I agree with Sue's comments that Binche will keep your brain working! It does require more concentration and ability to follow a working diagram. But in the end it is still Cross and Twist. I actually enjoy the medallion pieces found in Collection I and also Anny Noben-Slegers many designs. They start at the top, no sewings and then just finish at the bottom. When they are done, they are DONE! No joining or attaching to fabric.
Shirlee, like you I had dabbled in Torchon, Bucks, Bloemwork and various other lace patterns here and there. Then I saw a photo of "The Tournament" in an issue of IOLI bulletin. I believe it had been in the display room for the convention. I fell in love with that piece and was determined to learn Binche. Sadly there doesn't seem to be a good beginning step-by-step instruction book for Binche like there are for other laces. I did purchase the Syllabus Binche series (the Tournament is the final pattern in III). I also found Vera Cockuyt's "Binche: An Introduction" to be very helpful and Mary Niven's "Flanders Lace". I agree with Adele's comments about more Flanders books being available and learning the concepts of Flanders ground which uses 4 pairs instead of 2 and also learning how to do the cloth stitch areas. Most importantly, you need to be able to follow the colored working diagram. I also use Sue's method of using pins in the working diagram to keep track of what I have worked and not. I pin a copy of my diagram to a cloth covered piece of styrofoam and use glass headed pins for markers. If there is a pin prick on an intersection I know I've completed that stitch. The more familiar you become with working the lace the fewer the pins and pinpricks you will need! Some people use those post-it arrows. I jumped right in to working some sample strips of the various snowflake grounds, Flanders ground and Paris ground. Then I just picked a pattern, one from Kumiko Nakazaki's Memorie's folder. I believe I enlarged the pattern so I could use 70/2 Egyptian cotton instead of the finer threads used in Binche. IMO the difficulty of Binche is that pairs travel here, there and everywhere across the pattern. Hence the need to pay close attention to your working diagram. You can be happily working on a leaf on the right side of your medallion only to find out that you now need a pair that needs to come from waaaay over on the left. Considering that even the smallest Binche design uses a fair amount (i.e. dozens and dozens if not hundreds!) of pairs of bobbins, you now have to stop working mid-leaf to shift everything around so you can go work on the left side for awhile. Binche may or may not be everyone's cuppa tea, but you'll never know until you try! Anita Hansen Cedar Rapids, Iowa _________________________________________________________________ Earn cashback on your purchases with Live Search - the search that pays you back! http://search.live.com/cashback/?&pkw=form=MIJAAF/publ=HMTGL/crea=earncashback - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
