During the I. O. L. I. convention was held in Durham, NC, several of my tatting collegues inquired of me whether or not I had any other lace-making skills beyond tatting. At the time, I had forgotten about the Teneriffe looms I had acquired some years ago in an Ebay purchase. I felt encouraged to pull them out of their hiding place and see what could be done with them.
Thank goodness for the Antique Pattern Library! What a treasure trove of material for all sorts of crafting! I was able to locate a Teneriffe instruction book and begin. My first effort was rather a compilation of techniques found in it, but it was a start.
At a recent lace demonstration event at the Columbus / Polk County (NC) Historical Association, I learned from one of my lacing collegues that for many years, lacemaking patterns were held in great secrecy to keep the designs from being stolen. As a consequence, the patterns and ways of working the designs were being lost by some lace-making houses. Of course this led to the potential for hand-created laces becoming lost altogether. It has been only through the efforts of dedicated lace makers that has kept this from happening. And this is what is going on with Teneriffe lace: a few dedicated lacers, mostly in the UK and Paraguay are passing along the information to the next generation of practitioners.
From the start, I had no idea what I was doing, but I did discover that this lace form was created on the back-side of the work, not the front. Right away there was a challenge. To resolve this, my first step was to purchase an updated loom It's a lovely design that is much more easily warped than the antique ones I had on hand. At the same time, this newer loom remains one that does not allow for the "front side" of the work to be visualized. At Palmetto Tatters Guild's Tat Days Convention last month, the vendor there had a new loom by Gina B Silkworks (UK) that had no center, making it much easier to see the front side of the creation.
This makes it easier to see what I am doing and where adjustments can be made to make each technique more pleasing to the eye. It does not, however give specific measurements that help make spacing more even and regular. That may be better carried out with practice, with using a pattern on paper with guides or adding guides to the center of the looms on hand. Once the Teneriffe piece was removed from the loom, it was much more clear how the entire pattern was presented.
It came out much better than the first attempt and this loom came with a notation for design elements for the pattern. Much more to learn. . .
