Valenciennes lace was a fine lace using a large number of bobbins. This pattern does not pretend to be a proper Valenciennes pattern! It does use two types of Valenciennes ground.
Pattern:
Bobbins: 18 pairs
Style: Valenciennes (sort of!)
Stitches:
cloth stitch
half stitch
plait (pale blue)
lazy join (pale blue)
twist
Details:
Valenciennes ground (pale blue)
round Valenciennes ground (pale blue)
Torchon ground (grey)
cloth zigzag (red)
solid cloth stitch (red)
Description:
Follow the links above for explanation of how to work the different parts of the lace. The Valencienes ground is made of plaits which join at the pin. I did three cloth stitch and twist for each plait (which is equivalent to six half stitches).
This is a very small bit of lace, for comparing the two different Valenciennes ground, the square form and the round form. The third section is just plaits and lazy joins.
The Valenciennes junctions merely involve the inner two pairs, with the outer two pairs left untouched. This means that if the four pairs that come into the pin are called A, B, C, D, then they leave as A, C, B, D. That means that the outer two pairs tend to pull away from the pin. For the square Valenciennes ground, it is important to tighten the threads well at the pin to prevent this. For rounded Valenciennes, you encourage this pulling away with extra twists, which produces the round effect. See the descriptions above for details on how to do this. The third section uses a lazy join at the pin, so all the pairs are involved in the stitch, and cross over at the pin, making a much stronger stitch. (But it isn't Valenciennes!)
© Jo Edkins 2017 - return to lace index