24 bobbins; sample 51mm wide, worked in 50/2 linen thread
It's based on Met 20.186.221 (see www.metmuseum.org). It takes 24 bobbins, and is moderately difficult and time-consuming to work. The open design means you get a lot of lace for your efforts, but that curving trail is fiddly and takes a lot of pinning.
Printable pricking (pdf).
My sample is actually worked to two slightly different prickings. The second (the one displayed above) is a clear improvement on the first, but I'd still like to make some minor alterations:
- The arms of the triangle that have the little "bows" on them need to move in slightly (i.e. move a little away from triangular), so that they intersect earlier with the outward curve of the trail. This will balance the proportions of the large spaces within the point, and will give the whole a more elegant, less squat feel.
- The five-pointed flower/star at the top needs refinement, but I'm not sure what.
The working I'm a little less happy with. On the one hand, I'm happy with mine as lace, but it's not yet quite what I'm seeing in the original.
- The shapes within my curved trail are much less defined, and the pin-holes show up too much. I think this might be solved with laundering (possibly several decades of laundering).
- I'm not happy with either of my attempts at the five-pointed flower/star at the top of the point. I've tried some new techniques in other laces, so I hope that when I return to this one I'll be able to do better.
A note about the original pattern: did you notice the way there are 12 threads hidden where there should only be 4 in between points? I think a four-strand plait suddenly has three bobbins in each element.
My other lace patterns, and things I've written about lace for this website.