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Ok, so last time, we finished a triangle of ground pattern and were just about to start working on a spider. Spiders are these diamond-shaped decorative elements you see in lace sometimes; my teacher says she likes them because they cover a lot of space with only a little effort. From what I hear, some people really hate doing them, but I can’t imagine why – they are awfully confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, they’re so fun!

If you look closely at my spiders, you’ll see a tiny diamond-shaped border around each one. This is called a ‘trail’, and it is worked much like the ground was – in half-stitch again, but instead of pinning at each point on a grid, it’s worked in tiny rows that zig-zag down from the top point out to each side point (and then back again to the lower point after the spider is completed). Can you see that there’s a tight zig-zag pattern all around the diamond? That’s the trail.

I am purposely brushing past the trail a little because, although it is worked very easily in simple rows, it’s so tiny that I fear it would difficult to show properly. The above photo shows the top half of the trail finished, which means the top border of the upcoming spider is done and now I have four pairs on either side all set up to be used for the spider. The rest of my bobbins are pushed out of the way for the moment, I only need these eight pairs for now. These pairs are each twisted together a number of times before anything happens, so that they make nicely defined little legs coming from the border. This will be more visible as we go on.

You can see the pattern for the spider below my work; as my teacher always says, ‘just follow the lines’. Of course those lines make no sense at all at first, but with a little practice, I could finally see that they were telling me where each pair should go, like directions on a map.

The basic idea of a spider is that the four (in this case) pairs on one side will all work through the four pairs on the other side, making a little pattern where they all meet in the center. Sometimes something fun and different will go on as well, but it will always essentially work that way. This one has a little fun stuff going on. Above, I’ve worked a little stitch at the top and put up a pin, which give the top a bit of extra definition. Then I did as is usual, working the four pairs on the left through the four pairs on the right. This means that the first pair on the left does a half-stitch through each right pair. Then the second left pair does a half-stitch through each right pair. Etc.

Because this spider has some fun shenanigans going on, some of the pairs weave around a bit before leaving the spider. I won’t go into specifics with that because each spider pattern is different and that’s just confusing. But that is why there’s some pins on the sides. In this case, it makes the spider into a little round ring, rather than a clump of stitches all together.

Then the four left pairs repeat their actions as before, finishing off the spider. Think of it as being horizontally symmetrical: my 8 (total) pairs did a little dance in the top half of the spider, then weaved around a bit in the middle, then have to repeat their dance below to make it match, then the pin at the bottom point as at the top.

Then each pair leaves the spider just as it came in: twisted together the same number of times as above so that the legs are again tight and well-defined (8 twisted legs coming from the border *into* the spider, then 8 twisted legs coming *from* the spider). I use those legs to work the bottom half of the trail, and now I have another completed section: a fancy half-stitch spider, surrounded by a tiny half-stitch trail.

I’m still inching along on my Venus Shawl and Fa Fa Fa Socks, but there’s nothing much to see yet. In the meantime, I’ve been intensely enjoying my lacework for the first time since I started taking lessons. Let me clarify: I’ve always enjoyed *learning* how to make lace, but it was work to learn. I worked at it like practicing the piano when you’re a kid – practicing just feels like homework while you plod away at the simple stuff. Until a point where something clicks and it suddenly feels natural.

About a week ago, lacemaking became fun. Something finally settled into place. I came home from last weekend’s lesson and put my lace pillow and tools away as always, but found myself craving it a few days later.

I’ve been working at it constantly since then, and took about a zillion photos as I worked – it occurred to me that I’d blogged about my lessons and projects, but never talked about how bobbin lace is actually made. Perhaps I was still learning too hard. I’ve split this into three posts because it will be very photo heavy. I’ll keep it simple and keep the jargon to a minimum; even if the details are confusing, hopefully you’ll still leave with some vague notion of how bobbin lace works. And of course, feel free to ask any questions and I’ll do my beginner’s best to answer clearly! (Click through to see any photos bigger on Flickr.)

First let’s look at my project – here’s a reminder of my sampler pattern – those diamonds each contain a ‘spider’, each one is different. The piece will eventually include a wide border sampling different ‘ground’ (or background) patterns, but I’m still working on the spiders for now. I will walk you through one full section repeat, as it were, of ground + spider. Here’s what my pillow looked like when I sat down to work:

As you can see, most of my project is covered up with cloth – this is to protect the finished lace, and keep my bobbin threads from catching on the pins. (Although I only have about 1-2 inches of area fully covered by pins, the entire piece is still secured by pins pushed down here and there.) I would normally have even more covered, but I wanted you to see the work in context.

Hopefully you can see that the section I’ve just sat down to will be the ground (the simple background) pattern. My pattern is on the paper beneath my work (the ‘pricking’), so I can follow the lines and marked pinholes as I go. I will work my ground pattern up until a new spider begins (the exciting diamond-shaped area coming up ahead).

My ground pattern is worked in half-stitch, so I make one half-stitch – stitches consist of passing pairs of bobbins over each other in a particular order. (Bobbins are always worked together in pairs, two on the right working with two on the left.) Then I put up a pin at the little dot where the pricking tells me to:

And then work another half-stitch to cover the pin:

Now I continue doing exactly that, taking one pair of threads / bobbins from either side of each pinhole, and work down the diagonal row, making stitches and putting up pins:

Now I’ve finished one row. I will continue in this way down the remaining three diagonal rows until I get to the area where the spider will begin. Then this section of ground will be finished, and I will be all ready to set up the spider – in part two!

Nearly one Fa Fa Fa Sock down. Yeesh, these socks are high-maintenance! I think I finished the full pair of Honey Badgers in the time it’s taken me to do nearly one Fa Fa Fa sock. Though, to be fair, I did have to frog about 4″ worth of sock and start over: the cables in this pattern pull in the fabric so, so much more than I expected. I thought I took that into account when picking my needle size, but I couldn’t even get it over my heel. The fuss is so worth it though, I love uber-cabley-ness of them, and it makes them so cuddly and thick. Yum.

But hey, why isn’t there such a thing as a sock cable needle?! I was using the smallest cable needle of my wooden set and even that is a full millimeter size larger than the needles I’m using, so the stitches are a big pain to slide on and off. I had to order a new (plastic) one which is thinner, but what I’m imagining is a shorter cable needle, maybe 2″ long, so it’s not in the way for the small diameter of socks, and about 2.5mm-ish thick. It’d have to be out of some kind of strong-ass wood, but I think it can be done. Hey, KnitPicks / KnitPro: make it so and send me one, k? Thanks.