Fw: [lace] Before lace
My what I did before BL contains, knitting from about age 3 (more holes than stitches to begin with I would think). Learned to crochet in my 20's. Had been making many of my own clothes both knitted and sewing from about age 12. Made one of my sisters wedding dress in 1977 plus all her bridesmaids outfits (all 6 of us). Made outfits for our living history camping as well as 2 tents, a marque and a tipi from 1995 - 2006. Did a little embroidery, have tried tatting, but am failing miserably. Wanted to learn bobbin lace in the 1980's when I saw the kit but didn't buy it. Finally found one about 12 years later which I did buy. Tried to learn on my own from a book using sewing cotton but felt I didn't understand what I was doing and my husband searched for a video which he didn't find, but did find me a place to learn 2 hours each week. I thought I would learn to prepare bobbins and understand the half stitch and whole stitch and would be find to carry on on my own. Oh foolish me I started lessons in September 2001, 4 years later I had to stop going to lessons just before my teacher retired anyway. Just as I was on my last lesson, someone mention lace groups on the internet which sounded a weird thing, (how on earth could you learn bobbin lace on ine!!! - I have learned many things since, VBG It was 6 months after I stopped going and was really missing the social side of lacemaking lessons that I checked out and found the groups. Smart move. During my 4 years of lessons I began with Torchon, did some bedfordshire, found some cute tape lace pieces then onto bucks point and had two lessons in flanders lace. I promised myself I would continue to work through that book, but I am ashamed to say I haven't managed to do that. There are so many patterns out there and not enough hours in a day for me to do all I plan. I have tried to learn millanese braids but find my braid lace doesn't lay down nicely enough. Honiton is too fine for my poor eyes, not keen on all those sewings either. With Ruths help I have succeeded to learn how to manipulate my easy lace program and am making lace patterns inspired by motifs in other lace patterns and books, but adapting them to suit me better. With all your help I have two pieces of napkin lace ready to make up once the other two are complete, for our 40th wedding anniversary later this year. I had some lovely suggestions (have chosen several if time allows.) Reading all your before BL entries has been a real eye opener, I thought many of you were real genious lacemakers who did it all, so am surprised to find that is not so. I have been inspired by many and helped by a good number too, so thank you all. Sue T, Dorset UK It's been fascinating reading all your messages about what you did Before Lace. It looks like many of us have spent years looking for lace and trying other things before finding it. My mum taught me to knit when I was little, then I taught myself crochet in my teens. But it wasn't until I was in my late 20s that I discovered a book about bobbin lace and I knew that was what I was meant to do! I spent the next 41/2 years trying to work out how I could find the equipment to start making lace. I flirted with tatting and macramé, and knitting and crocheting lace, but they wouldn't do. Then DH bought me a Dryad lace making kit for my birthday, he was fed up with me moaning about how much I wanted to make lace! And my love affair with lace started in earnest. 23 years and 15 days later I'm still hooked! Alison in Essex UK, where it's a nice if windy spring day - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Fw: [lace] Before lace
In a message dated 4/26/2008 12:14:52 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: have tried tatting, but am failing miserably. -- Dear Would-be Tatters, Buried in Sue's list was the above tatting comment.. If you are having problems with tatting, may I suggest you ask different people to try to teach you? It was my 4th teacher that succeeded! Jeri Ames Lace and Embroidery Resource Center **Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car listings at AOL Autos. (http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp0030002851) - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Fw: [lace] Before lace
Jeri, I have a book, I have been looking at sites, I sat in front of a u tube video thinking how easy and clear she sounded (but my fingers are stiff and shoulders too tensed, trying to keep up with the video too. I did go to someone at a craft lesson who tried to show me. Again, got some, missed some, by the end of the two hours I was so tense that I fault sick and ill. I need to calm and chill, and have hoped to find someone I can see locally who would go over and over it with me guiding me until I did get it. I tried with a shuttle and with a needle. Got to the end of one ring and then didn't know where to go next. Trouble is I am so hooked on the bobbinlace, I dont spend enough concentrating time on the tatting. I am determined that I will learn, but have a deadline for the current pieces. I dont know anyone locally who does it to help me. I am assuming it is just me being thick, but I will find my book and try again. Thank you for your encouragement. Sue T In a message dated 4/26/2008 12:14:52 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: have tried tatting, but am failing miserably. -- Dear Would-be Tatters, Buried in Sue's list was the above tatting comment.. If you are having problems with tatting, may I suggest you ask different people to try to teach you? It was my 4th teacher that succeeded! Jeri Ames Lace and Embroidery Resource Center - - Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car listings at AOL Autos. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Before lace
Dear Fellow Spiders It's been fascinating reading all your messages about what you did Before Lace. It looks like many of us have spent years looking for lace and trying other things before finding it. My mum taught me to knit when I was little, then I taught myself crochet in my teens. But it wasn't until I was in my late 20s that I discovered a book about bobbin lace and I knew that was what I was meant to do! I spent the next 41/2 years trying to work out how I could find the equipment to start making lace. I flirted with tatting and macramé, and knitting and crocheting lace, but they wouldn't do. Then DH bought me a Dryad lace making kit for my birthday, he was fed up with me moaning about how much I wanted to make lace! And my love affair with lace started in earnest. 23 years and 15 days later I'm still hooked! It would be good if one or two of our male spiders would chip in on this one, I'd love to know what they did before lace. Alison in Essex UK, where it's a nice if windy spring day - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace] Before lace
Dear Friends, It would be good if one or two of our male spiders would chip in on this one, I'd love to know what they did before lace. You've finally managed to push me into this thread :) - By the age of 8' I was able to do what we called finger crochet - just open chain using only your fingers, as well as French knitting - on the cotton reel hooking over the stitches. - by 10yrs I was knitting in garter stitch and still have the dolls cardigan I knitted about that time when I made my first attempt at Fair Isle. It was still all in garter stitch and looks a mess :) - in the early years of high school I learned to crochet - mainly in the back row of the school choir. - also during those Primary School years I had learned crewel embroidery, cross stitch, and Roman cut work. - by the time I was 18yrs old I could churn out jumpers in Arran and Fair Isle as well as Granny's socks, and knitted lacey layettes. - in my early 20s in London I started designing in both knitting and crochet - usually whilst on acid or speed - some amazing designs :) I remember vividly one night in 73 being at a Disco in Camden Town off my face and got this amazing inspiration for a layette for a new niece. I just had to get out of there to make it. So I WALKED home to Nottinghill Gate refining the design as I went. Of course the others beat me home in a cab. Nevertheless, 3 days later I emerged from my room holding that layette. My sister still has it, but never did hear the story of its inspiration. - for many years I'd longed to learn to tat and tried numerous times from a book, but the flick of the hitch never clicked until one day by accident when I was about 27yrs old. - It was about this time - mid 70s that I became aware of bobbin lace but never thought I would ever learn how to make it myself. - In 1980, during drug rehab I learned Carrickmacross and made a few nice pieces. After that I got into the very fine knitted lace cloths and Shetland shawls. - In the 80s and early 90s I refined and developed my tatting skills with much pleasure. - then late in 1995 I finally learned bobbin lace with the wonderful help of my friends on Arachne - perhaps the first to do so. Right now my large piece of Toender is 3/4 done and having a little rest for 6 months whilst I complete a petit point portrait on 40 count silk gauze. David in Ballarat - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Before Lace
Like most people life revolved around the family, getting back to work, knitting, crochet and embroidery. Remaking gardens on moving into a different house(twice before lace, now up to five!); helping DH build wardrobes etc. indooors Outside we laid patios, built decorative walls - to keep the cattle out who wandered down from Epping Forest and loved our flowers.This latter problem may seem strange when you realise that we lived in a London suburb. It has been allowed from time immemorial for farmers in the area to graze their cattle in the forest. Imagine what happens when they stray onto the roads! Then in 1976 we moved to Hertfordshire, another house and garden, only this time it was an early C17th one. A joy but a lot of work in looking after it especially as, here in England, houses pre- 1700 are all 'listed', so that they are maintained and not 'modernised' too much. It was suggested that to get to know people I should go to Adult Education Classes in the evening. Fine! However I refused (a) to trundle a small sofa on a wheelbarrow to the venue for upholstery classes(DH had the car for work);(b) the usual classes for 'women' ie typing, dressmaking etc did not appeal, but lacemaking did. Thirty plus years later, a fellow novice and I still make lace together. Our tutor was Tordis Berndt, our textbook Maidment and 2 Swedish books of photos and the number of bobbins/thread needed. But NO patterns! And so we had to work them out on graph paper which gave me a grounding in how the threads moved; a great help when going onto Bucks. In 1980 I started teaching Adult classes as well as in schools, and finally to writing teaching manuals for these. And then to the pleasure of designing Point Ground. In between , Alan(DH) and I sold craft books and organised Lacemaking Weekends. Amazing what a house move can bring forth! Our pockets are several thousand pounds lighter, but the joy of holding lovely bobbins and trying to make lace worthy of them makes it all worthwhile. The new friends that one makes in person and over the net adds an extra plus to life. Lurking certainly brings out the memories and Alan and I bless the day we decided to come north otherwise we would never have found lace and all its pleasures. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Before Lace
Thank you for all your nice comments and offers of help I shall try and put in my ideas and help needed now and then. Before lace - not a lot I did try knitting, crochet and cross stitch (even tried art) but I am not exactly talented in crafts and then along came computers and everything went - all my time taken up learning how they worked and playing games. Then I was visiting a castle somewhere in England and they were demonstrating making lace and I thought that looked relatively easy - all you had to do was move the bobbins from one place to another - how difficult could that be! Anyway it took me a good few years before I found EBAY and was looking through the craft section when I saw lace and after that the rest is history as they say. Nancy Nicholson Dundee Where it is sunny but still very cold - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace] Before lace
I guess I sort of started this discussion so I'll add my information, too. Before lace, like a lot of you, I had tried my hand at a wide variety of other things. My great grandmother taught me the things a girl needed to know like embroidery, knitting, crochet and quilting starting when I was very little. By the time she tried to teach me to tat I was into my tomboy stage and refused to sit still that long. Many years later, however, when I wanted to learn to tat I wish I had stayed around longer sigh. I continued my thread work with counted thread work of many kinds along with macramé (both large and small items). There was still some knitting and crocheting but not much. I tried sewing clothes in home ec class in junior high school and quickly learned my talents to NOT lie in that area :D I've done different kinds of beadwork, both on and off a loom, tapestry weaving and painting with oils, acrylics and watercolors. I rediscovered quilting shortly before I discovered bobbin lace. DH was stationed in Germany and a friend of mine did quilting and she rekindled my interest in it. My fascination with bobbin lace began when I chaperoned a school trip for my daughter's class to Brussels. We went into a shop on the square and in the back of the store was a TV playing a video of someone making lace. I was absolutely mesmerized by it. I had never known anything about this beautiful art form and decided right then that I would have to learn. I made the mistake of buying the horror kit from Lacis and nearly gave up before I started. That thing is SO frustrating it's unbelievable. If you know what you're doing it is okay, but in that case you wouldn't be getting a beginner's kit. Luckily, I found a copy of Doris Southard's book and, with DH's help, built a sturdy roller pillow. Unfortunately, shortly after we moved back to the US the house we bought was destroyed in 1999 by the tornadoes that tore through Oklahoma City and my beautiful pillow was lost sob. But I have replaced all that equipment and after dealing with the depression that event (and other subsequent traumas) caused I have begun to get my life back. I have purchased several DVDs from Hensel productions with a variety of different techniques. Right now, I'm working on the Russian Tape lace butterfly with Lia Baumeister-Jonker. Now, wasn't that more than you wanted to know? LOL Ruth R. in Ohio [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
