I am of two minds on the whole demonstration idea. On the one hand a simple piece like the snake or fish that a visitor could work is a nice idea. On the other hand, I showed a photo of my daughter working the snake to her grade school teacher, and the teacher, puzzled, said, "where is the lace". A pillow with a clearly identifiable looking lace and lots of bobbins draws people to the demonstration, along with photographers looking for a good photo op. As Jeri says, one solution is multiple demonstrators. I guess another question is, what is the message we are trying to send and who are the people we are trying to influence. Are we looking to introduce bobbin lace technique to children who are looking for a new way to make friendship bracelets and lanyards, for which much simpler techniques perform quite adequately. Or are we looking to introduce it to people who want to take on a difficult and unusual craft that no one else does? A frequent source of inductees to lace are people who do historical re-enactments and really like a difficult and authentic craft. I sometimes wonder if it is a good idea to make lacemaking look simple, because then we are drawing in a group of people who are looking for something simple to do and we really can't deliver on that promise. At one point someone came to a lace class that we were having and said that she had been told that there were really only two stitches, cross and twist and that after you learned how to do them you could do anything. We were a little stunned and the teacher didn't know how to proceed with this idea. Devon
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