Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Jim & Shirley]

One of our members comes from France and I saw her using the 
leather/vinyl cover cloth.  I've made myself a couple and they do seem 
to speed up the bobbins  -  maybe I should get them out to work Mum's 
tablecloth.  :-)  Brigitte works with continental bobbins on a flat 
pillow.  I guess its the way you were taught but I find my 
slightly raised cookie pillow with spangled bobbins no trouble at all.


Cheers,
Shirley T.  -  heading for 40C on Friday and Saturday.  Hot weather 
coming your way ladies but I think Chelle might be sending us some rain 
shortly




On 24/11/2020 11:40 am, phillipa powis wrote:

Wow- two digests in one day.
I was about to reply to Elenas question when the second digest popped up
containing more or less things that I might have said.
I too watched the  amazing elderly lady in the window at Kantcentrum and
was intrigued by the leather cover cloth on her pillow. An instructor was
taking a novice class in the same room and I asked her about the leather.
It is to enable the bobbins to slide very quickly and smoothly across the
pillow while making several stitches in a row. They have pieces of
leather-like vinyl that students are encouraged to use as confidence grows.
I also saw that, working palms down and fingers bent, all her fingers were
used with bobbins held between the knuckles.

Phil   in Maitland, NSW, Australia -

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Karisse Moore]

I think the idea of community effort to make a large project is a great
idea. I know that was practiced in the past to get a large project finished in
the smallest amount of time. Many different lace makers would work on a
portion of the lace and then a trained person would sew the pieces together. I
would love to participate in a project that was like that.


Karisse
Cold, wet
Washington State

On November 23, 2020 at 10:43 AM, Pierre Fouché
 wrote:


Hi Elena and Arachnids

I'm very intrigued
by this as well and find it interesting that
contemporary lacemakers don't
value speed and efficiency as much as
knitters do for example. Anyone who has
learned how to play a musical
instrument can attest to muscle memory not
happening after a week or a
month of practice, yet the reward for regular
practice is noticeable
improvement. The joy of experiencing your hands on
auto-pilot and your mind
seemingly blocking out every other stimulus with a
razor-like focus is a
"destination" worth practicing for. (I am not nearly
there at all... but I
have glimpsed a couple of "nearly there" moments)

Of
course, it doesn't help that many lacemakers are inquisitive of many
different
styles and techniques (the equivalent of taking up multiple
musical
instruments...)

I'm equally intrigued by the idea of communal work as a means
to create
efficiency - to have a collective work on a large scale project
("large" in
effort, and not necessarily in size) and of what value that could
be for
commemorative objects, or simply for building a community. From time to
time such projects arise, and they are all commendable, but it would be
great
to see more and to see lace collectives confidently engaging with
their
immediate communities *and* the broader public (through major public
art
commissions for instance...)

Please keep this conversation going? Any hack
might just turn out to be the
thing that was missing in someone's technique.
(That said, I've seen a
couple of unique knitters do very counterintuitive
finger gymnastics at
incredible speeds, so it might just boil down to practice
in the end.)

One thing I can highly recommend from experience is to sand and
polish your
DIY bobbins to the absolute smoothest finish you can because
super-careful
bobbin management on the pillow to keep your thread from
snagging slows
things down significantly. (Guess who's on sanding duty for the
next couple
of days in order to avoid that frustration again?)

Best


Pierre
Cape Town

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Re: [lace] Speed & efficiency in lace?

[Robin K Panza]

On November 23, 2020, at 2:36 PM, lacysuze...@gmail.com wrote:

>Having participated in several Great Lace Race events in Cortland, OH back in 
>the day, I can only say it’s not a race. It’s Lace! If any former Race 
>winners are present, please confirm.  ;-)  

I am, in fact, one of the former Race winners and I fully agree with Susan; it 
is most assuredly not a race (except in Cortland on MLK day, in days gone by).  
😁

I also agree that picking up most styles of bobbins from a cookie pillow is 
difficult and (as a result) very slow.  I know several lacemakers who pick up 
bobbins to work 'palms up', but only when doing leaves and tallies.  The same 
two pairs will be in your hands for awhile, so it's sensible.

Robin P
Los Angeles, California, USA

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[lace] RE: lace-digest V2020 #58

[Elizabeth Ligeti]

After trying various ways of making a tally, I found that holding the 3
passives in my left hand, between various fingers, and weaving the 4th bobbin
– tail first – though them was the easiest way for me.
Now I am tatting , I tried Cluny Leaves – the Tatters version of Tallies, -
and found that doing them in the hand was “crampy”, so  I turned to using
a roller pillow with berry pines to secure the threads.  I can weave the
thread much like a Bobbin lace tally, and then weave the shuttle backwards and
forwards just like the 4th bobbin! So using a frame and making them that way
is a progression from my Bobbin Lace Days!!!  It is nice when techniques from
one lace can convert to another type of lace!!  And my hands don’t get
cramps! I still have the bad tremor – that will never go away, - but at
least I can adapt things…!
I find with tatting there is a lot of Muscle Memory, and I can tat with
minimal “looking at it” for much of the time. – But I have to stop and
recount the stitches, now and again, or I get lost/forget what the count was!!
There is always a draw-back of some sort – but usually it can be overcome.
Just making lace – and chatting to lacemakers around the world, makes
mistakes a very minor irritation

We are , at last, just beginning to come out of Lock-down, after about 5
months or so. Please, everyone, Stay safe, wear a mask, and keep well. This
wretched virus is so invasive.

Regards from Liz. L.

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[phillipa powis]

Wow- two digests in one day.
I was about to reply to Elenas question when the second digest popped up
containing more or less things that I might have said.
I too watched the  amazing elderly lady in the window at Kantcentrum and
was intrigued by the leather cover cloth on her pillow. An instructor was
taking a novice class in the same room and I asked her about the leather.
It is to enable the bobbins to slide very quickly and smoothly across the
pillow while making several stitches in a row. They have pieces of
leather-like vinyl that students are encouraged to use as confidence grows.
I also saw that, working palms down and fingers bent, all her fingers were
used with bobbins held between the knuckles.

Phil   in Maitland, NSW, Australia -

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RE: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[cjsettle]

The other thing to note is that the lacemaker has a leather or leather-like
surface on her working area.  I've seen this before, and it makes a good
deal of sense.  I'm going to make myself one and see how it works.

Clare

-Original Message-
From: owner-l...@arachne.com  On Behalf Of Pierre
Fouché
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2020 1:07 PM
To: lynrbai...@supernet.com
Cc: Elena Kanagy-Loux ; Arachne 
Subject: Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

Thank you for the wonderful video links, everyone! And to prove the point
that speed is possible with many bobbins on the pillow (and Flanders at
that!) too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUHFZrJIzTo

(I love the casual peek at the pair diagram next to her halfway through..)

It seems that a one-hand "flick" of the pairs (fairly low on the bobbins'
shafts), (continental bobbins, palms down) instead of picking them up is
this lacemaker's technique.

I just tried it on the pillow, and it will take some practice to get used
to, but it might be worth the effort! I normally pick up the bobbins, and if
I try to work faster this way, the bobbins start to "bounce" off the pillow
(and tangling them out of order). A light, one-handed flick is a much more
efficient movement that would avoid this problem too.


Pierre

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[lace] Speed & efficiency in lace?

[lacysuzette]

Having participated in several Great Lace Race events in Cortland, OH back in 
the day, I can only say it’s not a race. It’s Lace! If any former Race winners 
are present, please confirm.  ;-)  Otherwise on a cookie pillow, it’s best to 
avoid picking up the bobbins at all. Better to nudge, roll & flick if that 
makes any sense. Although now I’m curious to try Nancy’s suggestion. Sincerely, 
Susan Hottle, South Florida, USA 

iPhone

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Karisse Moore]

In the last few years it seems to me that we have emphasized perfection over
speed in making lace. I find that I am faster when I use continental bobbins
vs. using spangled bobbins. I have learned to do the the whole stitch where
you move both the cross and the twist together across the an area of whole
stitch. I have timed myself and I am about equal in time as doing it separate.
But I haven't practiced very much either. I will agree that practice makes
faster. I do try to make some lace everyday and I know it helps with muscle
memory. I think perfection is important when we are making pictures to hang on
the wall but I wonder if speed isn't more important if we are making yardage
to use on clothes. 


I am making some Bedfordshire to put on my masks and if
someone is so close to my mask that they can see a rogue twist or cross they
are all together too close to my mask. I just want to get some lace on my
face. LOL


Karisse in cold wet Washington State.

On November 23, 2020 at
9:59 AM, lynrbai...@supernet.com wrote:


Elena, I think I know the lady you
mean at Kantcentrum. I saw her when I spent a week there, in 2009, working in
the afternoons. She always sat in the corner with the most light, and had been
making lace since she was 7. At that time she was in her 70's. She was so
fast, and her work was beautiful. I think there are many videos of her hands
at work. Yesterday, at the online lecture, there was a video of women from
near Le Puy en Velay, you could tell by their bobbins, going quickly. I'm
wondering if one slowed down the motion of these videos, an experienced
lacemaker could pick up tips. And thanks, Nancy Neff, for your suggestion on
cloth stitch. Sounds workable to me. Big motifs in Flanders come to mind.

Lyn
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where all the leaves are off the trees, as always
happens the week before Thanksgiving. We are eating takeout from a local
restaurant for Thanksgiving, just the two of us. Sure saves time from cooking
for lace.


"My email sends out an automatic message. Arachne members,
please
ignore it. I read your emails."


Elena wrote:

Agreed, they are just
breathtaking! I have a video of a lacemaker at
Kantecentrum that I share in
most of my lectures for graduate classes and I
always warn them that they will
probably be disappointed with the speed of
my live demonstration at the end
after watching this video. :)
Best,
Elena

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Gon Homburg]

Hi Nancy, Elena and other Arachnids,

The overlap in the cloth stitch is really fast. I do it for years now. It is 
faster than making the cloth stitch with palms up. That way you have to pick up 
pairs and lay down pairs. On a cooky pillow with palms down it is for me a 
natural way of making the cloth stitch.

Best regards

Gon Homburg, Amsterdam, The Netherlands



> Op 23 nov. 2020, om 15:41 heeft N.A. Neff  het 
> volgende geschreven:
> 
> Hi Elena and fellow Arachnids:
> 
> I have found that, when doing an area of cloth stitch, I can go twice as
> fast if I "overlap" stitches. Do the cross in the next stitch as you do it
> in the current stitch, and move across, doing two crosses at the same time
> just like you do a twist with each hand. I think it's faster than twice
> because it's so balanced and rhythmical.
> 
> Nancy
> 
> Nancy A. Neff
> Ashford, Connecticut, USA
> 
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 09:18 Elena Kanagy-Loux 
> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Anyway, just for fun, I was curious if anyone else had experiences or
>> advice to speed up lace through shortcuts or other tricks to share with one
>> another
>> 
> 
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> To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line:
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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[ashaak]

Ooops! I looked at the thumbnail and thought it was the right film, but it
wasn’t.

I was thinking about “Lace of Long Ago” (1931):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwcSaAXtZsc


Adele


> On Nov 23, 2020, at 12:01 PM, Malvary  wrote:
>
> Hi Adele
>
> The link opens a lady doing tambour work.  That is something I haven’t
tried yet.
>

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Adele Shaak]

There is an old British Pathé newsreel from 1929, where they filmed an elderly 
lacemaker at work. Given her evident age, she would have learned her lacemaking 
in the 1860s or so. The interesting thing for me is that she moves the bobbins 
with her left hand, and puts in the pins with the other. She does seem to go 
along at a great rate - however the lace isn’t of very good quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf9pmm7Yk78=PL-D58_GV_WDdbZq5R_S7MyGRP2BjFLWo-=83=2s

I have seen some videos of lacemakers who do work very quickly, but you can see 
they spend quite a bit of time rearranging their bobbins after they threw them 
out of position because they were going so fast. I can go fairly fast at times 
but I prefer to keep everything in an order that works for me.

Adele
West Vancouver, BC
(west coast of Canada)

> Anyway, just for fun, I was curious if anyone else had experiences or
> advice to speed up lace through shortcuts or other tricks to share with one
> another. I certainly find I am much faster working palms up, but most of my
> projects are better suited for cookie pillows so I rarely work that way.

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Cindy Rusak]

Hi All,

I flick my bobbins when doing tallies/leaves, and find it doesn't take long
to make one. After I learned that way (thanks, Josée!), I had other
teachers demonstrate other methods but none were any where near as fast. I
also work cloth stitch the way Nancy mentioned - it's much quicker.

Cheers,
Cindy, in Ontario, Canada


> For example, I studied bobbin lace at the Hotel de la Dentelle in Brioude,
> and they have a trick for making tallies that allows their staff and
> graduates to work impressively fast. It's hard to explain, but essentially
> you never pick up and carry your bobbins palms down. Instead you rotate
> your hands 180 degrees in a seamless flow and fling the bobbins back and
> forth. Sorry if that isn't very clear, they must have videos of it
> somewhere.
>
>

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Malvary Cole]

My sister and I have watched the ladies making lace in Camariñas on many 
occasions.


They work very fast and we were intrigued by the way they make leaves. 
Across and back 3 or 4 times or more and then pull them up into leaf shape. 
We asked one lady if she could go slower so we could watch how she did it, 
but for her it was almost impossible to slow down very much.  She explained 
that the children go across and back once, then as they get older they add 
more times as they get more experience.


We do notice that while they work very quickly, they also spend a lot of 
time sorting their bobbins to get them in the right order and without twists 
before they continue.  They are making lace for sale so obviously need to 
work as fast as they can.  For me, it is my hobby and my relaxation I don't 
need to speed along.  I do make my cloth stitch as described before if I'm 
doing something that has expanses of cloth stitch.  I do a lot of Milanese 
and Idrija style lace, so don't often have large areas.


Just my 2 cents worth.

Malvary in Ottawa where we had 20 cm of wet heavy snow last evening and 
strong winds to blow it around.


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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Pierre Fouché]

Thank you for the wonderful video links, everyone! And to prove the point
that speed is possible with many bobbins on the pillow (and Flanders at
that!) too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUHFZrJIzTo

(I love the casual peek at the pair diagram next to her halfway through..)

It seems that a one-hand "flick" of the pairs (fairly low on the bobbins'
shafts), (continental bobbins, palms down) instead of picking them up is
this lacemaker's technique.

I just tried it on the pillow, and it will take some practice to get used
to, but it might be worth the effort! I normally pick up the bobbins, and
if I try to work faster this way, the bobbins start to "bounce" off the
pillow (and tangling them out of order). A light, one-handed flick is a
much more efficient movement that would avoid this problem too.


Pierre

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Pierre Fouché]

Hi Elena and Arachnids

I'm very intrigued by this as well and find it interesting that
contemporary lacemakers don't value speed and efficiency as much as
knitters do for example. Anyone who has learned how to play a musical
instrument can attest to muscle memory not happening after a week or a
month of practice, yet the reward for regular practice is noticeable
improvement. The joy of experiencing your hands on auto-pilot and your mind
seemingly blocking out every other stimulus with a razor-like focus is a
"destination" worth practicing for. (I am not nearly there at all... but I
have glimpsed a couple of "nearly there" moments)

Of course, it doesn't help that many lacemakers are inquisitive of many
different styles and techniques (the equivalent of taking up multiple
musical instruments...)

I'm equally intrigued by the idea of communal work as a means to create
efficiency - to have a collective work on a large scale project ("large" in
effort, and not necessarily in size) and of what value that could be for
commemorative objects, or simply for building a community. From time to
time such projects arise, and they are all commendable, but it would be
great to see more and to see lace collectives confidently engaging with
their immediate communities *and* the broader public (through major public
art commissions for instance...)

Please keep this conversation going? Any hack might just turn out to be the
thing that was missing in someone's technique. (That said, I've seen a
couple of unique knitters do very counterintuitive finger gymnastics at
incredible speeds, so it might just boil down to practice in the end.)

One thing I can highly recommend from experience is to sand and polish your
DIY bobbins to the absolute smoothest finish you can because super-careful
bobbin management on the pillow to keep your thread from snagging slows
things down significantly. (Guess who's on sanding duty for the next couple
of days in order to avoid that frustration again?)

Best


Pierre
Cape Town

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[lynrbailey]

Elena, I meant to include the  url for that, and then I see it did not
happen.  Thanks for including that.  lrb

  Lyn, that's an excellent idea!For those that didn't see David
  Hopkin's lecture yesterday, I took the liberty of watching the entire
  video on YouTube this morning. Here it is, for those who are
  interested:https://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=yXgFV_YXYKA

  

"My email sends out an automatic  message. Arachne
members,
please ignore it. I read your
emails."

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Elena Kanagy-Loux]

Lyn, that's an excellent idea!
For those that didn't see David Hopkin's lecture yesterday, I took the
liberty of watching the entire video on YouTube this morning. Here it is,
for those who are interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXgFV_YXYKA

Best,
Elena

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[lynrbailey]

Elena, I think I know the lady you mean at Kantcentrum.  I saw her when I spent 
a week there, in 2009, working in the afternoons.  She always sat in the corner 
with the most light, and had been making lace since she was 7.  At that time 
she was in her 70's.  She was so fast, and her work was beautiful.  I think 
there are many videos of her hands at work.  Yesterday, at the online lecture, 
there was a video of women from near Le Puy en Velay, you could tell by their 
bobbins, going quickly.  I'm wondering if one slowed down the motion of these 
videos, an experienced lacemaker could pick up tips. And thanks, Nancy Neff, 
for your suggestion on cloth stitch.  Sounds workable to me.  Big motifs in 
Flanders come to mind.  

Lyn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where all the leaves are off the trees, as 
always happens the week before Thanksgiving.  We are eating takeout from a 
local restaurant for Thanksgiving, just the two of us.  Sure saves time from 
cooking for lace.


"My email sends out an automatic  message. Arachne members,
please ignore it. I read your emails."


Elena wrote:
>Agreed, they are just breathtaking! I have a video of a lacemaker at
>Kantecentrum that I share in most of my lectures for graduate classes and I
>always warn them that they will probably be disappointed with the speed of
>my live demonstration at the end after watching this video. :)
>Best,
>Elena

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Elena Kanagy-Loux]

Hi Clare,

Agreed, they are just breathtaking! I have a video of a lacemaker at
Kantecentrum that I share in most of my lectures for graduate classes and I
always warn them that they will probably be disappointed with the speed of
my live demonstration at the end after watching this video. :)
Best,
Elena

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Elena Kanagy-Loux]

Dear Nancy,

Interesting! I had never considered that, but it makes a lot of sense. I'll
have to give it a try! :)
Best,
Elena

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Clare Settle]

Elena asked about speed - the fastest lacemakers I’ve seen in person are at the 
Kancentrum in Brugge, Belgium. There seemed to be a few of underlying 
commonalities. First, they seemed to be working on patterns they understood and 
knew well. Second, they had been making lace for years.  Third, they made some 
lace nearly every day.

Practice, practice, practice.  

Clare

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Re: [lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[N.A. Neff]

Hi Elena and fellow Arachnids:

I have found that, when doing an area of cloth stitch, I can go twice as
fast if I "overlap" stitches. Do the cross in the next stitch as you do it
in the current stitch, and move across, doing two crosses at the same time
just like you do a twist with each hand. I think it's faster than twice
because it's so balanced and rhythmical.

Nancy

Nancy A. Neff
Ashford, Connecticut, USA

On Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 09:18 Elena Kanagy-Loux 
wrote:

>
> Anyway, just for fun, I was curious if anyone else had experiences or
> advice to speed up lace through shortcuts or other tricks to share with one
> another
>

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[lace] Speed and efficiency in lace?

[Elena Kanagy-Loux]

Dear Arachnids,

I hope you all are doing well!

I watched a very interesting online talk this weekend with Mathew Gnagy, a
historic costumer who makes some of his own needle and bobbin lace. You can
find his work on his website: https://themodernmaker.net/
I've heard him discuss several times how he tries to observe makers who are
skilled in manufacturing things by hand to try to glean the most efficient
ways in working quickly.

Obviously, decades of experience working at a task day in and day out is
the best ways to get faster at it, but it made me wonder if there aren't
some shortcuts in lacemaking to help speed up the process.

For example, I studied bobbin lace at the Hotel de la Dentelle in Brioude,
and they have a trick for making tallies that allows their staff and
graduates to work impressively fast. It's hard to explain, but essentially
you never pick up and carry your bobbins palms down. Instead you rotate
your hands 180 degrees in a seamless flow and fling the bobbins back and
forth. Sorry if that isn't very clear, they must have videos of it
somewhere.

Anyway, just for fun, I was curious if anyone else had experiences or
advice to speed up lace through shortcuts or other tricks to share with one
another. I certainly find I am much faster working palms up, but most of my
projects are better suited for cookie pillows so I rarely work that way.

Best,
Elena

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