A challenging mix of styles for this large, ornate cross. My drawing was an experiment with a graphics app which repeated my lines as quadrants, ie, drawing 4 tallies at once in each direction. This was very pleasing to draw, but didn't help with the practicalities of the direction the lace needed to work.
Measuring 28cm from top to base, I made the main section on a round pillow then moved it to a smaller block pillow to work the tail. Worked in Empress Egyptian mercerised machine quilting cotton (28wpc) I stopped counting the pairs when I realised there were several different ways to make this which would dramatically alter the number of pairs needed.
I worked towards the center. With hindsight, I see I had made things a lot harder for myself than they needed to be. The center, apart from having to take in so many pairs, was so very cluttered by the time the third arm was made and that was when I decided to make the last, longer arm working outwards from the center.
The 'Star' Milanese braid I chose for the center of the arms looked good in the book, but I was disappointed how much like simple spiders it turned out to be when I replaced an edge twist with more passives. Originally I had designed a Bedfordshire style tally and buds motif for the infill and I wish I had kept to that.
Working the ribs of the center flower motif proved interesting to say the least! The petals carried, threw out and added so many pairs I was impressed that it kept it's shape. The ribs were created by twisting the worker, cloth stitch through the center plait, round the pin on the other side and cloth stitch back to the trail. When the tip of the petal had been made, the worker sewed into the waiting thread at the pin and carried on. This gave me the chevron shape I wanted using only one worker pair, without having to use plaits.
The Cluny style quadrants can be left off, they don't affect the making of the main cross. I started working the plaited quadrants by adding pairs on both sides of the first (top) arm. This laid up a lot of waiting bobbins when it came to starting the two side arms because only part of the quadrant could be made if l wanted to take the threads into the edge trail. On the third quadrant, I decided not to add the pairs for the quadrants as I worked the lower edge of the previous arm, but to add them when there was enough of the new arm to throw the pairs out into.
The final quadrant I only added after the last arm had been made long enough to fit it on. This turned out to be the easiest of the three ways I tried and I will be a lot happier adding frilly insets after the main body is made in future.
Fortunately, the way I had drawn the quadrants enabled me to 'bounce' the plaits off the cross itself and tie off the ends inside the tallies, along plaits and the final ones I either tied and sewed in. Two of the tallies had to be plaited on the back to make the design work so this dictated that there was a right and wrong side to the lace.
To avoid joins in the half stitch of the trefoil edge passives (5 passive pairs, center pair worked in half stitch), I started the first three arms at the tips, and worked to the center. I worked the forth, longer arm in the opposite direction, toward the trefoil.
The final join had to be moved so it didn't spoil the tip of the trefoil so I left the bobbins of one side just where the Milanese braid joins a small trail. I worked around from the other side, adding the tally pairs and working the square trail. At the half way point, I made the center crossing and started throwing out the tally pairs into the trail as I worked back to the waiting bundle of bobbins.
Now I have tried it, I will make more use of adding sections after the main body of a design is made. Previous work has seen me with up to 130 pairs piled up at each side of my work!
My thanks go out to lace makers who put their videos out, help with questions in the internet groups and offer guidance in the online group meetings, nearly every time, I learn something new and my problem solving has more solutions.
