Letter to the Readers

Dear readers,

Spring is in the air! Here in the Community of Valencia the first signs of spring are the beautiful pink and white blossoming almond trees, they've been sprucing up our landscape since the first week of February. Another sign that spring is here, is that we have more daylight! And every lacer knows what that means, more time to take advantage of the natural light and you guessed it - make more lace! In spring time we seem to feel more cheerful, maybe because we see more sunshine, the dark dreary days of winter are past or perhaps just since we can make more lace during the day? In any case, a picture is worth a thousand words, so let me not elaborate further and simply direct you to our front cover.

We are celebrating spring in this issue with beautiful flowers and pretty butterflies. You can do more than simply admire them on the front cover, and go to pages 4&5 for a closer look ; also see the instructions on page 23.

Have you seen the new Titanic movie yet? There's more in that movie than simply freezing sea water, icebergs and sinking ships. If you're really observant you might very well find some beautiful examples of turn of the century lace worn by some of the upper class ladies at the dinner table. But we discovered something even more interesting about the Titanic - find out our little secret about the Titanic in this issue on page 7.

In spring there seems to be flowers almost everywhere - even on towels! Make some pretty lace for your flowered towels. Who doesn't enjoy looking at a beautiful tulip? But they are fleeting, just a few days of their brightly coloured beauty and they droop and die. But in this issue we show how to grow a lace tulip that never dies and that you can wear ! Apart from flowers and lace edging for towels, you can make a pretty handkerchief or several doilies.

We all know men are part of our lives, but how many of us realize they too are a part of lace? Many do far more than simply drive their lace making wives or girfriends to lace gatherings. Some are lace museum curators, others, pattern designers while others get right down into it and make lace! We all know little girls make lace in Spain, but how many of us realize that boys do too! Learn more about the men in your "lace" and the men to be, as well in this issue. To all these men and boys, thank you for sharing this art with us.

Also in this issue you'll visit the Santa Lucia lace fair in L'Arbos in the ancient Roman Province of Tarragona on the Mediterrranean coast.

In addition to flowers, towels, handkerchiefs and doilies, we've got some beautiful butterflies - learn to make one that flies around you forever on pages 7 and 20.

In this issue you see the wonder of a beautiful example of typical lace and pillow from Almagro, and we also offer you the pattern.

Do not forget to send in your bookmark and participate in our contest. You have until May 30th. Also make sure that your lace centre appears in our updated lace centres map. Write to us.

So enjoy and see you next time, happy spring.

Montserrat Arcos

Director

Index

Letter to the readers | Camelia and Butterfly | Sunflower | European Lace Exhibit | Spanish Lace on the Titanic | Lace edging for towel | Exhibition - One thousand years of knit design | Men are also involved in lace | Tulips to wear | Our colleagues making lace | Lace Handkerchief | Two doilies | Festivity of Saint Lucia - L'Arboç Tarragona | Andorra la Vella | Lace Butterflies | Lace Doily | Instructions on doing a sewing | Instructions for flowers and butterfly | Lace and pillow from Almagro | Men discovering bobbin lace | Tatting Teacher Lace Picture Frame | Suscription form | Letters from the readers | Supplement: 13 Patterns | Supplement: Activities