Hi Wendy A plain Torchon fan (ie all cloth stitch) is one of the most difficult things to do well.
There are two or three minor cheats that even the lace police wouldn't be able to recognise a cheat. First of all you could do your fans with one cloth and twist pair on the outside edge. Make sure you twist the weaver as you work out to the edge, then cloth and twist both pairs, one extra twist on the weaver as you pin and then cloth and twist both pairs as you come back. Now, the most important step. Before you cloth stitch through the rest of the pairs, pull the stitch up tight to the pin (tensioning each thread!) so the edge passive is right up tight to it and is making a sweet curve all the way round the edge of the fan. If you do this every row you won't ever need to tension so hard you pull this edge passive away from the pins. All the rest of the passives should firmly be tensioned out towards the edge until you get to the widest place, making sure they are evenly spread. As the fan narrows again you need to be a little more sympathetic, tensioning just enough to get the slight curve wanted to fill the fan. The pairs nearest the point will make a straight or nearly straight line. Next you could just make the curve not quite so curved. Once you have got your confidence with a small curve, increase it. The shape of the fan is your choice and the outer edge can be a curve, a straight line or even an inward dip - they all need the same number of pin holes, it's only the shape that changes. Or two small curves either side of the two central edge holes gives a heart shape fan. Play around and see what you like. Add another pair of passives to the outer edge to fill the curve. Maybe your thread is a tid on the fine side and this is making it more difficult for you. The extra pair will just pass through from fan to fan and not get left out into the ground. Finally, a plain cloth stitch fan. As before, tension towards the edge until the widest point but after that point watch back to what the threads are doing in the first half of the fan as you work the second half. You need to tension just firmly enough to get the thread exactly where you want it and the nearer to the curved edge they are, the more careful you need to be with them. Tension a thread at a time as you have more control this way. Remember the threads will follow the rule of "the shortest distance between two point is a straight line and that's what you get if you tension too hard. However, don't go to the other extreme and leave the threads slack. Hope this helps, Jacquie in Lincolnshire - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
