Pattern:
Bobbins: 9 pairs
Style: Bucks Point / Torchon
Stitches:
half stitch
cloth stitch and twist
cloth stitch
picot (green)
Details:
Torchon ground (grey)
trail (yellow)
cloth stitch fan (red)
half stitch fan (blue)
Description:
Follow the links above for explanation of how to work the different parts of the lace. Please note that this pattern uses picots and a trail - not conventional Torchon!
The picots are done with the worker pair from the fans. The other workers of the trail come from the Torchon ground.
A play "Frik in 't Veurhuis" by M. G. Tengnagel, published in Amsterdam in 1642, mentions the trade of spelderwerkster or bobbin lacemaker (literally 'pin worker'). "Grietje scolds a lazy pupil, saying that the doll's pattern only has 18 bobbins, so she ought to be able to do a sixteenth of an ell in an hour, but she has only done one tiny scallop."
I am not suggesting that this is the doll's pattern! But I thought it might be fun to design a lace with dolls, using only 9 pairs. The picots are supposed to be the dolls' heads, and the trail, their linked arms. The fans (or "scallops") are supposed to be the dolls' skirts. Not very convincing perhaps! The original reference might be referring to simple lace which could be used to trim a doll's clothes, I suppose.
© Jo Edkins 2016 - return to lace index