Lace For Shoulder Bag

 A few days ago (August 13)  I made a post called Weft Faced Weave.  This post showed some weaving that I am working on that I plan on making into a shoulder bag.  I am also making some lace to put on the bag when it is down to give it a little texture. 

This particular lace is being made with, I think, 60/2 Linen.  The pattern itself comes from "101 Torchon Patterns"  by Robin S. Lewis.  This particular book is a really nice place to start for some basic Torchon patterns that are easy to follow and give you an opportunity to work on many different techniques.  Many of them can easily be adapted to use different stitches than is originally shown to spice up your work. 

I especially like this pattern because of the hearts.  I think it will give some nice contrast to the more ethnic feel of the weaving that I have done so far.

Torchon Lace German Spider

This month at the Freeway Lace Guild meeting the program was on the Torchon German Spider. I always like doing spiders in Torchon Lace. You take one group from one side of the lace to the other side, switching places with the same amount of threads from the other side. Then you take them all back again. Simple, straight forward, and the hardest part is getting the tension right.

This spider is different in the fact that instead of it being in the center of ground work it extends to the outside edge of the lace. I usually do all of the ground around a spider first. Then work the spider. Then go back to ground work. On this particular pattern that process just does not work. You have to work a section. Then do some ground. Then work another section. Then work some edging. Then work on the spider some more.

You have to constantly be rechecking where you are in the process. One of the tricks that helped a lot in the project was to color code the diagram to help keep track of where the pairs were to go next. Taking your time and focusing was also a must. I personally think a glass of merlot along side was also a plus but since we meet at a church that was not to be.

As you can see from the photo I am not very far along, but, hopefully by the end of next week I should show some progress. I just have to really find focused quiet time for this one.

The pattern for this spider is from Alex Stillwell's book, "Drafting Torchon Lace Patterns".