Jenny - I thought the Spanish pillow was flat at the back. At least that is what I saw in La Coruna last year and before that on books. In fact I made myself a "half sausage pillow" trying to combine our Maltese sausage shape with the flat Spanish back (so that the pillow doesn't roll around when working). Now I am trying to find some time to make a similar pillow with movable blocks in the middle to save moving the lace so often. Karen in Malta
-----Original Message----- From: Jenny De Angelis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 9:43 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [email protected] Subject: lace] Re: interesting book (category) on eBay... ; Karen in Malta wrote:- <<I have also printed the pictures of the three plait crossing. It looks so pretty that I would be reluctant to tighten it up. I wonder if there would be a successful way of leaving this crossing as shown i.e. not tightened, but left wide to look like it is in the picture. I have looked through the pictures and one of the pillows, the one with millions of bobbins hanging on it (no, ok, hundreds). These are tied in groups and hung to the pillow and this seems to me to be a Maltese pillow. Karen in Malta >> The Three Plait crossing is in Pamela Nottingham's book of The Techniques of Bobbin Lace but it is called a 6 pair crossing, it does look nice before it is closed up around the pin. Whenever I have to do one of these crossings I have to get out the book and follow the instructions as it is the most difficult crossing I have come across in lacemaking, I can never remember how it goes. The pictures of pillows and bobbins contained in those books on e.bay look to me to be from France and Spain as well as England. There are some bobbins shown in a group which reminded me of those from Denmark, Long slim shanks with bulbous bottom ends and beads around the bulb. The Long sausage shaped pillow looks to me like a Spanish pillow. This is exactly the way the ladies here in Spain work, when they have a great number of bobbins on their pillow they tie those not in use at the moment in bundles with tape or elastic and keep the bundle to one side of the pillow with divider pins. The bobbins in use are always held in the hands to make the stitches and the pair that are to be cast to the side once the stitch is made are dropped to the side of the pillow ready for the next time they are needed and the pair to be brought in for the next stitch picked. I taught myself to work in this way when I first came to live here and quite enjoy the rythm of the work picking up and putting down the bobbins, which actions have also crept into my work when using my English pillow and bobbins, I have to stop myself picking up the bobbins work the stitches as doing so makes the lace rise up the pins when working on the flat. There look to be bobbins in the photos from England, Spain and some that look to me like Danish bobbins with their long slim shanks and round bulb at the bottom and with beads around the bulb. The very plainly turned bobbins in the picture to the far left of those Danish looking bobbins, on the long sausage shaped pillow, look very like the bobbins used here in Catalunya but could be from another part of Spain. You will find that Countries of Southern Europe tend to mostly use the long sausage pillow worked down it's length rather than around it's circumference. While countries in Northern Europe tended in the past to use the bolster pillow or flat pillow with the pattern worked around the circumference of the pillow. Women here in Spain working on those upright pillows often make fan leaves on them and you can imagine how many times the pattern has to be moved on the pillow in order to work the curve of the fan shape. I have never used my Spanish pillow for such a project, I couldn't face the challenge of all those moves, but made a fan shaped block pillow years ago especially for the purpose of making fan leaves. Regards Jenny DeAngelis Spain. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by NextWeb, and is believed to be clean. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
