This is an attempt to try to reproduce an old Bucks Point lace. It is connected with pattern 182 and pattern 183.
Pattern:
Bobbins: 19 pairs + 4 gimps
Style: Bucks Point
Stitches:
half stitch and twist
cloth stitch
half stitch
cloth stitch and twist
gimp
Details:
footside without passives (grey)
Torchon ground (grey)
honeycomb (green)
bead (green)
trail headside (pale red)
Description:
Follow the links above for explanation of how to work the different parts of the lace.
I found this photo on a website called "Lace for Study" - a splendid website with lots of high quality photos of old lace. I have done a little Bucks Point, and wanted to try some more, so this looked like a simple one to start. Big mistake!
My first attempt was pattern 182, with hexagons as the petals of the flower. I couldn't figure out how to surround the petals with the gimps so much. It apparently meant that I had to pick up pairs that weren't at that point yet!
Further thought led to this pattern. By making the petals into lozenges (4 sided shapes) rather than hexagons (6 sided shapes), it was possible to surround the petals properly. Also, the beads along the bottom were in better proportion to the rest. So this is a better attempt. It is not quite the same, if you look at the centre of the flower, and I still think that the original petals don't look like lozenges! Still, it is an attractive design, I think, and not a bad attempt.
Two further comments. If you do this and use as thick a gimp as I did, then make sure that you tighten the gimp properly. Those sharp turns tended to leave loops as you can see from my attempt at the top. Also, if you look very carefully at the pattern, you will see that the first flower only has 11 petals, not 12! This is because the pattern has to be worked the right way up, and to begin with, I'd got the pattern the wrong way up. The only place that this matters is when you have to run the gimp round the centre of the flower. This gimp comes from surrounding the petals (on the same side as the beads), and it must surround the middle petal first.
I find Bucks Point patterns with gimps a little confusing, as pairs wander over the gimp to do one bit of the pattern and then wander back again to do another. All pairs are marked, so I hope you can follow this!
© Jo Edkins 2017 - return to lace index