On May 13, 2006, at 20:43, Celtic Dream Weaver (Sherry) wrote:
I have been more productive lately in making Milanese Lace. I
have done Louise Colgan's butterfly and heart pattern now...as well as
the hummingbird pattern that was with my DVD. I have found that
Louise's DVD to be a great resource for my Milanese challenges. I have
found that now that I know more of what I am suppose to be doing that
I love Milanese Lace.
Good job, Sherry! You sure got a lot more practice making leaf tallies
than Colgan had planned :)
So what is everybody else up to?
Sent off a pattern (more wireworks <g>) to Debra (IOLI Bulletin's
Editor) yesterday, meeting the deadline "by the skin of my teeth" -- as
usual. I hate deadlines but, if I didn't have them, I'd probably never
get anything _done_; I always seem to have more ideas than willpower :)
With this behind me, and a fairly good idea of what I'll be doing for
the next one (3 months away, hurrah! <g>), I decided to reward myself
with a "no-brainer" -- a project where _someone else_ had done all the
thinking, and the sampling, and the drawing and the
instructions-writing... That's how I spell relief :)
So I pulled out one of the "old" Lenka Suchanek's patterns -- the
Flower Girl (Transparent Sculpture #3). I think I have all of those --
bought either in a kit form or as a pattern -- but have never made any,
and felt it was time. The original -- a kit -- was all red (dress, hair
and bouquet), with clear (transparent) beads. To make the piece "mine",
I decided to change the colours (anyway, the red wire originally
included in the kit had been scavenged, for other projects, long ago
<g>).
Started the skirt today -- medium blue, with silver beads. The
instructions say that the skirt can be done either one segment at a
time or 3 at a time (there are 6 segments altogether) and joined later
on. I decided straight off that 6 individual segments (_and 5 joinings_
Yuck.) was more than I was willing to contemplate, even for the
pleasure of working with very few pairs at a time. So I planned to make
the skirt in two parts (a single join).
But, as I started hanging in and working in the new pairs, I realized
that the pairs, having done their diagonal or vertical trip, were
discarded. Surely, they can then be re-wound and re-hung later on? So
now the plan is to make the entire skirt without any joins. It will
require more pairs working at once than a half-skirt would, but not
double the number. Quite "do-able".
The positive side of this solution: I'm avoiding the "down the middle"
join. Which means that all segments will be uniform, instead of having
a slightly "off" join in the middle (I don't like a central seam down
my skirts in "real time", either). Especially after I'd figured out how
to make "seamless segments", which incorporate the vertical pairs into
the work (instead of adding them later, as shown in the diagrams)... I
hate to waste the time thinking and then not use the results of the
effort :)
The negative side: I'll have to move the pricking at some point. I'd
set up the project on my big square pillow to get the largest flat area
possible, and the square pillow "doesn't like" to be turned, while,
OTOH, the skirt is "somewhat circular" (probably built on a quarter of
a circle). Currently, the pricking is positioned to give me excellent
access to the half skirt I'd planned on originally, but the other half
looks tricky, if not downright iffy. Thankfully, moving
lace-in-progress is much easier when one is working in wire than when
one is working in thread...
I'm ready to start hanging in for the 4th segment tomorrow, and the
pairs used in the 1st are about to be turned (and discarded shortly
after). I can hardly wait; working on someone else's pattern is
_sooooo_ much easier than working on one's own and so much more fun...
I guess the only comparable pleasure would be being a lawmaker
(Congressman, Member of Parliament, etc) and spending someone else's
(mine) money on a favourite project :)
I suppose everyone else -- at least on this hemsphere -- is also
enjoying the longer lacemaking days? The list has been fairly quiet.
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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