textile dreams – fibery wake up

I have a bit of a change of plan to report. In Part 3 of this tutorial, I said I would use the number 80 Anchor Crochet Cordonnet for the lace fillings. When having a closer look, I decided to use number 60 thread since I think the number 80 would have been too fine for this. I still intend to use the finer thread for buttonholing the outline, though.

I finally have some progress to show:

I’ve worked the lace fillings for the first seed and wing. Most lace stitches are variations of the Buttonhole stitch. You can find a wealth of different lace stitches for example in the Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont, which is available from Project Gutenberg. I’ve added a link to the Crafts Bookshelf in the sidebar, where you can find more needlework books. The different lace stitches are described in the chapter on Irish Lace in the Encyclopedia. The numbers of the stitches I give below are from the “Lace Stitches” section.

The stitch used for the seed is a single buttonhole stitch worked very densely in one direction, then the thread is laid back to the start of the row and the second row of stitches worked over both the previous row and the thread. This is theNineteenth Lace Stitch in the Encyclopedia. The rows are worked starting from the center of the seed. I’ll do the second seed starting in the same manner to get a symmetrical result. What I did with the wing in something quite similar to theTwentyseventh Lace Stitch . I started in the lower right corner and worked a row of single buttonhole stitches, leading the thread back going through each stitch. For the loose row, I worked a twisted buttonhole stitch into every second stitch of the previous row, again leading the thread back to the beginning. Then I started the next row of dense buttonhole stitches, working two stitches into every stitch of the previous row. It helps to use the couching stitches of the outline to make sure the lace stitches stay where they belong.

I’ll try to get some in-progress pictures of working the fillings next, so you can get a better impression of how it works.

In the last post, I started to sew the outline. Now it’s finished:

All the lines of the pattern are covered with a doubled-up outline thread. Here’s a close up of the ending:

The green arrow denotes the line I sewed down first, the black arrow shows the finishing bit. To finish up, I connected the threads to the existing outline at the red arrow, then sewing the two ends down separately. The first thread lies along the original line towards the end of the green arrow,  the second loops back towards the black arrow. The couching thread is used to attach those threads to the existing cordonnet, without sewing through the pattern. When this is finished, the couching thread goes to the back and is secured there. The ends of the cordonnet thread are cut off.

Now the next part is to work the lace fillings. Choosing those is the fun part. Let’s go back to the original picture for a moment:

There are two differently structured areas here: The thick seed part in the center and the thin “wings” with diagonal lines. I think I’ll use a dense stitch for the seeds and a looser stitch following the direction of the diagonal lines for the “wings”.

Next time around I’ll show you how the lace stitches are worked.

At the end of Part 2 I left you with the prepared pattern ready to work on. To get started, we need some working material:

From left to right, we have:

• Anchor Mercer Crochet Cordonnet 20, I’ll use this stronger thread for the outline threads (cordonnet),
• Anchor Mercer Crochet Cordonnet 80, this will be used for the lace stitches and for buttonholing the outline,
• and some ordinary sewing thread.

As far as possible, all threads used should have the same colour. Although in theory the outline thread will not be visible under the lace stitches and the sewing thread will be removed later, little bits of both can show up in the finished piece, so making them the same colour as the lace yarn is a very good idea.

For the first step, laying down the outline thread, you need a lenght of the thicker yarn that is more than twice as long as all the lines on the pattern. Each line has to be covered with 2 threads of this yarn. To start, I double up the length of yarn so I have a loop in the middle. A lenght of sewing thread is threaded into a fine sewing needle. This is brought up through all the layers of the pattern to come up at the starting point of the outline. The outline thread will lay on top of the pattern and be couched down by the sewing thread. After the first few stitches, the outline looks like this:

The sewing thread is brought up through each hole in the pattern, couches the lace thread down and brought down through the same hole. I often have trouble locating the hole with the sewing needle from the backside. To avoid piercing holes into the cardboard all over the place, I stick a pin into the hole from the right side to guide the sewing needle. There must be an easier method to do this, but if there is, I haven’t found it yet.

Figuring out which place to start the outline and how to proceed is a bit tricky. You want to sew as much of the outline as possible with the doubled up thread. For the smaller lines that branch from the main outline you take one thread back and forth, so at the end there are two parallel threads in those places, as well. For smaller branches I usually just take the thread to the other end, interlock it with the existing outline using either a small crochet hook or a tapestry needle, and on the way back sew both threads down. Here’s an example:

In the next part, I’ll show how to finish the outline and get started on the lace fillings.

In Part 1 of this tutorial I showed you how I prepared the pattern. The next step is to sew the cardboard pattern to a piece of fabric. You need a piece of strong fabric that is quite a bit bigger than the pattern when doubled up. Double up that piece of fabric and sew around the edges so you have the two layers firmly connected.

Now, with sewing thread, sew the cardboard to the fabric, using pretty big stitches. The picture is not very clear, but I think you can see the white thread on the brown cardboard along the edges. With this we’re all set up for working the actual lace. Starting Needlepoint Lace recommends mounting the pattern on a pillow for working on it, but I prefer to hold it in the hand.

Part 3 of this tutorial will show how to work the outline threads (cordonnet).

I’ve decided on a new lace pattern, something a bit more natural than the geometric patterns I’ve been doing lately. After a recent storm there were lots of those little maple seeds to be found, so I took some and photographed them lying on black paper:

Using this picture I want to walk you trough the process of making a simple needlepoint lace project as I’m doing it.

To convert the photograph into a lace pattern I printed it out out in the size I wanted, then traced the outline using transparent paper and glued this onto a piece of cardboard:

I probably could have done this step with some kind of image processing software, but I’m pretty sure this was faster. When working with white yarn, I recommend using dark cardboard to increase the contrast. You can also see on that picture that I already pricked holes along the lines. The whole pattern is about 10 cm wide and the distance between holes is about 3 mm. Now that I’ve scanned the pattern to show to you, I can continue with the following steps, preparing the project for actually working on it. This will be covered in Part 2 of this tutorial.