[lace] Win a trip to Estonia
To those readers who would like a chance to win a trip to Estonia this summer, the Spring Quiz is on-line. May 31st is last date to enter. http://quiz.mfa.ee/ Have fun a Happy Easter to everyone, Pene Piip in the University City of Tartu, southern Estonia - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Lace Guild Website update
The cobbler's children are always the worst shod, but, earlier this year we got round to setting up Jean's own website. The result has been a delay in updating The Lace Guild site (now in its 10th year) but we've now got round to mounting some extracts from the January issue of Lace, and we've also updated the Lace Day listings. Jean and David in Glasgow -- Lace Guild home page: http://www.laceguild.org (alternative if problems: http://www.laceguild.demon.co.uk/) - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Le Pompe book 2 - long
I was delighted to read Amanda's reference to book 2 of Le Pompe being available in full on the Professor's site (at http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/books/pompe2.pdf) both to have the resource and to be able to clear something from my draft file. I've only just been able to catch up on past postings in the lull before the storm (next weekend's Lace Guild convention), and have particularly enjoyed the thread, from February, on recreating 16th century lace, including thoughts on the Le Pompe laces. The thread was started by Orla's enquiries and experiments, and at first finished with Nelleke's superb work (on http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003-date). I've also only just been able to catch up with Jean's and Gil's articles in the latest Lace Guild magazine, which were fortuitously very relevant, on freehand lace and reconstructing historic (Lady Drake's) lace; however, I hope this latest reference justifies me pursuing some loose ends from the original thread, so to speak. Firstly, a useful resource in reconstructing these laces is Gil's Elizabethan Lace ISBN 0 9522709 3 5, which provides alternative methods to those in the Ruth bean reprint of Le Pompe vol. 1 - as Orla said (and showed!) you need to work out your own ways, but it is useful to have as many other versions to inspire - we stand on giants' shoulders. There was some debate on what metal thread was used. There is a length of plaited Le Pompe style lace made with gold and silver thread at Hardwick Hall, dated by Santina Levy to the mid-16th century in her book An Elizabethan Inheritance The Hardwick Hall Textiles, ISBN 0 7078 0249 0 (pic. p.31). Having seen it, it looks as though it's made with what I would call Jap, where the metal foil is on very fine paper, originally rice paper, wound around a silk core (which shows through where the foil has cracked on a sharp corner). Bess of Hardwick was buying such lace, English made, by 1550, according Santina's research. She also seems to have been buying this sort of metal thread - (p.41) in 1548 Bess bought for the embroiderer (she employed various men at different times for metal and other embroidery done by professionals, some becoming temporary members of her household) one pound in weight of gold and another of silver, each costing £3 6s, more than the annual salary of all but the highest paid of Cavendish's (her husband at the time) servants. As the gold and silver thread cost the same, it would tie in with Jap, where there is very little metal content, with the paper and silk, and gold leaf is far thinner than silver. The book, published by the UK National Trust, will delight anyone interested in the textiles of the period, or the life of a somewhat formidable Elizabethan lady. Mary Queen of Scots was a reluctant guest at Hardwick Hall, and both ladies embroidered themselves, as well as getting men in for the heavy work! Tamara commented that the wood cuts' accuracy is brought out by using them - they make very accurate prickings. We then went on to consider whether prickings were originally used for all, or whether the plaited ones could be worked freehand - I think jury still out! However, looking at the new selection, and indeed the old ones again, it's noticeable that some have white holes in the black plaits at junctions only in a few places, suggesting to me that the author expected pins to be used sometimes, and sometimes not. One other thing the author has done which I found helpful with the few of those I've played with is that the thickness of the lines indicates whether it's a four-bobbin or thicker plait - though that hasn't helped me with Gil's challenge, the pattern on page 7 of book 1. Has anyone cracked it? I had asked Santina about it, and she said she hadn't, but if I was automatically assuming bobbins always worked in pairs, I could be wrong, and she sent me a photo of a similar, though simpler, piece, in which the triangular tallies had at least 10 threads, and were used as a reservoir to carry them from one section to another, and some of the pliats look like 3-threaders. It didn't help, but raised my respect for the original even higher. [EMAIL PROTECTED], in London ___ What kind of emailer are you? Find out today - get a free analysis of your email personality. Take the quiz at the Yahoo! Mail Championship. http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Re: Le Pompe book 2 - long
On Apr 7, 2007, at 17:38, Leonard Bazar wrote: Tamara commented that the wood cuts' accuracy is brought out by using them - they make very accurate prickings. I'm reconstructing a (plaited, mostly) piece from LPII for the next Bulletin and I tried to true the pricking and bring it up to modern standard (ie pin-dots instead of pin-loops as markers for picots, etc). After several tries, I finally gave up. Maybe the woodcut can be improved using a computer design program but, sure as sure, I was unable to even approximate its accuracy, doing it with pencil and tracing and graph papers. And, a modern pricking has a whole lot *less information* contained within; that's probably one of the reasons we need diagrams. I ended up cutting out one segment which *had* a serious mistake (IMO, based on the fact that out of 4 identical elements it was the only one where the threads travelled in the other direction) and piecing the rest together. And I needed to re-space a couple of picots and put in one which the carver had missed. And that's for publication; for myself, I worked on the woodcut as is; by the time I got to the messed up part, I could recognize it as a mess up, because I was beginning to understand the pattern. I had a bit of trouble correcting it but that was *because* I was working on a pre-pricked pricking :) When I pre-pricked, I didn't notice it; consequently, the holes (winkie-pins) were in the wrong places. But they were off only by a millimeter or so; when I tried to prick right next to them, I ended up with larger -- and less reliable -- holes. If a skilled lacemaker were working without a pricking, directly on a pillow, that wouldn't have been an issue at all. We then went on to consider whether prickings were originally used for all, or whether the plaited ones could be worked freehand - I think jury still out! The above is one reason why I think that chances are the lace had been made without a pricking. Reason 2: if you used a page of the book as a pricking, you'd be spoiling the obverse for any future use. Books were expensive, even though no longer as expensive as they had been before the printing press was invented. Reason 3: if you made a long piece of the lace, you'd need two prickings, to leap-frog. Reason 4: the break in the pattern doesn't overlap, ie you can't just fit new pricking below the old one and continue working -- the beginning and the end don't match, either abutting or overlaping. And, of course, there's the matter of enlarging/reducing the pattern depending on what its use is to be and the thread used; if you use the woodcut as a pricking, you're locked into whatever size it happens to be in the book. And to give you some comparison: in the Levey/Payne edition (all of Book I and selected pages from Book II) the prickings are 119% of the ones I got in a reprint of the reprint of the Vienna edition of Book II. If they used prickings at all, it would not have been the woodcuts. It would have been home-made drawings on parchment. And, unless every lacemaker was an accomplished draftsman as well, it might have been more trouble (and expense) than profit. However, looking at the new selection, and indeed the old ones again, it's noticeable that some have white holes in the black plaits at junctions only in a few places, suggesting to me that the author expected pins to be used sometimes, and sometimes not. I think those junction holes (and identical ones not at junctions) aren't so much pin-holes as real holes, ie achieved by manipulation of threads (two workers working ot from the centre, or a twist on the worker, etc). Those laces have enough picots on them to hold the lace down and under tension. Any pins at junctions are likely to have been temporary *supporting* pins, ie pins which were placed under a stitch (a la Point Ground), not in the middle of a stitch (a la modern Torchon ground). Those pins would have left no trace behind them. One other thing the author has done which I found helpful with the few of those I've played with is that the thickness of the lines indicates whether it's a four-bobbin or thicker plait Sometimes it does. Sometimes you can get fooled (I did; will be writing all about it in the Summer issue of the IOLI Bulletin g)... - though that hasn't helped me with Gil's challenge, the pattern on page 7 of book 1. Has anyone cracked it? I've been eying that one for a while; not because of Gil's book (which I have yet to get), but because I like it. But it has s many pairs... 64 if you assume the plaits are 2-pair; 93 pairs, if you assume that each plait/tape is a 3-pair one (the lines in the woodcut are pretty uniform in thickness). But, if you made only one section (and reduced the number of bobbins), you'd lose one (or two) points of interest (the rosettes in the middle of squares, like the ones with tallies), unless you had a 3 rosette-in-a-square repeat.
[lace-chat] Win a trip to Estonia
To those readers who would like a chance to win a trip to Estonia this summer, the Spring Quiz is on-line. May 31st is last date to enter. http://quiz.mfa.ee/ Have fun a Happy Easter to everyone, Pene Piip in the University City of Tartu, southern Estonia To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] Murphy's Other Laws
Murphy's Other Laws 1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. 2. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well. 3. He who laughs last, thinks slowest. 4. A day without sunshine is like, well, night. 5. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine. 6. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't. 7. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool. 8. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong. 9. It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end-to-end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them. 10. If the shoe fits, get another one just like it. 11. The things that come to those who wait, may be the things left by those who got there first. 12. Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries. 13. The shin bone is a device for finding furniture. 15. When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. -- Thoughts for the weekend Wouldn't it be nice if whenever we messed up our life we could simply press 'Ctr Alt Delete' and start all over? Just remember, if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off. If raising children was going to be easy, it never would have started with something called labor! Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever. Ponderisms The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement. Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway. In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal. How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire? Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out? Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup? David in Ballarat To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] Quotation in Le Pompe book
On the title page of the Le Pompe book ( page 5 of 35 on my PC) there is this quotation: Opera non men bella, chi vtile, neccesaria, Et non piu venduta in luce Anyone fluent in Latin, what does it mean? I have made my own conclusions but I sometimes add two and two and get five!! The German text I can understand but the Latin is Greek to me!! Jeanette Fischer, Western Cape, South Africa. To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Italian quote in Le Pompe book
Hi Jeanette and everyone I made an attempt to translate on-line via babelfish, got better results when I realized it is Italian rather than Latin (you get a point for being close!). The text is Opera non men bella, che utile, necessaria, et non piu venduta in luce. So, something like: Beautiful work not men (than) useful and necessary, and (piu) (did not translate, best guess - word related to pious, godly?) not sold in light. Does this help? Can you rework the translation for a better meaning. On the title page of the Le Pompe book ( page 5 of 35 on my PC) there is this quotation: Opera non men bella, chi vtile, neccesaria, Et non piu venduta in luce Anyone fluent in Latin, what does it mean? Bev in Sooke BC (on Vancouver Island, beautiful even in the rain, west coast of Canada) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Italian quote in Le Pompe book
On Apr 7, 2007, at 20:41, Bev Walker wrote: Hi Jeanette and everyone I made an attempt to translate on-line via babelfish, got better results when I realized it is Italian rather than Latin (you get a point for being close!). The text is Opera non men bella, che utile, necessaria, et non piu venduta in luce. So, something like: Beautiful work not men (than) useful and necessary, and (piu) (did not translate, best guess - word related to pious, godly?) not sold in light. Does this help? Can you rework the translation for a better meaning. My Italian is even worse than my Latin, which is bad/rusted enough (though I did realise it was an Italian, not Latin, quote, because it's lux in Latin, not luce), but I seem to remember that piu is either little or more. men is what has me stumped though; just doesn't sound either Latin or Italian :) Of course, I've never even seen old Italian, except in those pattern book dedications... It's not venduta; it's veduta -- in both books (ie, not a typo). I have no clue what it means, though it's less likely to be connected to selling. And I think opera is plural (works)... I think it's, probably, something like works not merely beautiful, but useful and necessary, or works as useful and necessary as they're beautiful, though I wouldn't stake my reputation on it :) Yeah, I know che is usually translated as than, but it can as easily be used as as/like -- in a comparison . -- Tamara P Duvallhttp://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
