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I've been cutting the basting thread on the back, therefore I've been trying closely woven fabrics to baste the pattern to so that the basting threads don't sink in. Grimwood suggests cutting the threads between the two pieces of backing fabric.
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Yes, that's the way I learned to remove the lace from the pattern. It's better if you snip the threads closer to the (looser) bottom fabric than to the upper layer of fabric (next to the stiffer pattern): you're less likely to accidentally snip the lace thread itself, should you happen to have made a loose stitch or two in the lace, or some unusually tight basting stitches. (I use white thread to baste the cordonnette down. I learned the hard way not to use even the palest of colored basting threads, in spite of what I'd been originally taught. :-D )
Yes, the snipped bits of thread are very short. I use a pair of very good (strong and fine-pointed) tweezers with a small magnifying glass on them -- they're sold in quilter's shops, if you can't find them through a lace supplier. And a good light, of course, which *you* now don't have to worry about! <G> When I make needle lace with very fine threads, I generally plan to spend as much time removing the basting snippets as I spent laying the cordonette in the first place. And now I know why, in historic times, needle laces always cost more than most bobbin laces ....!
Happy New Year to all!
Beth Schoenberg
--- in beautiful downtown Canberra, Oz, where my lovely daughter has just come home from an all-night 3-movie marathon of "Lord of the Rings," which she and her friends attended in costume and with an arachnophobe in their midst ....
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