| Pattern: |
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Bobbins: 11 pairs
Style: Torchon
Stitches:
half stitch
cloth stitch
cloth stitch and twist
twist pair
Details:
Torchon ground (grey)
French fan headside (red)
twisted footside (grey)
Description: Most fans vary the number of passives in each row. This type of fan uses all the passives in each row. The outer edge of pins splay out the passives at that edge to make the fan shape. The problem is the inner edge. There are the same number of passives as the outer edge, but it is very short. This means that there is not really room for pins to hold the worker pair before it returns back to the edge for the next row. There are different weays to do this. One way is to have just a single pin at the inner edge, and loop the worker pair round it each time. Another way is to have all the pins, pushed as close together as you can! This pattern uses a third way. Work the Torchon ground to the start of the fan, including all the edge pins. For other fans, the edge pins are part of the fan, but not here! Then work the worker pair across all passives to the inner edge, twist the workers, and work back again, all in cloth stitch. Do not tighten the worker pair until you get to the outer edge. Then, while tightening the workers, also pull the inner passive pair (the right pair in the fan) as far to the right as possible. If you tighten the workers without this, all the passives get scrunched up together, as there is no right hand pin to stop the workers dragging them across. Pulling the right passive pair across to the right stops this. Even so, you can see from the close-up below, it is quite hard to get this tensioning right.
Close up of the lace, so you can see the working in more detail
© Jo Edkins 2019 - return to lace index