We tend to start patterns one at a time, winding bobbins particularly for that pattern, and when we've done whatever length we want to work, be it for a sample or for a particular project (which may or not hide the ends in seams) we finish it off neatly and secure all ends with knots or whatever.
"Back in the day" they wouldn't have had time for such luxuries. Lace would be on the pillow, with a pattern started once - ages ago - with a length of completed lace cut off (literally, with scissors, as we would cut a length from a card of machine-made lace now) when the tally-man came to collect the lace and pay the cottage worker making it, leaving ends at the "start" not even in rolls, and the lace on the pillow continuing. How we hang in or finish off our lace has little relevance to those days, when lace was made and time wasted meant less bread on the table. Jane Partridge ________________________________________ From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of [email protected] <[email protected]> Sent: 30 January 2019 20:21 To: [email protected] Subject: [lace] Downton Lace Just finished my first tiny sample after noticing that this lace begins with a clump of single bobbins! I ended up with a start similar to Rosaline except with four groups of rolled bobbins instead of one. It's peculiar as there is no obvious place to hide the beginning tails when the work is complete. In Rosaline, the single tail gets cut off & the tuft is sort of sucked up into the back of the work. Since this is a straight strip, I put a knot in each tail & teased it down to meet the lace. Not sure how this would have been handled back in the day? Can only assume that any messy beginning would have been hidden in a seam. - 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/
