Making Lace

Lace is worked on a pattern, which shows where the pins should go. You can find some simple patterns here, and there are more on the rest of this website. There are books and lace magazines with patterns, or, of course, you could always design your own!

You need to prick out the pattern. This means making small holes in the pattern wherever the pins will go. You would think that you could do this while making the lace, but in fact it's quite hard to see where the pin should go when covered with threads. It's much easier and more accurate to prick the holes first. Then when making the lace, you can 'feel' for the hole with the pin. I print out my patterns from the computer, then prick them directly, but some people prick through the pattern onto pricking card below. You can buy a special pricker, or just use a needle or pin. Pin the pattern onto something firm that doesn't mind pinds being stuck into it (you could use your pillow), and prick every pinhole. If you turn the paper over, you can spot any holes that you've missed. When done, fasten the pattern to your pillow with a pin at each corner (or more, if necessary). Push these pins in up to their heads so they don't get in the way.

Now measure the same amount of thread again, but this time cut it off. Wind the other end of the thread onto the other bobbin and fasten it in the same way. You should have one piece of thread with a bobbin at both ends. Stick a pin into the pillow at the start of the pattern, and carefully hang the pair of bobbins from it, letting them lie hanging down on the pillow. There should be 2-3 inches (5 cms) of threads below the pin to the bobbins. Do the same with all the rest of the bobbins. Don't drop the pillow at this point! (I did once - oh deary, deary me.)

If you need to hang more than one pair of bobbins from the same pin and your pairs of bobbins look like each other, then arrange them so the bobbins from the same pair lie next door to each other. That may make it easier to work the lace, as, if you're lucky, the pair will continue to stay together, and this means you can check you haven't forgot part of a stitch. You might even want to loop one pair through the other pair so when the pin is taken out after you've worked the start of the lace, the two pairs of threads are joined rather than springing apart as two separate loops.

It's worth thinking where you start the lace. Torchon lace is on a diagonal grid. If the pattern has a line of holes running diagonally across, then you can start from that (see left). Every hole has a pin with a pair of bobbins on. There is an extra pair of bobbins for the footside if twisted (possibly more for a cloth footside). You can either hang that from the edge pin, or put in a pin in the right place to hold it. There is also one extra pair, who will work their way down the diagonal line of bobbins. This can be hung on the pin at the top point of the diagonal.

Another start point is the middle of the lace, making a central point (see right). Here you hang one pair of bobbins from every starting pinhole, and two from the central point.

Another, neater, way to start is to make a start which is different from the rest of the pattern. Draw a line across the pattern before the start, and mark in ground stitches to take you up to the start of the pattern. Now you have a horizontal line of pins at the start of the pattern. You will need to hang two pairs of bobbins on each pin (making 4 bobbins). There will also be an extra pair at the footside, as before. You can start working the ground stitches directly, but that gives rather a loose effect. Another way is to work one edge pair (it doesn't matter which) across all the bobbins, either in cloth stitch or cloth stitch and twist. You may need to work it back again to get it back to the right place. This row is marked with a horizontal line in the pattern. Now work Torchon ground (or other type of ground) up to where the pattern starts. This gives a clean start to the lace, and means that you don't have to start the lace in the middle of a diamond or a spider.

Every now and then, you need to put in a pin. This will need to go between two threads. Work out which two. Carefully move the pin up between the threads, making sure you don't loose your place. When you get to the pattern, find the right hole (which you have already pricked) and push the pin in far enough to stay there firmly (but not right up to its head). It's a good idea to lean the pin away from the bobbins slightly, as they tend to pull the threads down, and, if you're unlucky, pull the pin out. At the edge, lean the pins out slightly, for the same reason. However, don't lean the pins too much. You're going to have a lot of pins close together, so they need to be put in neatly.

You should always tighten up the threads at a pin. There are several ways to do this. Give each bobbin involved a gentle tug downwards, until the slack of the thread has disappeared. Sometimes stroking the bobbins downwards, or tapping them on the top, is enough. But sometimes it's quite hard to tighten the stitch sufficiently. Then you need to take one pair of bobbins in one hand, and one in the other, and gently pull them apart from each other (see right). Obviously tugging too hard pulls the pins out, which leads to chaos, so be careful! If you don't tighten the stitches enough, then you will see little loops in the final lace. Don't worry too much, no-one else will notice (except possibly another lacemaker!)

Leave the pins in until you have worked enough lace to make the earlier part safe, even from your gentle tugs. This might be about an inch of lace. From this point, you can take pins out from the back of the lace to use in the front. However, if you are making something like a mat, or the edge of a handkerchief, then the end will have to be joined to the beginning. This is a lot easier if you leave the beginning pins in, so the threads will be in the right place for the join. But push the pins right in, up to their heads, or they will get in the way of working the rest of the lace. Click here for more about corners and mats.

Once you have worked some lace, you will find that the bobbins have used up their spare thread, and are too close to the lace. You unwind a bit more thread by holding the bobbin with the thread taut, and twisting the bobbin so some more thread comes out (but not too much!) If you are careful and twist the right way, the loop fastening the thread won't come undone.

The simplest way to finish lace is just to cut off the bobbins, unpin the lace, and there you are! After all, when you buy lace, it has a cut edge. However, a little bit might get unravelled, and you spent time working that bit, so you might want a better way.

Unwind the bobbins for a bit, then cut them off leaving long threads. Then tie knots between threads, or pairs of threads, or larger groups of threads. If you have done a complete line of stitches to finish off, as described above, this will help, as you can tie round the pins. A standard reef knot will make the ends of the threads lie parallel to the end of the lace, which makes them fairly invisible. Tying groups of threads in overhand knots make the ends more of a feature, like a fringe (see right).