Dear Clay, and all--
I might be sent out of Arachne altogether for owning up to this, but
what I did before I became a lacemaker was -- nothing to do with
textiles. I was a practicing psychologist and psychoanalyst, and in
my spare time which I had very little of, I was a writer (numberless
short stories, and a novel [publ by Wm. Morrow, reprinted in England
bu H. Hamilton, and into paperback by Avon]. I did, though, sometimes
make my own clothes.
What I really did a lot of was: hanker. I dreamed of some day
learning how to make lace. I had tried, at about age ten or twelve,
to follow the description in the Children's Encyclopedia, in which
they described how lace was made: threads wound around a design
outlined by pins. Of course that didn't work!
When I came to live in Baltimore (age 50) I made friends with a
famous weaver (Sylvia Pocock, now long gone) who confessed that she
too had been wanting for years to make lace. We looked and inquired
and left no stone unturned, and lo! we came upon an ancient lady,
Elizabeth Kackenmeister (also a famous weaver) who knew how to make
lace, and gave us one lesson a month when she came into this area for
meetings of the organization "Twenty Weavers."
Ah, but once into it! I wrote to Doreen Wright; went to England to
get lessons from her (the experience of a lifetime quite apart from
the lacemaking!); got sent to Pam Nottingham, who taught me Bucks and
changed my life; found Elsie Luxton and Cynthia Voysey... and all of
that brought me into my real world, which is where I am now and have
been since this story began.
It may be of interest to know that my son, a practicing cardiologist,
ambled by my pillow one day; picked up a handful of bobbins as he
passed by; borrowed a copy of Stott's lacemaking for beginners; and
lo! again. A very presentable bookmark appeared.
Fun!
Aurelia
Catonsville, Maryland
I'll be curious to hear what others do in addition to their lacemaking!
Clay
--
Clay Blackwell
Lynchburg, VA USA
-
To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line:
unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
