Dear All, I agree with both types from what I have seen in my museum, but I wondered if it was just the level of skill in my country area, where people were mainly concerned with surviving the elements. The crochetting and knitted lace though are amazing. (Also in line with the country of origin of the people who settled here, mainly anglo saxon.)
I wonder if our desire for uniformity in tension has stifled the charm of old fashioned lace? Maybe we are too exact, and produce work with the precision of machines? And are either of those things good things for lace in general? Have we lost some diversity along the way? Is evolution of lace and other handicrafts a good thing? I'm not sure I agree about the fine thread being the problem. I think maybe time constraints were part of it. Where we would pull out a row and do it again, they might not have had time to do it. And we can stop when we feel tired, they were often working very long hours, and may have had to milk or knead dough or other heavy hands-on chores before lacing. They simply may not have had the power and control left in their hands. It's the control that gives you the tension with needlelace, not so much the seeing, because if you were not able to see the bundles of stitches clearly you would be putting the needle in anywhere and the piece would be full of mistakes, not just wobbly. I have thought too that some of my museum pieces have suffered from shrinkage of the foundation threads and tapes over the years, and that has taken some of the tension off, making the fillings go wobbly. Wish this fog would go away. Heartily tired of winter. Rochelle. --- Brenda Paternoster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think that's true of BL too. If you take a piece > of fine, old lace, > photograph and enlarge it and compare to similar but > coarser, well made > modern lace you nearly always find that the modern > stuff is neater - > even allowing for the fact that the old lace may > have been washed a > number of times. > > Brenda > > On 26 Jul 2006, at 19:07, Alice Howell wrote: > > > I heard a comment recently that I wanted to put > before > > this group. > > > > "Modern needlelacers are better needlelacers than > the > > ones in the past." > > > > The reason was that we are using thread that is > large > > enough to see each stitch, so we strive to make > the > > stitches very precise, neat and uniform. The > workers > > who made lace with the very tiny thread in the > past > > could not see the individual stitches and thus did > not > > make them as neatly. It was the masses of > stitches in > > a cluster that was seen. > > > > Comments please. What do you experienced > needlelacers > > say to this? > > > > Alice in Oregon -- getting ready for a newspaper > > interview tomorrow. And then the marathon of > county fair. > > > > - > > To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > containing the line: > > unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, > write to > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > Brenda > http://paternoster.orpheusweb.co.uk/ > > - > To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > containing the line: > unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write > to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > --- Rochelle Sutherland & Lachlan (7 yrs), Duncan (6 yrs) and Iain (5 yrs) www.houseofhadrian.com.au Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
