Jane said "Go back beyond that, though, and even at four or five years of age you would have been learning the lace of the town/region in which you lived"
No need to go back in time, just visit Camariñas in Spain, (and very probably other towns on the continent as well,) where lace is valued as an important part of their heritage,  and you can see children of 5, 6 and 7 working on complex guipure laces with very little help. Working fast at that, and chatting away to each other in exactly the same way they see their older sisters, mothers, grandmothers and aunts doing. Jacquie in Lincolnshire Sent from Samsung tablet -------- Original message -------- >From Jane Partridge <[email protected]> Date: 08/12/2013 14:42 (GMT+00:00) To [email protected] Subject [lace] Demonstrating For about the last century, most people have been making lace as a hobby rather than to earn a living, and have had some choice as to what lace to start with - some, because frequently that choice is dictated by the teacher to start with. Some teachers throw their hands up in horror if you even suggest starting with something other than braid lace or Torchon - probably because they are not used to teaching the beginner skills to progress to anything else. Go back beyond that, though, and even at four or five years of age you would have been learning the lace of the town/region in which you lived. In some places, like Honiton, and I suspect on the continent, that is still the case, but children would have started off learning the more complex laces - they would probably never have learned anything else! Some teachers like to make people think lace is difficult to learn in order to keep them coming to class, and not let them even think they could learn from books, DVDs or U-tube on their own. The first stage of learning to make lace is learning the self-confidence that tells you you can do it; after that, getting your hands to work the cross and twist movements, then to stop thinking about what you are doing and let your hands get on with the task - those are the difficult bits. Once that has clicked, then other than certain advanced techniques, the lace itself isn't all that complicated! In message <893662BF2DDA426AB8F380939BCD0A61@Cecily>, Lyn Bailey <[email protected]> writes > While it is possible, I know of no one who started in Binche. > -- Jane Partridge - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/ - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
