Click here to see how to start designing lace. That also gives links for how to continue. Let us assume that you have a design for a Torchon strip of lace, but you want to make it into an edging, round a handkerchief or mat. So you want to design a corner. Let's take this pattern as an example:
First, you must find the corner line. This is not particularly easy, as there may be several places that you can draw the line. You must find the one you like best. However, there is a rule - you must NOT cross any lace design except simple ground. Also you must get the line sloping the right way. You want the footside on the inside of the corner, and the headside on the outside, so the line must slope to give you less footside and more headside. You can see that there is really only one place in this pattern where you can draw the line (dark grey), and even then it clips a headside scallop.
Get rid of all the pattern that is after the corner line:
Mirror the pattern before the line to continue after the line, but of course, twist it through a right angle:
There are two pairs of threads right on the outside of the corner. This always happens. I have made a thicker line here, which show that these two pairs should be plaited, so they travel from the bottom of one fan to the top of the next.
The reason why you cannot have any stitch but simple ground crossing the line is that threads crossing the line change direction.
The pink arrows show some threads travel in the same direction. But the purple arrows show the other threads change from travelling towards the headside to travelling towards to footside.
For simple ground, you don't mind. As long as you have two pairs of threads at right angles, you can work them. But spiders and diamonds and fans have a very definite sense of direction, and so get confused. You can have spiders and diamonds and fans lying right next to the corner line, but they must not cross one. It is possible to have a corner with rose ground, but the corner line must go through the cross-overs, not through the centre of a rose ground unit.
If you find nowhere to draw the line at all, then draw it between two headside designs, and continue it through the rest of the pattern, even if it goes over a spider of a diamond. Then replace the mutilated spider or diamond with some simple ground stitches. If you like, you can make the diamond smaller, so it comes up to the line, but not over. You can't even do that with a spider! Here are two attempts to make a corner of the pattern below, putting the corner line in different places, and filling with ground stitches as necessary.
The corner line may not be obvious:
You definitely can't have a corner line going through the fan. We need a line going alongside the fan. There are a couple:
These make two possible corners:
You would have to decide which you prefer! You can see that the second one has replaced the spider by some Torchon ground. This is because the line cut through the spider, which is not allowed. You can put Torchon ground anywhere to fill a hole.
© Jo Edkins 2017 - return to lace index