Lace inspiration

Lots of lace and a little knitting

[therewithacamera]

Lace (Silksong) out of bobbin lace

[sparklingspangles]

This weekends work: slightly listing paris ground and snowflakes

[therewithacamera]

First wing completed as of 23.5.26, only took 6 hours :)

[noxx-notions]

Proof of concept. Playing with lace on a wire frame.

[sparklingspangles]

Doing a bucks edging sample to practice kat stitch before doing Paris. Somehow, remembering to do half stitch not cloth stitch for the pearls is the hardest.

[thackeroy]

I know my thread's a little thick but it's the thinnest I've got, these are only for learning how to do things anyway. Starting on the Daisy Bookmark sampler from the book, it's teaching me how to do spiders for the first time!

Working through "The Bobbin Lace Manual" book by Geraldine Stott

[orlayalace]

don't ask me how long this took

[wine-red-shore]

Do I have more urgent projects? Yes. Am I working on my 2nd snake instead? Also yes lmao

Also the guild teaches us a fun little alt to the snake pattern where you add in the outer passive later so the nose is sharper. It felt very trust the process the first time.

[wine-red-shore]

I finished the snake today! Overall I'm very happy with it however something went weirdly wrong with the snout. I'm already planning to make another and will check that spot carefully to make sure its not messed up again. Half way through I changed from putting my pins in straight to slanted and it really improved the tensioning so Ill be trying that from the start as well.

Mostly this project left me really wanting a round pillow, turning a square one gets annoying fast 😅

Im also really curious about if the twists work in any other stitch than cloth but well looking up a technique called twists when that's one of the base movements is...extremely hard. The next guild meet up Ill be able to make it to won't be for a few weeks or I'd ask.

[visionofthebees]

I made a happy lil swan!!

I got impatient and took it off the pillow as soon as I finished so the half stitches went kinda wonky but I'm really happy with it!! I'm tempted to do it again but use idrija corners instead of the ones the pattern tells you to use just because I'm more comfortable with that.

[milkweedman]

Giving bobbin lace the most basic attempt--just practicing cloth stitch with 5 pairs of makeshift bobbins.

You can see where I figured out that crossing the edges is not the right move (altho that said i really like the resulting ribbon, I just think theres probably a way to do that without wasting 2 bobbins and doing literally nothing with them lol). No pattern or anything yet, mostly because last night I figured hey I have cloth stitch down let's try half stitch:

And this was the result, in case anyone needs a laugh. I have already learned a very valuable lesson which is dont pin it to a long narrow cat toy that rolls around xD in retrospect I probably could have surmised that without trying it, but here we are. Anyway it completely fell apart when I started trying half stitch so I thought i should stick with cloth stitch a little longer.

This is my current setup which is much more stable, so i can actually use some tension and have somewhere to put the bobbins on the side.

Anyway its very enjoyable. Even if I never figure out anything else about bobbin lace I could see myself making lots of cloth stitch tape with it. Its slower than using a loom but a lot less painful somehow, and very satisfying.

[wine-red-shore]

I've also been learning bobbin lace, this snake is the second 'lesson'. I'm learning through the local lacemaking guild with another SCA friend, the goal is to get good enough that we can then teach ourselves more period methods and patterns. The guild is super welcoming, I'm glad we have access to them. All my gear I got through them.

I actually first started working on this during Rowany festival, even took it to court. Unfortunately the combo of the plastic bobbins losing their hitch constantly and the fucking WIND meant that I instead ended up with hopelessly tangled bobbins. When I got home it took like 2hrs to untangle and required me to turn my worker into a set of passive and cut a new worker pair 🙃. But! Its looking good now and that's all that matters.

[enby-scientist]

Dear tumblr fiber artists/historians I have an OC from the Netherlands and currently in 18[vague mumbles] late old-west era USA.

I want them to have been taught lace making when they were younger. Any ideas what kind of lace they would of likely been taught? And how accessible would that be to them as someone traveling on a wagon most days?

If inaccessible what might the alternatives be?

Thank you! I gift you a picture of a lace bobbin my nan was gifted when I was born

[iplaywithstring]

I love this type of question!

I'm not a lace historian, but I am a lacemaker. A Google search for "Dutch bobbin lace" brought up a bunch of great resources, but timeframes were earlier than yours (15th century mostly) - highly recommend a look if you're curious.

For more practical understanding of terms and tools, this link might be useful

Things to consider - how precious are the pins? How does she keep from losing any? Bobbins can be sticks if necessary, but pins are harder to replace. Cover cloth is important too - need to keep the dust off the lace. From my understanding it wouldn't have been spangled bobbins - what's sold now as Dutch bobbins tend to have a bulb at the end so there's a bit of weight and gravity helps tension the threads. A bolster is more common - it's narrow and the bobbins can hang off the side instead of resting on the pillow when not in use.

Also going to tag @sparklingspangles because they know more than I do and can correct me as necessary

[sparklingspangles]

I was avoiding answering since I don't know anything about Dutch lace. It looks like part laces like Bruge flower lace would have been more common in that area, but that is just what I gleaned from kantcentrum website. These would be made in sections then joined. Hopefully there is someone Dutch around who knows better. You could try checking

LOKK – Landelijke Organisatie Kant Kunst

The bobbin pictured is a midlands bobbin from England, as mentioned someone Dutch would not use this style. They would be "continental" style with no beads but a bulbous end instead.

Historic working lacemakers (at least in england) worked on the same pattern repeatedly. So for an edging they would work on one continous strip, which would then be cut and joined by someone else to make multiple items for sale. They wouldn't bounce around patterns making variety as we do today. However, if your character is a hobbiest in another country this would not apply, though access to patterns would be a challenge.

[tallangrycockatiel]

I promise there's a textile under there.

[violet-yimlat]

Does anyone on this gay little website know how bobbin lace works? I’m just starting out and I’m really confused lol

Like, I don’t know what I’m doing?

The bit on the butterfly with the goldish pins is mine, the rest was done by my dad when he was a child

[violet-yimlat]

The only thing is that what I’m doing looks like this

while the picture looks like this

[thehistoricalfrog]

Hi so fist off I want to say you are doing a good job! Your cloth stitch has good tension!!

Now to answer your question: what you have been doing so far is called a cloth stitch and in that part it switches to a different stitch called the half stitch

Here is a picture, but i would honestly recommend to watch a video tutorial to grasp how to do it!

So thats the big visual difference.

The second thing that is different is the edge. So far (correctly) one you worked all your pairs you twisted the working pair added a pin and continued.

By the photo of the original lace and the bigger detailed diagram I can see its an edge that uses a plat. And a plat is just the cloth stich worked with two pairs.

This is very common for half stitch because its very flimsy and doesn't like to keep its shape, so we use a reinforced edge using a plat.

For reference this is how you mark a plat on a bobbin lace diagram.

The lace utilises two types of plat edges:

The outside edge:

Once you finish the half stich you get to the plat. You work the plat edge bobbins as one (so you imagine the the purple bobbins are stuck together and you imagine that the yellow bobbins are stuck together). You do a cloth stitch with the working pair and the edge pair (two bobbins working as one). You twist (at least twice maybe more). Then you repeat the same thing. You make a cloth stitch with the edge pairs being dubbled up. And continue working the half stitch as normal.

This will be split into two part because I reched the picture limit lol

[thehistoricalfrog]

Part two!!!!!

The inside edge is straight (it doesn't have the twist bumps on the side) with the exception of the twists that go into and meei in the centre.

Pictures on how to do that.

This time you don't work the plat pair as one you separate the into two pairs. The outside pair of the plat (the pair that isn't facing the half stitch) you put to the side and ignore.

You take the working pair and the inside plat pair and you make a cloth stitch, place a pin.

Now the two pairs have switched places. What used to be your working pair will now be in the plat, and what used to be the plat will be the working pair.

[thehistoricalfrog]

Two more things i wanted to add

1 if you don't mind it there isn't really a problem if you don't want to do all that and keep the cloth stitch you already did

2 I looked more closely at your diagram and the marking is slightly different then what I described. There are no X–X–X just slashes and those usaly mark the number of twists you are supposed to do if it's outsidethe standard twist a lacemaker would know to do (1 slash = 1 twist, 4 slashes = 4 twists) (And you also have that use there. for the number twist in the inside joining peaks bit. The —////—).

Which has me thinking that there isn't actually supposed to be a braid there. Ooops. And the outside edge is basically the same as the one you have been doing just with extra twists and the inside edge is a twisted footside edge.

(Plus looking at it the side your dad did also didn't have a plat there so it wouldn't be semetrical anyway)

[sparklingspangles]

The edge is just cloth stitch and twist for the half stitch section based on the diagram. This is equal to 2 half stitches.

If you want to go back and fix something, the threads going to the pin in the middle should have 3 twists before and after the pin. This can be seen in the / as mentioned and will help the lace hold it's shape.

[marionette-idk]

NEW HOBBY BABY

[violet-yimlat]

Does anyone on this gay little website know how bobbin lace works? I’m just starting out and I’m really confused lol

Like, I don’t know what I’m doing?

The bit on the butterfly with the goldish pins is mine, the rest was done by my dad when he was a child