How far back would be 'olden times'? If you are going back before about 1800, the laces were made mainly with linen thread. I don't think linen stretches and shrinks like cotton. Setting 'in the pins' would not have been a concern.
The cotton became commercially viable about 1800, and was softer. It was also smoother than linen thread so worked better on the machine laces. It became popular for the softness (as well as being much less expensive) and because it was 'new' on the fashion scene. Not especially 'better'.... just 'new'. The type of lace being made can affect the need to 'set in pins' or not. Also the particular type of thread being used in important. Some cottons are fairly tightly twisted and don't stretch/shrink like the more loosely twisted threads. How closely packed, or open, the spaces between pins are in the pattern will also affect how well the lace holds it's shape. I don't worry about pinning when working on my travel pillow with a small roller. It takes a couple hours or so to work the distance the pins cover so all the lace will have at least 2-3 hours of pinning. When making lace through an all-day meeting, I could work through the length of the pins 2-4 times. I never noticed a difference in the strip of lace when it was all off the pins. If the edging is a wide one, it takes long enough to do a section the depth of the pinned area that it is automatically 'set' by the time the pins are moved forward. If I'm doing a small item/motif, I leave at least the edges pinned until the entire thing is done...and then usually leave it over night before unpinning. A bookmark with a tassel does benefit from having the threads stretched out for a while, or the tassel end would be all curls from being around the bobbins. On the other hand, when I was making roses in quantity, I would remove them from the pillow when finished. They would be starched, and then rolled into shape, so any irregularity in the lace would be completely hidden. Your personal amount of tension would also be an important factor. I work with a fairly tight tension so see a definite shrinkage in many laces when out of the pins. If my mother had lived long enough to learn to make lace, her lace would probably not have shrunk at all. She used a very loose tension on all her fiber crafts. (When she tried to match my knitting, she had to drop down about three needle sizes for our work to match.) So, as someone else said, you'll have to try both ways yourself and see what happens. You may or may not benefit from leaving finished projects in the pins for a few hours. If in doubt, let it sit a while. It won't hurt anything, and may help some projects. There's more than one way to do things, and often they are all correct. Happy lacing, Alice in Oregon -- out of the fog and facing alternating sun and rain this week. Still cold. ----- Original Message ---- From: Dee Palin <[email protected]> Surely in the 'olden days' when ladies were making lace to earn money, they didn't have time to leave their lace to set, or the luxury of loads of pins to leave in the completed part? - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]
