Difference between bobbin and machine-made picots

Picots are little loops, made with a single pair of threads, looped round a pin, with cunning twists to make sure that the loop doesn't come undone. For a description of how picots are made, with an animation, click here. Picots cannot be described using the cross-twist system, as they are made with a single pair.

In this example, the picots decorate the legs or plaits in this Bedforshire lace. Click here for the whole piece of lace.

In some styles of lace, picots decorate the headside, such as in this Flemish example. This type of headside is also used in Bucks Point lace.

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Sometimes, the lacemaker did not seem to know how to do a proper picot, and just looped the twisted pair round the pin, causing a U-shape.

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Sometimes, the lacemaker just looped a single thread round the pin! There is a method of making a single thread picot, called a knotted picot (click here), but I cannot find any examples of it. There are plenty examples of just the single thread loop, without a knot.

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This is an attempt to reproduce the effect of picots at the edge of the lace. In fact, the threads are just cut here. The machine makes a piece of lace with multiple mats across it. After this is made, the individual mats are cut out. This leaves the cut threads showing, but luckily this looks like picots!

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

Lacemakers may cut corners, but if they have two thread picots, they do at least twist the pair! Here, the two threads have been made into loops without twisting, so they separate.

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The picots are pairs of untwisted threads, again, but you can see how they are pulled through other threads, and not secured at all by any lace stitch.

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