Spiders and roses

This is conventional rose ground, so you can compare it with the rest. The rose patterns are staggered in a chequer board design, which I have always thought is most attractive. They don't look staggered on the pricking, as this is tilited.

This looks similar, but if you look carefully, the roses are staggered by half a pattern, instead of a whole pattern. This makes the finished lace assymetrical. There are distinct stripes of roses going across the lace. Now, conventional rose ground is hard enough to work. (Did you remember all the cloth stitch and twists going into and out of the pattern?) These non-standard rose grounds are worse, as threads don't come from the direction you expect. Remember to always work the highest rose you can see unworked, as otherwise you pick up the wrong threads, which is most annoying!

This takes the idea one stage further. There are a group of four roses, with a Torchon ground stitch between them. There are two slanted lines of roses, but they seem to be going at different angles! Rather confusing to design, and I had to keep undoing the working to make sure that I hadn't made a mistake. Also, these non-conventional grounds don't seem to have the same rigidity as the original ground.

Here, each rose is entirely surrounded by Torchon ground stitches. I think this is the most attractive of the non-conventional rose grounds. I made a mistake the first time I did it, so here is a longer reworked piece. This pattern is symmetrical (if you work it right!) which makes the lace less wonky and if you have enough room in your pattern to display it, could be striking. There seem to be mini-roses at the corners of the main roses.

Since I had had trouble working these rose ground combinations the first time, this time I wrote on the pattern all the corner stitches of the rose ground. It makes life a lot easier! Unfortunately, this won't happen if you use my lace designer, but you can write the corners in after you have printed it off.

The last rose ground pattern, with a line of Torchon ground surrounding each rose seemed worth developing. Above I suggest that you need some room to display it, but thinking about it, you can have a line of roses as long as they are slanting. Here there are cloth fan headsides on both edges, offset so you have room for just one line of roses in between.

To emphasise the pattern, I have made sure that the roses are worked in red, while all other threads are green. The top of the pattern shows a line of pin holes with the correct coloured threads coming from them. If you wish to use this, then hang the bobbins from these pins, and when you have worked the line of pins beneath (which actually start the pattern) remove the top row of pins carefully and let the threads drop onto the lower pins.

The fan headsides have all the passives twisted halfway through. You can see that there are less holes round the edge than the other side, with the straight edges and the point. That means that the first row must always be towards the centre of the lace. It also means that you have one worker pair (per edge) for the entire lace, so make sure that there is more thread on those bobbins! Work half the fan, up to and including the pin at the point. Then twist all bobbins in the fan except the worker pair and the pair at the point. Then carry on working the rest of the fan. You could leave this out if you want, but I hoped it would make the fans look a bit more like leaves.

I think this pattern shows off the roseground more than usual, so I like it.

14 pairs of bobbins.

These spiders packed together similar to rose ground. I could predict that the legs would be in pairs, as there is nothing to separate them. I didn't realise that it would be quite an attractive pattern. The fanning out of the legs at the edge of the lace is pleasant, as well.

Here, the spiders are fitted together the other way, which means that one leg is attached to a different spider. So some legs are in pairs, and some not. It's rather a difficult pattern to figure out when you're looking at it. It might be better in a larger area. The pairs of legs are running from top left to bottom right.

This takes the idea one stage further. There are a group of four spiders, with a Torchon ground stitch between them, similar to the rose ground above. This is an interesting design, as every leg of the spider goes to a different pin than its neighbour, which means that they really do look like spiders! Since the angles are not right angles and 45 degrees, it has rather an organic look. Yet it is easy to work. The design takes a little thought, I must admit.

Here, each spider is entirely surrounded by Torchon ground stitches. This makes a more formal pattern and every leg is separated. You do need quite an area of lace to show the effect though.