I read only the front-page news and the business section; DH reads the whole paper... When he comes accross something "lacy", he leaves the relevant page, face up, at my place on the kitchen table to find whenever convenient.
In today's (Thursday, January 26), House & Home section (D), in the upper right corner of "Currents" by Marianne Rorhrlich, there's a snippet, titled "Dinnerware": "Adding Lace to the Table (But Not With a Cloth) Lace may seem like an unexpected motif for ceramicplates, but now that designers are recycling formerly fusty flourishes into fresh looks, it makes perfect sense. And Parisienne chargers, handmade in France with textured white-on-charcoal lace patterns, are certainly one way to fancy up a classic white plate. The chargers, 13 inches in diameter, come in three patterns -- raisins (above), Mantille and Seville -- and like most lace must be washed by hand; $98 each at anthropologie.com" "Formerly Fusty Flourishes"???? As opposed to "Fresh looks"???? The lady is, obviously, indulging in a bout of alliterative fancy but, still... Even as a card-carrying member of International OLD Lacers I'm mortally oFFended :) I have no idea as to what a "charger" might be (outside a medieval battlefield) but assume it's an "underplate"; the "thingie" -- solid gold in the case of some royals -- which was put under the fancy china to protect the (equally fancy) tablecloth from spills and which remained in place throughout the dinner, even as the top plates were changed. The (pictured) "Raisins" seems to be a fragment of a larger piece, which looks to be tatted (little circles ad infinitum). I have been unable to find the snippet on line via any search I could think of; all searches result in the same response: "no results in paid death notices" (helloooo? A bit premature? Amusing, all the same <g>) A search for the website produced: http://www.anthropologie.com/jump.jsp?itemID=1172&itemType=CATEGORY #3 from the left, listed as "Seville", is the one pictured in NYTimes as "Raisins"; *someone* has their wires crossed :) The idea of incorporating an imprint of lace (or anything else) in a clay/porcelain object is nothing new; even in our little town one can buy plates and bowls sporting such imprints. I haven't checked the price recently, but it used to be a lot cheaper than nearly a 100 bucks per, not surprisingly; the same piece of lace can be reused many times... By the same token, the claim of each piece being "one-of-a-kind" is a Tiny-Tad _stretched_ (pun intended) ; the differences come from different positioning, not different lace. As far as I'm concerned, the two glasses I got from one of the German suppliers (with "tape" lace "painted" on top (can't remember who it was I got them from) were a much better deal, at something like $6 per glass (including shipping, I think). And to come back to the idea of using lace imprinted in ceramic dinnerware... I just received (serendipity <g>) a message, from a lacemaker, on the very same subject, and am cc-ing my "article" to her, in case she's missed it on the list... :) Cherry, please send your -- very interesting -- input to the list. -- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) =============================================== Dear Spiders, I got a delayed look at this item because my email software put it in the Out of the Office file. Anyway, from where I sit, the lace is, how to put it gently, probably all Schiffli. It looks to be old and the last one looks like Schiffli in imitation of Irish Crochet. The first one with a zillion little circles is definitely Schiffli, not tatting -- I can't see any stitches in it at all. The second seems to be equally old, with the very early 20th century grape motif. I was quite deflated to see that it isn't even handmade lace that costs almost $100 a plate. They do get fanciful with those names, don't they? Raisin is Ok for the grape motif, but where did they get the other names? Sigh, not only somewhat un-elevated lace, but insults besides. Patty - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
