand - no idea how many hours in total but I will sit down and work it out at some point. It is done in Brok 100/3 (used 1.5 reels) with DMC Coton a Broder 16 for gimps. At the widest point I had 384 bobbins on the pillow but at least 100 more are required for adding in and out constantly during the working. I have kept all the added in threads that I snipped off so I will count those when I can be bothered as well. I basically added 2 pairs to every pinhole, in the cloth stitch areas, as I did not want them looking too sparse, so as you can imagine that is an awful lot of adding in and throwing out. I am taking it home to Melbourne with me in a few weeks, to be framed. Now I feel a bit lost without the big project sitting in my lace room - have to find something else to start real soon. I think it will be learning some Binche as I still haven't done anything with the Binche Syllabus I that I got for my birthday last September. As for the raffle - well recently several people have written to ask where the pricking can be obtained. As many of you know it has been out of print for a long time and despite us lobbying Ruth Bean Publishers it is not going to be reprinted in the near future. I bought mine years ago from a lace supplier in Australia, but of course now that I have done it I do not need the pricking anymore so am happy to offer it as a raffle. And no, before you ask I am not intending to make the darn thing again! As well as the pricking itself, which is on card slightly larger than A3, there is an accompanying photo of the original mat and a few notes. No working diagram of course but I used photos of other people's completed mats as a guide and then just did my own thing - frustrating at times because of the total lack of space to work any particular section (because of having soooooooooo many bobbins on either side of where you are working) but also liberating because I broke every rule in the book and did whatever was need to make it "work". The pricking has many many extra holes in it from support pins used when hanging in extra pairs so it might be a bit confusing to use, but if anyone is interested please send me your names by the end of January and I will draw one out when I arrive in Australia - I will post it from there. Michelle an Aussie living in hot Suriname (the photos can be seen at www.webshots.com - log in as Arachne2003 and password Honiton) - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
