Lace with Zig-zags and Diamonds
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Lace with Zig-zags and Diamonds |
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There are several patterns in Torchon lace which contrast solid cloth stitch and half stitch.
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Zig-zag pattern Checkerboard pattern Cobweb pattern Narrow zig-zags Snake Woad pattern Greek key pattern |
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Zig-zag PatternThis is a fairly orthodox Torchon pattern, contrasting the half stitch zig-zag with the cloth stitch behind. Normally, both half stitch and cloth stitch are treated equally, each being 'Z's fitting into each other, which are meant to look as if they are twisted round each other. I tried this pattern, which places the half stitch above the cloth stitch, and lo and behold, I get hearts again! There is an open fan, Torchon ground, some spiders to set off the zig-zags and a single twisted footside. 22 pairs of bobbins. |
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Checkerboard PatternThis pattern is simpler. It has cloth diamonds and half stitch diamonds in a checkerboard pattern. You can still imagine them as two continuous strips which intertwine with a spider at the junctions. A Torchon ground sets off the whole pattern, and the usual single twisted footside. The only tricky part in working it is where the two diamonds touch in the centre. You have to work half one diamond until you get to the touching point. Leave the worker pair of bobbins loose - don't put a pin in. Then work the other diamond right through, picking up the loose pair from the first diamond as a passive (for only one stitch each way) at the touching point. When the second diamond is finished, you go back to finish the first, using the loose pair as workers again. Click here for a description of this. 22 pairs of bobbins. |
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Cobweb PatternI wanted to make a very open pattern with half stitch bars and spiders, and a single twisted footside. There are cloth stitch and twist fans on the headside. There is one interesting stitch here. Next to the footside, there are half spiders. Two pairs of bobbins come in from the right, but only one pair from the footside itself. You work the footside pair through the other two pairs the same as a spider. The footside pair also has to come in for a dummy stitch before and after the spider. I wanted to work this pattern in grey, for two reasons. In Geogette Heyer's book 'Powder and Patch', one of the characters has grey lace, and I wanted to see what the effect was. Also I had an email from a lacemaker in Monserrat, who explained that due to volcanic activity on the island and the ash in the air, their lace got dirty very quickly, so they worked in grey thread, so it didn't show! I think the final effect looks a little like cobwebs, so that's what I call it. 15 pairs of bobbins. |
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Narrow zig-zagsWhen I was writing my interactive lace designer, I tested it by designing little pieces of lace. I found this pattern so attractive that I decided to work it, and here is the result. The designer makes patterns on the slant for technical reasons. There are cloth fans and twisted fans as headside, and two very thin cloth stitch bars. Next to the twisted footside, there is one stitch of triangular ground with a couple of stitches of Torchon ground on either side. One peculiarity of these narrow cloth bars is that they work different amounts of bobbins according to which way they are sloping, and which side the worker bobbins started. I used the same worker bobbins throughout (remember to wind lots of thread for these!). For each zigzag, on the zig (as it were), the workers cross 3 pairs one way and 4 pairs returning. But on the zag, they use 2 pairs one way and 3 pairs returning. You can just see that one slop is narrower than the other. However, it depends where the workers started at the beginning on the pattern, and it so happens that one bar has narrow zigs and wide zags, while the other has wide zigs and narrow zags. I think there would be a subtly different result if one of the workers had started on the other side. If you don't understand any of this, try working the lace, and you'll see what I mean. 16 pairs of bobbins |
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SnakeYou can get interesting effects by varying the size of the zig-zag. Here is a snake. The zigzags are cloth stitch and the ground is double Torchon ground with a twisted footside. To make the snake coloured, you need to make sure that the worker bobbins are blue (or whatever colour you chose). This pattern introduces one coloured thread on each side (the idea was to make it look like the snake's forked tongue). This is shown on the pattern. Since you are only introducing a single coloured thread in each place, instead of a pair, you will need to knot the coloured thread with a white thread to make a pair to hang on the starting pin. Then work the coloured threads downwards in single Torchon ground rather than double, to keep them going straight. They meet at the top of the snake. Twist the threads so the coloured pair end up together, and use them as the worker pair. The passive in the footside runs along the point at the top as well as along the edge. Hang two pairs at the pin below the top pin, and twist these round each other so they don't get separated when the pin is taken out. Do the same with the top pin. Then the rest of the threads get hung down the top diagonals, and work them across these inital threads. 22 pairs of bobbins including 2 blue threads which start in different pairs, and end up together. |
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I designed this pattern to use some thread dyed with woad. It is said that the Ancient British painted themselves with woad before going into battle, so I tried a pattern of stripes and dots which would invoke that idea. Not quite sure if I succeeded! I bought the woad-dyed threads here. This pattern uses strips and diamonds with Torchon ground. The Torchon ground is twisted twice rather than just once between each stitch. The points of the diamond are left out to make them more like dots. The other original idea is that there is no footside. The edge is merely a simple pair of threads, twisted three times (rather than twice like the rest of the ground). This does make a firm edge, but not necessarily a very straight one. 8 pairs of bobbins. |
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Greek Key patternI have another website about Greek keys. This is an attempt to make one in lace. One problem is that Greek key patterns are very horizontal and vertical, while Torchon lace prefers diagonals, so I've made these Greek keys on a slant. The background is Torchon ground with a twisted footside. The diagonals could be thin cloth stitch diagonals or half stitch, but I have used what I call crossover diagonals. These work quite well, except where they change direction, but that always causes trouble with these thin diagonals! At a change of direction, where two diagonals meet, you have a choice of which two pairs of bobbins are used for the crossover stitch. It doesn't matter which you choose (althopugh I have marked a choice on the pattern), but there must be a crossover at the corner rather than leaving it out. Unfortunately, this makes the working slightly asymmetric, but you can see the Greek key if you squint at it! 22 pairs of bobbins. |
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