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".
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