Beginners - 1. The First Stitch

The first steps in bobbin lace are the most important.  The first two techniques - cross and twist - are the staples of bobbin lace making and will be used in all the stitches and styles of bobbin lace.

Video is available here on my youtube channel

https://youtu.be/Rond_FBjcbY?si=yATYUQusGnauFI1O

  

One of the first things you get told is to look at the threads, not the bobbins.  But, you have spent ages, and possibly lots of money getting a set of bobbins, why wouldn't you want to look at them all the time?  Because it is what happens at the end of the threads, the bit on the pillow, that is actually where the lace is being made.  A glance to make sure your bobbins are in the right place, sure, that helps, but when you have the same colour thread on 50 pairs of bobbins, how do you tell from looking at the bobbins if one has jumped over another and mixed up the threads?  You can't, you look at  the other end of the thread, on the pillow, see if a twist is missing, a pin in the wrong place, tension gone a bit awry, which is the next pin, the bobbins can't tell you this.  Look at the lace. 

But don't worry about that yet.  That will come in time.  First, have a go at a little bit of weaving, get used to handling the bobbins, get yourself so familiar with the basics that you don't need to even think about them because your hand/eye/bobbin movement will be second nature. 

A cloth stitch, (a simple weave made of just three movements, a cross, a twist and a cross), works side to side with one pair of bobbins.  This incredibly versatile stitch may look simple to do, but combining  twists and crosses makes it into many different stitches and patterns.  

The half stitch is the other simple stitch, made of just two movements, (a cross and a twist, which splits up the pairs of bobbins on the pillow).  Half stitch is often combined with cloth stitch to create even more stitches.   

The first of these easy going videos shows twists and crosses,  cloth and half stitch, explains pins, tensions and bobbin hitches at an absolute beginner level.