This is not a true piece of lace since it has floppy edges. Proper lace needs footsides and headsides. However, this sample will give you practice in cloth stitch, and in using pins at the edges. The photo of the finished lace is very enlarged so you can see the details.
There are two patterns below, in different sizes. Choose the size that you want. Please read the introduction for how to print off a pattern.
Pattern size depends on thread size, and on your eye sight! If you choose a pattern too small for your thread size, the cloth stitch may look coggled, and it's hard to see where to put the pin. If you have too large a pattern, then the cloth stitch may look too spread out and holey. This doesn't really matter while you're learning, and a large pattern size is certainly easier to see. But it's up to you!
| Pattern: |  |
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Bobbins: 6 pairs
Style: sample
Stitches:
cloth stitch
overhand knot
Details:
solid cloth stich
Description: The pattern is the coloured-in rectangle of dots with numbers above. Print it out (see introduction) or make your own version. In the small version, the dots down the edge should be about 4mm apart. If you copy it, you do not have to colour it in! This is just to tell you that this will be solid cloth stitch. But you must copy the dots, which will be the pin holes.
Prick the pattern. Pin it on the pillow. Put five pins along the top holes of the pattern.
Wind 6 pairs of bobbins. Hang a pair of bobbins from each pin along the top, which will leave one pair left over. Hang this on the right top corner pin (which means that it will share the pin with another pair of bobbins). In the photo above, I have wound a different colour of thread (white) on this last pair from the rest (blue). You can do the same if you wish, or leave them all the same colour. The white pair is called the worker pair. The others are called passives, because they don't do so much work. All your bobbins should be laid out on the pillow in pairs, in the same order that you hung them. Do not get them muddled up! The two that share a pin should be arranged so they are in pairs, with the worker pair (hung last) on the right edge. See below for a diagram, although your bobbins will probably be spread out more, since the width of the bobbins is more than the distance between the pin holes.
You are now ready to start. Take the worker pair and the next pair and make a cloth stitch with them. Click here to see who to do this. When you've finished, the worker pair will no longer be at the edge. Leave the other pair (perhaps tidy it away a little to one side so it doesn't get in the way). Take the worker pair, and the next pair on the left. Work a cloth stitch with them. Carry on working cloth stitches with the worker pair, and the pair on the left, until the worker pair ends up on the left-hand edge. Put a pin in the hole provided, between the worker pair and the last passive pair. You have finished your first row of lace.
If you do not understand this, then click here to see how to do it.
Now take the same worker pair, and the pair to the right, and work a cloth stitch. Although you've just worked a stitch with all these bobbins in the previous row, the pin that you put in stops a muddle happening. Pins are very important in lace! The worker pair are now working their way back to the right-hand edge, with a cloth stitch with each passive pair in turn. Every stitch (all cloth stitch) means that the worker pair moves across another pair of bobbins. All cloth stitches are identical. You don't change anything about the stitch because the workers are moving to the right rather than to the left. The only way that you move in a particular direction is which pair you discard at the end of a stitch, and which pair gets used again for the next stitch (which is always the worker pair).
When you have worked enough rows (or run out of pattern!) then you can finish. You can just cut the bobbins off, and unpin the lace, but that might mean your lace unravelling a bit, which would be a shame. So I put pins in the pinholes at the bottom. Unwind four bobbins (two pairs) for a bit, cut them off, then tie a knot in them. When done for all threads, you get a fringe effect. The pins are to stop the lace getting pulled out of shape when you tie the knots.
You can now admire the finished lace. You can see that all threads hang straight down, except the worker threads, which go from side to side. If your lace looks much looser than the photo, then next time, make sure that the pattern is smaller, or use thicker thread. (Or just put up with it!)
Click here for more on how to make lace.
© Jo Edkins 2019 - return to lace index