Some styles of lace use a trail or tape. This is a long strip of lace, with passives. There may be a worker pair working across the strip, or one of the passives may become a worker pair. Pairs can leave or join the trail in a more flexible way than a Torchon shape.
If you have more than one trail in a pattern (see pattern 481), then they may need to cross each other. There are two ways to do this. All the lines in the diagrams below represent a pair (rather than an individual thread).
Merging trails
One way is to work both trails down to the meeting point. Take one pair from one trail as the worker pair for the merge, and work it as a diamond, gradually taking in an extra pair from each trail:
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The problem with this methoda is that is there are too few pairs in the trails, the passives may separate.
Crossing trails
The other method is to cross the trails, so every pair in one trail is worked across all the pairs in the other trail in cloth stitch:
Then tidy up the cross-over, and continue working both trails. No pins are required for the cross-over itself, although you may need a pin to start off the worker pairs again.
© Jo Edkins 2016 - return to lace index