Hello Martha, I am the author of the pictures you have posted so perhaps I can explain how to interpret them. Instructions on how to make a lace ground have two parts: 1) information about the order in which pairs of threads must be combined and 2) the type of stitches you need to perform when four threads meet.
I have been exploring the first part and trying to find out how many different ways there are to do this. The pictures you are referring to are some examples of how I visualize the pairs coming together and represent part 1 described above. I call these pair diagrams. I have discovered that there are an infinite number of these diagrams and I have produced a few million of them. You can find out more about them on my website: http://tesselace.com For each of these drawings you can decide what type of cross, twist, pin combination (what you might refer to as a stitch) to perform. Most of the diagrams you posted on your blog can be found in traditional lace grounds such as Kat, Torchon or Bias ground. You can find stitch instructions for these on Jo Edkins' website: http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/lace/ground.htm If you look in reference books like Bobbin Lace Stitches by Cook and Stott or Grunde mit System by Uta Ulrich you will see that the same pair diagram can be used with different stitches to get different effects. Bias ground for example can be worked with cloth stitch or whole stitch and there are at least 16 different variations on rose ground. The pair diagram for Torchon ground also appears in many other nets. In my lifetime, I could never come up with cross and twist combinations for the millions of patterns I have discovered. I hope others will find the pair diagrams interesting and experiment on their own. To help you visualize what different effect various stitches can have, Jo Pol has been working on a tool called Ground Forge. You choose one of the pair diagrams, pick the type of stitch you want to make at each intersection and see what it looks like: https://d-bl.github.io/GroundForge/ To get a feel for it, you might want to pick a ground that you are familiar with (such as Rose ground) and experiment. One of Jo's original visualizations for Rose ground may also help: https://jo-pol.github.io/DiBL/flanders/ There are of course stitch notations that you could add to the pair diagrams. For example, there is the International Colour Code (see, for example, Lorelei's web site https://www.lynxlace.com/images-h-det-diag/colorcode.JPG). When I experiment with the diagrams on my pillow I usually record the colour code in my notes so that I can be consistent and remember what I have done. I hope you take up the challenge and try experimenting with stitches. Kind regards, Veronika Irvine - 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/
