Pattern:
Bobbins: 18 pairs (2 red, 2 blue, 14 purple)
Style: Torchon
Stitches:
half stitch
cloth stitch
cloth stitch and twist
twist single pair (grey)
Details:
cloth stitch fan (blue and pink)
cloth stitch zigzag (green)
upward chevron (green)
downward chevron (green)
Torchon ground (grey)
Description:
Follow the links above for explanation of how to work the different parts of the lace.
The different colours of fans in the patterns does not show cloth stitch and half stitch (as elsewhere in the patterns). Instead it is the actual colour of the fans. These are coloured by the worker pair. There is a red and blue pair on each side. One colour is the worker for a fan, and the other is the edge pair (just visible). At the end of a fan, these two coloured pairs swap over, so the next fan has the opposite effect. You need to choose the workers at the top to get the checkerboard effect. Of course, you could choose the other way round, which would still produce a pleasant effect, rather like butterfly wings. By the way, all of the passives in the fans (apart from the edge pair) are purple, but they do not show much, do they!
There are some grey lines joining different parts of the pattern, such as the zigzag and the scallop. The pairs need to be twisted between the pins. Sometimes this happens naturally as they leave the previous shape. But if not, give them an extra twist.
The red and blue pairs start in the middle of the first row, and work, in cloth stitch, to the edges, to make a neat start. They do this (in reverse) at the end.
This pattern is demonstrating chevrons, and patterns within fans. For chevrons, follow the links above. In the fans, the middle passives of each row are twisted. This makes a gap in the centre of the fan, both for attractive effect, and to force the edge passives further out, to help shape the fans. You choose where to twist the passives. Once you have chosen, you should keep to the same place throughout the fan. Different places produce different effects. Twisting just before the edge is a common place, but this piece has twisted further down.
© Jo Edkins 2016 - return to lace index