My thoughts on the subject -- a bit long, so delete at your leisure.
> > 1) Winding bobbins > > 2) Final sewing together > > 3) Tallies (leaves, squares, triangles, any other > type) Hate??? None of these do I hate. Each is a function of lacemaking that needs to be learned. When first learned, each takes concentration. If no one claimed they were hard, they would each just be a step on the ladder of learning -- on the way to the next step. In the beginning, winding bobbins seemed to take a long time because I was eager to work on the lace. I learned to wind with a string to greatly speed up the process. Now I find that winding under a yard is as easy by hand as setting up a winder. Though I am known for taking bobbins to meetings and winding longer amounts while listening to tedious discussions at church. The other factor on winding bobbins is that I have several projects going. I can wind bobbins at my leisure for a future project. I can pick and choose my winding times. When I had only one pillow, I had to wind, etc, before I could again make lace -- thus prime lacing time was spent on the routine chores. The same thing with pricking patterns. This can seem like it takes forever if you're eager to get started on the lace. When planning projects in advance, pricking can be done in small doses and at times of your choice. Tallies are cloth stitch variations. I think there may have been too much said about them being hard. Sure -- perfect shapes take practice but you can make acceptable ones a lot sooner than the acclaimed 1000. Use temporary pins at the corners of your square tallies until you get the feel of it. Have the worker end on the opposite side than it started. Leaf tallies are controlled by the angles of your edge passives. Set up a practice pillow with two pair and just try using different angles. Keep the angle consistent the entire tally. Sewing together is a necessary skill. It's not really harder than other lace skills, just needing practice. It's only done once on a project, if done at all. We have to make a lot of lace to get a small amount of practice on sewing amd finishing. It also takes some time to learn the various methods available to us. It helps to just look at one pair at a time and deal with it the best you know how. Then do another pair. Take a break, a drink, a walk -- then do the next pair. One pair at a time is not a big chore. I have to tell my finishing tale. I made a hanky edging that started and ended on a corner (though I prefer patterns that start other places). I did the sewings all across it with one method. The more I looked at it, the more I disliked the result. All the knots were carefully unpicked. I did the sewings a different way, cut the bobbins off the threads leaving tails to weave in, and removed the pins. The sewn corner did not match the other three. I finally figured out that one row was missing. After a few days of muttering, I repinned the lace, unpicked all the knots for the second time, tied my bobbins back on all the cut threads, moved the beginning lace over a row where it should have been, did the missing row and tied off everything for the third time. Somehow, after that, other sewings have seemed fairly easy.<G> If you have read this far without falling asleep, I think what I hate is my thread breaking right at a pin with no tail. And my thread running out a half inch from the end of the project. And -- most of all right now -- my left hand too sore and weak to use. One-handed lace is very slow but I've done 5 inches of a rose and got the bobbins reset to do another one. Alice in Oregon -- hoping to get out of this hard cast and into a brace this week. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
