Difference between bobbin and machine-made picot and cloth headside

Picot and cloth headside is used in Bucks Point lace and elsewhere. There is a trail of cloth stitch, with picots along the edge. Click here for more about this type of headside.

In this example, worker pairs from the lace work through the passives in cloth stitch. Then the workers make a double picot, and return through the passives to the lace.

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This example has a cloth trail which varies in width, getting thicker at the narrowest part of the lace, and thinning out as the lace gets wider. Click here for more about this.

This means that the worker pair from the cloth stitch sometimes comes from the trail itself, as former passives. But they still make the picot and return to the lace.

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The single picots in this machine example do not matter, as bobbin lace picots are often single (see picots). However, the 'cloth stitch' is a mess. There is no weaving effect at all, as there should be - see the bobbin lace examples above.

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The weaving effect here is much better. However, the worker pairs are thinner than the passives, which gives an unbalanced weave. Bobbin lace always has cloth stitch made with threads of the same thickness (see cloth stitch). Also, the picots have not been made with the workers, but with threads that stay at the edge.

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This example has already featured in the picots page. The 'picots' are just cut threads. This affects the cloth trail as well, since threads disappear into the picot and never return.

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For an example of a different piece of lace before it's been cut, click here.