Mary wrote: <But, if I place them straight up and down, my lace kind of climbs up the pins.>
What type of pillow are you using? I can't get on with the high-domed mushroom ones recommended for beginners at all. I got on fairly OK with quite a low domed one for edgings and small pieces, but the work and the pricking still both rose up the pins. Now I almost exclusively use a flat pillow. The pricking stays flat, and the work only creeps up the pins a bit. I push the edge pins in all the way round, with only the last inch or so not pushed in, to keep the work down. <I'm seeing some puckers in the straight part.> If the work is more than about 6 inches square or round, I also push in pins *around* areas of cloth stitch. That means that if my tension isn't all it should be and the threads don't lie parallel, I can use a large pin to push them about a bit without wrecking the look of the lace. When I'm satisfied with how the area looks, I then take the pins out. <I'm practicing Bruges braids .............. The instructions say to do a whole stitch and twist at the beginning and end. Okay, do I do that before or after I place the pin? My edge doesn't look right. It doesn't have that nice space running down the edges. I've been doing a CTC with the last 2 prs, pin CTCT + T.> In Bruges lace, there are two ways of working the edge. For the one that you're doing, you're missing a twist in the workers before working the last passive pair. Twist the workers before the last pair of passives, then CTCT the worker with this last pair of passive, put in the pin, CTCT and work back through the passives. That will put a twist in between the edge pair and the main passives. It also leaves a twist in the last passive ready for when you get back to it. The other edge method is four-about-the-pin-edge, where two pairs of workers alternate. When you get to the last pair of passives, twist the worker pair twice, CTCTT, put a pin *under* both pairs rather than between them so that they both go around over the pin. What was your worker will now be on the outside. Leave it there and work back with what had been the last passive pair. Next time you get to this edge, those two pairs will swap places again. This method gives a straight edge with a good gap between the edge and the first pair of straight passives. If you've got different coloured threads, try it with mixed colours so you can see where the threads are going. Jean in Poole - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
