I would like to make a silk scarf because why not? I've never made a scarf. I have a design and I have silk yarn. However, I don't know how much to enlarge/reduce the pricking so as to fit the yarn. I have made teeny samples of various sizes but I don't know what to look for. What? What am I looking for?
The design is Model 11 from Brigitte Bellon's Kloppelmuster fur Schals und Tischlaufer. That's a book of Torchon(?) scarves and table runners. It's in German (which I don't speak) and there aren't any diagrams for how to make stitches, but the prickings are marked (for example, the cloth trails and spiders are clearly marked) and there are very clear photos of each piece. This scarf looks like just Torchon ground, cloth trails, and a few spiders thrown in. I got the book and yarn from Holly Van Sciver. She said, oh, this pricking is too small for this yarn, you will have to enlarge appropriately. I said, how do I know how big to make it? She said, make little samples with various pricking sizes. I said, what, you mean I have to go make an entire pricking and wind up all those bobbins and then start working the scarf and then stop after a short time so all that work was for nothing? She said no, not at all. She said put the photocopy directly on the pillow--no pricking-- and just work with a few bobbins. Easy-peasy. So I went home, made a bunch of photocopies of various sizes, and wound up 12 pairs of bobbins. I started at the beginning of the scarf, but the beginning of the scarf is just ground and I wanted to see how the yarn behaved in cloth stitch. I ran out of bobbins well before I got to the first cloth stitch. So I found a likely section of the design that had both ground and cloth. I made an imaginary 7 by 5 ! pin diamond. I put pins on the top left and top right sides of the diamonds and hung a single pair on each. Then I worked the inside of the diamond, which, as I said, had both ground and cloth trail. So now I have teeny diamonds of various sizes. What am I looking for? This is a scarf, so I guess I want it to be soft. Maybe lace will naturally be soft because it has lots of holes in it? Also, won't it be impractical as a scarf since won't the holes let all the cold air in so it won't keep you warm? Should I make it extra long so the wearer can wrap it around a few times to keep the cold out? Or are lace scarves only worn wrapped once, for maximum decorativeness? How long should a scarf be, anyway? I guess the tighter the lace the more stiff and study it is? So how stiff and sturdy do I want a scarf to be? Surely a really loose lace will fail to hold its stitches and be more likely to catch and distort when touching another object? But I do want it to feel nice to the touch. All the other lace I make is just edging exercises and stuff so it's not big enough that I care how it feels like in my hand. For the 100% diamond the cloth stitch was resistant--I felt like I had to really pull the threads to get them through and the threads felt rough and not-wanting-to-slide. Off the pins, the cloth stitch looks a little lumpy and the sides where the weaver bends around looks unattractive. So, fine 100% is definitely too small. 105% is better. 110% is pretty reasonable. The cloth stitch looks smooth and it was easy to work. The threads no longer feel rough and resistant. Except maybe when I am pinning the weaver. At 115% the cloth stitch starts looking like it has some space in it. Breathing room. Man, it look like dense half stitch to me but I know for a fact that I used cloth stitch. I think maybe that's due to the fact that the cloth stitch goes diagonally when I hold the diamond in the natural way, instead of going horizontal. I think I'll try a couple more sizes and see if I can get something that is definitely too big. Right now I guess I like the 115%, as it feels the softest. But the diamonds are really small. Maybe a much bigger piece of lace has qualities to it that I miss in a smaller piece, qualities like the softness and sturdiness. I wonder if I should use one twist when putting the weaver around the pin instead of two twists? Holly sold me some extra large pins, but she still seemed dubious about their size. I don't know why she is dubious; I don't know what happens if torchon pins are too small. But I wonder whether the reason the thread feels resistant going around the weaver pin is not that the pricking is small but rather that the pins are so small that it hard to fit two twists inwhen circling around the pin. I'm excited at this idea of figuring out for myself how big to make the pricking. I am not naturally adventurous, not at all, so I always use the thread specified in the book or in Holly's sizing chart, slavishly following the directions and afraid to explore for myself. I am really pleased at how quick and easy it is to just churn out several diamonds. It is really no problem at all. Julie Shalack Laurel,Maryland,USA - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
