On Sep 26, 2005, at 13:39, Lorri Ferguson wrote:
Did you take that workshop on "Designing for Bucks Pt'?
She did; I did too, and was probably the only one in class who didn't
profit much, though I did enjoy the class itself. But it proved to me,
once and for all, that I can't design "on demand"; ideas either come or
they don't, and there's no forcing them.
I have been wanting to try some and wondered if there are any 'rules
or points' to look out for.
I've not done a whole lot in PG - it's faster to test out than
Flanders, but slower than the tape/braid laces, and speed has become an
important factor recently - and my best pattern hadn't even been
published, except as a photo on my website (Fragrance, in the
non-series, '00-'03), but, for what it's worth...
Unless you're trying to stay within the parameters of a particular
version of PG (Tonder, Beveren, Bucks, etc), there are no rules; you
make your own :)
Does anyone know of books that give pointers on designing in the point
ground
laces?
Pamela Nottingham's "The Technique of Bucks Point Lace" does, probably,
the most comprehensive job of of it, but it is limited to the
techniques used by Bucks, which, in practice, means the exclusion of
things like the "gimp loop". Karen Trend Nissen's "Toenderknipling 3"
explains a lot about drafting patterns also, but she's not only
limiting the explanations to the techniques used by Toender version;
she's also talking mostly about reproducing patterns from exisiting old
laces (Nottingham has a section on that too, BTW). Though reproducing
old patterns is as exacting a craft (for me, more exacting than
designing from scratch; can't do it to save my life <g>) as
designing...
I find it easiest - when an idea comes, that is <g> - to grab a piece
of graph paper and doodle the shape I want on it. I like the Tonder
proportions best (60), since they give me the most perfect honeycomb
hole (all sides even) as well as the most even net, but other grid
angles may be useful for some fillings. Steph Peters has different
grids on her website that one can download and print, if one's using
Windows. Sorry, don't have it bookmarked, since I'm a Mac user, but
I'm sure others do.
I then enlarge the whole thing to the point where I can draw lines
between the pin-dots, to diagram it. That gives me an overall idea of
what's likely to work on the pillow. Then I test it out on the pillow
(my spacial imagination has always ben a problem, so I can't always
imagine what the finished project will look like simply on the basis of
a diagram), annotating the diagram where the diagram didn't quite work,
and a pinhole has to be shifted a bit or the path of the pairs changed
to give a more pleasing visual effect. Then test the pattern out again,
on adjusted pricking.
Lots of people can do a lot of that work on the 'puter. I took one
course in 'puter design and decided that, trying to learn how to would
take more time than doing it by hand, especially since it's not
something I do often enough to remember from one project to the next; I
have trouble enough remembering how to upload pictures to the website
(and never mind removing them <g>), thank goodness my son can do some
of the website management long distance from CA <g>
Other "pointers"... Have as many PG-related books - with good diagrams
in them - on hand as you can. Doesn't matter (much) which technique the
book's about; you never know where you'll be able to find that perfect
solution to your technical problem, if you're designing "generic PG" :)
And practice, practice, practice... The more lace you've made, the more
you're likely to know ahead of time what's likely to work best (fewest
false starts).
I find the Bucks books the hardest to "transpose", because I have
serious problems with the left-right orientation, and Bucks has the
headside/footside reversed from my point of view. These have always
have to be tested out on the pillow first, and the diagrams re-made to
suit.
Good luck, and have fun; playing around with grids and fitting your
ideas into them may, sometimes, feel like you're confining the ideas by
straight jackets, but it is also very helpful in organising your
thoughts.
There, Allison A - a whole message without a single * <g>
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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