Re: [lace] Lace in literature: a new find - moving bobbins with one hand
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 12:49 PM, bev walker wrote: > > > > " Hold the hands downwards as though playing the piano. Practise lifting > the > > bobbins between the 4th and 3rd, 3rd and 2nd, 2nd and 1st fingers of the > > left hand until the muscles ache. ..." > > Now I'm wondering, is there less *ache* if one is left-handed? > > I would think she was just writing to and for right hand dominant people. In the 50's and earlier people did not allow their children to be left handed for the most part. So talking about using "the left hand until the muscles ache" would be about both developing the coordination needed and developing the muscles for the repetitive nature of the task. At least, that would be my guess about it. Bronwen -- Per pale argent and purpure, two phoenixes counterchanged sable and argent each rising from flames proper. "It is sometimes the most fragile things that have the power to endure and become sources of strength." - May Sarton "Only a life lived in the service to others is worth living."- Albert Einstein "Out of clutter, find Simplicity. From discord, find Harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." - Albert Einstein "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." - Henry David Thoreau - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
Re: [lace] Lace in literature: a new find - moving bobbins with one hand
Thank you Jean, and Jacqui T., for the most interesting information about the question. What training: On 2/21/11, Jean Leader wrote: > " Hold the hands downwards as though playing the piano. Practise lifting the > bobbins between the 4th and 3rd, 3rd and 2nd, 2nd and 1st fingers of the > left hand until the muscles ache. ..." Now I'm wondering, is there less *ache* if one is left-handed? Though I'm right-handed, if occasionally I do bobbin lace with one hand, it is the left-hand making the bobbins move. I lift the bobbins one at a time, stop and pin. The right, if not holding the phone (unless I remember to put it on speaker) rests at my side. -- Bev in Shirley BC, near Sooke on beautiful Vancouver Island, west coast of Canada - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
Re: [lace] Lace in literature: a new find - moving bobbins with one hand
Bev Walker wrote > Does anyone know - did the lacemakers expertly use one hand to move > bobbins, the other to place pins? The Lace Guild library has a draft copy of a book by Ethel Nettleship - 'Pillow Lace Making - 14 technical lessons to train the eyes and hands in the art of pillow lace making' which is probably pre 1950 (information from David Springett). The section on 'How to use the hands' starts " Hold the hands downwards as though playing the piano. Practise lifting the bobbins between the 4th and 3rd, 3rd and 2nd, 2nd and 1st fingers of the left hand until the muscles ache. While doing this hang the right hand down to the side, and do not let it help the left hand. The left hand fingers make the stitch, without the use of the thumb. The thumb comes into use later - but it is important to be able to make the stitches with the left hand fingers only, as while doing this the right hand puts up the pin and so only half the time is taken to do the two things." She goes on to explain exactly how to hold the bobbins in the fingers while making a cloth stitch. I did try working as described but obviously didn't practise hard enough! Jean in Glasgow where it's been trying to snow on and off all day - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
Re: [lace] Lace in literature: a new find
"Does anyone know - did the lacemakers expertly use one hand to move bobbins, the other to place pins?" Not so easy to do with spangled bobbins, except I always do the twists at the end of the row and lift the pair back a bit with hte hand at that end, while the other hand fetches the pin to place under it. I guess if she was working a norrow braid lace, the stretching-for-the- pin movement would be what he noticed, as it would happen frequently. I try to get my students to do the same, as you can quickly train both hands to do both movements, but many of them claim they can't possibly put a pin in with their non-dominant hand. However, with unspangled bobbins and a bolster pillow, with practise you can. I was watching one of the teachers in Malaga and her right hand, mouth and brain were focussed on the detail she was explaining to the student, and at the same time the other hand holding two passives and a worker was able to weave the workers through the passives. I didn't believe what I was seeing the first time, but she did it over and over. My hands aren't big enough to hold three pairs in order, let alone weave them through each other. I've tried with one hand, two pairs and that's very slow, hard and clumsy. Jacquie in Lincolnshire - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
Re: [lace] Lace in literature: a new find
Hi Louise and everyone What a delightful find :) The author's word picture is extraordinary - I notice how he describes the process... we are accustomed to using two hands, one on each bobbin, stop and place pin. I have done a bit, using one hand only when the other was bandaged, or holding the telephone, e.g. on hold. It is slow, but possible. I did not place pins with the other hand though. >, the right hand managing > the pins while the left manipulated the bobbins, and all with an... Does anyone know - did the lacemakers expertly use one hand to move bobbins, the other to place pins? It would make for speed, I think. If not, the author is excused for creative writing. :D Thank you Louise. I shall check out Project Gutenberg for this author. On 2/21/11, Louise Bailey wrote: -- Bev in Shirley BC, near Sooke on beautiful Vancouver Island, west coast of Canada - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
[lace] Lace in literature: a new find
Dear Arachnes, I was surprised to find a section on pillow lace in an old detective story I read this weekend 'For the Defence, Dr Thorndyke'. Dr Thorndyke is an invention of R Austin Freeman mostly in the 20's and 30's. He is a Medico-Legal practitioner and an early forensic scientist, and in a way a successor to Sherlock Holmes. Project Gutenberg Australia has a lot of his stories. They normally take the form of relating a crime, then Dr Thorndyke takes up the legal case and shows forensically how the crime was committed and who did it. In this one the subject is an artist and is trying to avoid a charge of murder complicated by a mistaken identity for his cousin. He's just moved into digs, and has been buying some paints and other painting necessities. It's not a long section, so I'll quote it in full, but it proves crucial to proving his identity later on. It's clear the author had seen lace making and understood it. Enjoy Louise in murky damp Cambridge, but the willow catkins are out, spring is coming. Having deposited his parcels in his sitting-room, he walked through to the back room, half-kitchen and half-parlour, to report his return and exchange a few-words with his landlady. And here he had a genuine stroke of luck. At intervals, amidst his distractions, he had been trying to think of a subject to fit into the background of his own room. Now, as he opened the door, after a perfunctory tap with his knuckles, behold a subject almost ready made. By the low, small-paned window sat Mrs. Pendlewick in a Windsor arm-chair with a little gate-leg table by her side and a lace pillow on her lap. She looked up with a smile of welcome, viewing him over the tops of her spectacles as he stood in the doorway regarding her with delighted surprise. She made a charming picture. Figure, lighting and accessories made up just such an ensemble as the old "genre" painters would have loved; and Andrew, being a belated survivor of that school, felt a like enthusiasm. For a while he stood, taking in the effect of the group-the old-world figure with its silky-white hair and antique cap, the black pillow with its covering of lace and rows of bobbins, the simple, elegant chair and the ancient table--until the old lady became quite puzzled. "I am taking the liberty of admiring you, Mrs. Pendlewick," he said at length. "Law!" she exclaimed, "I thought I had got beyond that." "But this is a new accomplishment," said he. "I didn't know you were a lace-maker." "New!" she chuckled. "I was a lace-maker before I was eight year old. Had my own pillow and bobbins and used to play at making lace. All the girls did down at my home; began it as child's play, and that's how we learnt. Down where I come from--I'm a Buckinghamshire woman, born and brought up at Wendover--down there you wouldn't meet a woman, no, nor a girl over ten, that couldn't make bone lace. They usually began to learn when they were about four or five." "Why do you call it bone lace?" he asked. "It's on account of these," she explained, indicating the bewildering multitude of little bobbins that dangled by their threads from the edge of the work. "They were mostly made of bone, though sometimes they used horn or hard wood. But bone was the regular thing because it was easy to come by. The lads used to make 'em for their sweethearts; carved 'em out with their pocket knives, they did, and some of them were uncommonly pretty bits of work. There's one that my grandfather made when he was courting my grandmother more than a hundred years ago; and it's as good as new now." She picked out the historic bobbin--a little bone stick elaborately decorated with shallow carving--and held it up proudly for his inspection; and as he examined it she babbled on: "Yes, we're all of a piece, me and my belongings. We are all getting on. This chair that I'm sitting in was made by my Uncle James. He was a chair maker at High Wycombe, and they used to work out in the open beech-woods. And this little table was made by my grandfather--him that made that bobbin. He was a wheelwright, but he used to make furniture in the winter when the wagons was laid up and work was slack." So she rambled on, but not to the hindrance of her work; for, as she talked, her fingers were busy with their task, the right hand managing the pins while the left manipulated the bobbins, and all with an effortless dexterity that was delightful to watch. Nor were her babblings of the old country life in the Vale of Aylesbury without interest; and Andrew, looking on and listening, found himself gathering the sentiment and atmosphere that he hoped presently to express in his picture. After a spell of somewhat one-sided conversation, he ventured cautiously to approach the subject of that picture. But his caution was unnecessary, for Mrs. Pendlewick was all agog to "have her likeness drawn", as she expressed it. "Not but what I should have thought," she remarked, "that you might have found someone better
