It has been a while since I read it, but I found Monica Ferris's book disappointing in terms of lacemaking. I remember thinking that she had obviously researched this to the point of visiting a bobbin lacemaker and watching what she did, and writing down how the lacemaker described it. I thought that part was good. However, the solution to the mystery relied on the concept that a bobbin lacemaker would routinely "sign" her work with a motif. In this case, the lacemaker always included a butterfly on a piece of lace. At the end of the book there is a pattern of a butterfly which is counted cross stitch. The explanation for this is "This pattern is worked in a combination of straight or back stitches and cross stitches to look like bobbin lace." I think this is a sentence that doesn't make sense. I appreciate that Monica Ferris is trying to write mysteries that appeal to craftspeople. But, I think she understands needlepoint and cross stitch quite well, and in this case tried to plug in bobbin lace to a plot that would make more sense for needle point or cross stitch. It is relatively easy to add your name and a date, or an identifying motif to those mediums, but bobbin lace is entirely different. It is quite hard to extemporize in a continuous bobbin lace to the extent of throwing in a butterfly. While, I suppose it is not impossible to make a butterfly in a non-continuous lace like Honiton and put it in the piece, usually a butterfly is so difficult to make, being one of the most beautiful and ornamental motifs, that it would be more likely to be the centerpiece of a design than an inconspicuous signature. Perhaps the plot would have been more believable if she had chosen embroidered filet as the lace medium rather than bobbin lace. Devon
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