The question of why the footside of yardage lace is either on the right (mainly English laces) or on the left (mainly European continent laces) has come up regularly over the years and no-one seems to have a definitive answer other than the Brits do everything the other way around from their continental cousins.
I have a personal theory, so I take full blame if I am proved wrong. When I first learned to make bobbin lace in England in the late 1970's, photocopy machines were still a rarity so we were taught to trace the pricking from a book and then prick it through onto card and transfer the marking. However, at various lace days it was acceptable to ask a lacemaker for a copy of her pricking and the way to do it was to take a rubbing of the reverse side of the pricking. I still have some rubbings from those days and my piece of heelbore from the local cobbler. For a torchon pricking you can usually use it either way up with the pricking on left or right but with Bucks Point, or similar, with floral designs, it did make a difference and the way to get the design the right way up was to put the footside on the other side. For fairly simple designs, even a flower can be made either way up but for more complex designs it can be quite difficult. So my theory is that when the Mechlin and Lille lacemakers fled to England , they either took rubbings of their prickings or allowed rubbings to be taken from their prickings in their new country and the quickest and easiest way to make up these designs was to change the side of the footside. I hope that this makes sense and if anyone has problems with my theory I am willing to listen. Lace greetings from Janis in South Africa where the sun is shining again today after some serious rain in the past week. - 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/
