On Jan 1, 2007, at 13:33, Adele Shaak wrote:
I have spent some time this holiday trying to make a pattern of an old piece of lace from a photograph in a book. Does anyone have any tips for this?
Ouch. Doing it from a photo is even harder than doing it from a piece of lace (unless the photo is fairly large to begin with), because the lace had been through a "process" twice already (first: the photo, then the print). So, any fiddling (enlarging) is likely to make things murky really quickly. And the book I have (Rekonstruktion alter Spitzen/Reconstructing Old Lace) says that 200% enlargement (of the lace) is a minimum, with "400% or greater" recommended for "delicate laces" (the pattern will then be reduced, once all the drawing is done). That's so you'll have enough room to draw in the pairs (each one a single line) wherever it's possible (ie visible or guess-ible).
But I am determined, so what I have done this time is scan it and enlarge it so it fills the page, then I drew around the figures (it's one of the laces where there are several trails making up a deep scallop) and then I shrank the line drawing to what I think is an appropriate size for the lace.
You were on the right track -- at least according to the book -- all the way until you shrank it back prematurely :) The "shape lines" (either gimp or the ring pair) are drawn first and pinholes marked if they can be guessed at. Then you draw in the ground, which tells you how many pairs to feed into and out of your trail/motif. Then you draw the pairs within the trail/motif making sure that the lines end up being continuous (what goes in must go out). Then you true the drawing by cutting it and either overlapping bits or else leaving them apart to be re-connected -- so that not only the pairs are continuous but the edges are straight and equidistant...
The whole process looks fascinating but scary at the same time. So I'm pulling the book out periodically to look at and digest, but haven't actually tried to apply any of the wisdoms contained therein :)
One bit of advice the authors offer which even I -- with my 2 brain cells -- could understand and see the reason for is this: tape your tracing paper to your enlarged copy at the top only, so you can lift it up and slide another piece of tracing paper underneath. The second piece makes your tracing stand out more (you can see the lines you've drawn better) but, whenever you come to a head-scratching bit, you can pull it out and place your drawing piece directly on the photocopy (and apply a magnifier if necessary) for greater clarity.
It is quite a complex piece of lace and I don't know if I'll be able to do it but will let you know how it goes.
Good luck and do let us know how it goes. I hope it goes well; it should, between your determination and New Year being a good time to embark on new projects...
Yours, still playing around with her new toy (HP Color Laser Jet CM1015 MFP) which not only prints things out *clearly* (unlike the unlamented Brother ink jet) and in colour but has a scanner which I was able to make work all by myself (Danek being away for a few days). Still. I like the photocopy feature *much* better than the scan feature. The scan feature is much less reliable as to size *and* clarity (at least in my -- puter helpless -- hands <g>)
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
