A young friend of mine was fascinated by my lace bobbins, so here is a lace bobbin, made of lace! It has real beads as spangles.
Pattern:
Bobbins: 20 pairs (16 blue, 18 pink, 1 brown, 1 gold - the bobbins get reused!)
Style: Torchon
Stitches:
half stitch
cloth stitch
cloth stitch and twist
twist single pair
gimp
Details:
Shape with vertical edge (pale red)
Torchon ground (grey)
rose ground (green)
footside with no passives (grey)
bead threaded on (grey)
Description:
Follow the links above for explanation of how to work the different parts of the lace.
The top part is supposed to be the lace that the bobbin is working on. I made it rose ground and you can choose what colour you'd like - I choose blue. There are 18 pairs at this point. I made the edge pairs background colour, but it probably isn't necessary. Then the pairs are tied off at a pin, and new pairs are hung in the background colour (I choose pink). Make sure that the new pair are hung round the tied off pair, or you'll get the rose ground not attached to the rest of the lace! (If this happens by mistake, you could sew it together again.) You must leave one of the rose ground pairs still in the lace, to create the "thread" going down to the bobbin. This is treated as a gimp (i.e. worked as cloth stitch and twist whenever it crosses any other pair, without a pin). This means that there are 19 pairs in the pattern.
The workers for the bobbin are started at the top of the bobbin. I added this worker pair, to make sure there were more passives in the cloth stitch bobbin, so now there are 20 pairs in the pattern. The rose ground pair (or "thread") is taken over the top of the cloth stitch, to make it more prominent. When we get to where the "thread" is wound round the bobbin, treate the brown pair as a passive, and use the rose ground pair as workers until that part is done. Then tie off the rose ground pair and return to the brown pair for the rest of the bobbin. Tie it off at the bottom of the bobbin.
The gold thread is introduced as a gimp, through the bobbin shaft, just before the bottom. Thread the beads you are using (they must be small!) onto this gimp on each side, and then wind the gimps onto bobbins. As you work the background, make sure that a bead is positioned in the correct place as the pairs cross the gimps. Tie off the gimp at the bottom, preferably so the knot will disappear inside the bottom bead.
© Jo Edkins 2018 - return to lace index