Stitching a bobbin lace library – The Torchon Lace Workbook by Bridget M. Cook

The Torchon Lace Workbook by Bridget M. Cook

The book consists of two parts: the first part includes 10 progressive exercises that cover all the techniques, while the second part includes 27 patterns, from edgings to collars, mats and bookmarks.
The ten exercises cover half stitch, whole stitch, spiders, rose ground, tallies and leaves, gimps, plaits and picots.

Working through the exercises is helped by the wonderful diagrams, that show clearly the interlacing between the treads. These are so clear, it makes following patterns a breeze. The exercises also use coloured threads, which makes finding your way in the patterns easier.

Indeed the diagrams are pretty integral to each practice piece, as the instructions for the patterns are “essential”. So for instance in Exercise 4 (on spiders), after explaining in detail how to execute a single four legged spider, it assumes the notion of spider is now understood, so that in the next section with a group of 4 two legged spiders there is no mention of twisting threads (for legs) between one small spider and another. Kind of obvious if you think about it, but as a beginner these details are easily missed (ask me how I know…).

I find this book a good compromise between getting you going and covering all the bases, in the sense that the exercises cover most of the skills – however to really cover them all it is necessary to go through the patterns, too, as for instance footsides, fans, corners are not included in the exercises, but they are included in the patters, together with other tips such as adding thread midway through the work and moving up the work on the pillow.

The patterns too are graded by difficulty, and it is possible to move between exercises and patterns in blocks (e.g. the first pattern is recommended after the first three exercises, and so on), and the pattern notes become more succinct as the book progresses.

The prickings seem mostly hand drawn, so it may be better to copy them by hand on graph paper (this is what I have done).

Working through it all will make for a very competent Torchon lacemaker, I am sure!

NOTE: there some little mistakes here and there, e.g. the description of Roseground in Exercise 5 is incorrect (the correct sequence would be to work pairs 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8, then 9 and 10). Similarly, in Exercise 6 on gimps, the description is correct, and so are the figures, but the reference is swapped, i.e. the description for the movement from left to right refers to the figure that shows the movement from right to left, and viceversa.

In addition, be aware (I do not think this books mentions it either) that lace is typically worked wrong side up (this is so that knots do not show on the right side). Hence the actual right side is flipped as compared to the side you are working. The finished pictures are printed right side up, hence the appear flipped as compared to the description in the text. For instance in Exercise 4 the pattern asks to hang first 6 bobbin pairs in one colour, then the next set of six bobbin pairs in another colour, but the photograph (which shows the right side) has the colours swapped, so it isn’t a guide to following the pattern.


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