On Sep 16, 2005, at 5:56, Helen wrote:
Is there any way to gauge how much thread you need on each bobbin or pair to complete a pattern and how much more should be on a pair of workers compared to the passives?
This one comes up periodically, so someone might have compiled past answers. But, in review:
Depends on the lace, especially vis the worker. In many laces workers and passives dance a quadrille and change their functions as well as their partners. For a footside passive, "one length and a tad" plus the "leash/lead" is sufficient, if the passive is in clothstitch. If it's in whole stitch (whole andd twist in UK) better figure on "time and a half" plus the leash. For the cloth passives on scallops, count on time and a quarter/time and a half (plus leash. It's *always* plus leash) if in cloth, more if in whole stitch.
In laces like Flanders or Bucks, where all pairs (except the headside and footside passives) are likely to act as either passives or workers and are changing roles frequently, you basically figure you need twice the length (plus leash <g>) on all of them and then hope it works.
Various sources suggest different lengths for continuous workers (in cloth stitch; divide by half for half stitch, but for only one bobbin) - usually between 4 and 5 times the length of the project (don't forget to count all the meanders in laces like Russian Tape; "the length of the project" is not measured straight down in those)
But none of it allows for thread breakage, which is likely to lose you about a leash-length of the thread, which means that, if you calculated down to the last centimetre, you'll run short just when you need it least - at the very end, which is likely to get thickened and weakened anyway, through the finishing procedures.
As a total obsessive *and* a dedicated pinch-penny, I used to try and figure out amounts, and still do on small projects (the most waste is in small projects, BTW; you only need an inch for the project, but you still need 4 inches for the leash. Totally hateful <g>).
So, it's best to bite the bullet and learn how to swap a depleted bobbin for a more loaded one, as unobtrusively as possible. Without hanging in a new bobbin, you can do it with an extra twist (I'll sometimes overwind the footside passives specifically for that reason). Or, you can tackle it as you would a break - hang in a loaded bobbin in the back and run the new and the old together for a bit to anchor it, then toss out the empty one (with only the leash's length on it). If that's the route you choose, then you do not wind all the bobbins with precisely the same amount of thread, but vary the lengths on purpose, so that the replacements are staggered.
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