Weird or what???

The photo is actually an assortment of dried pieces of mace - when fresh, the dried ‘caul’, the mace, is a soft red net-like structure that covers the nut containing the nutmeg, used as a spice.  It is this red mace which, when dry loses its colour, is also used as a spice, though possessing a slightly different flavour......

What I do find fascinating is how the small pieces of dried mace resemble so many hands, reaching out for something. They seem to be moving, trapped in their tree-form structure......or are they so many leaf-like fingers, itching and twitching to make fantastical forms of lace...???

Whatever they may appear to be, they fascinate me.

Something else that fascinates me is why when someone sees a design, or in this case a lace pattern, that they really like and want to make, they then want to make it using an altogether different technique?  Do they really think that if a piece of lace is designed to be worked using particular methods of construction that it will work better or even at all, when other methods are substituted?  For instance, if a multi-coloured piece of Milanese sectional lace with a narrative form, were to be made using Torchon techniques, would it even work, or be an improvement?  Would there there be any point whatsoever??

I’m not throwing out a challenge to anyone, but simply wishing to point out that whatever it is that attracts and appeals in one form is not necessarily, and indeed most unlikely, to be improved upon in another.  If the original concept is dramatically changed technically or aesthetically, all the integrity of the piece will be lost. The original piece being more than the sum of its individual parts.

The term ‘Horses for courses’ springs to mind!