Have you ever wanted to make bobbin lace?

I have!  For a long time.  There were a few things stopping me though.  

Equipment, mostly.  I could tell very many bobbins were needed, even more pins, and also a specialized foam pillow thing of some sort.  

That plus the complete conceptual opacity of what compromised a pattern kept me from even trying it out for a very long time. 

Last year, I finally bought myself a bobbin lace pillow, and decided the bobbins would come later.  And how hard could a pattern really be?  

Behold!  Bobbins! 

My local big box craft store had some colorful clothespins, which was nice to keep pairs of bobbins separated for my first project.  I also picked up the smallest pins they had, which were these glass-head sewing pins.  The thread is size ten crochet cotton I had on hand due to tatting.  

And I had no idea how to pick a first pattern, but I got lucky and picked rose ground.  "Lucky" in that it was a ground and not ground plus other things. 

The instructions I followed were from howdidyoumakethis.  

And it turned out well!  

I started and ended improperly, but figured I would leave that for later.  The clothespins were a little frustrating, as they didn't actually grab the yarn very well.  And I could see that becoming an even larger problem with smaller thread.  

Then I had to move apartments.  So everything got packed up and a lot of things didn't get fully unpacked till much later.  You know how it is.  

Within the last month or so, I decided to take bobbin lace back up again.  

I invested in actual bobbins, more appropriate pins, and just picked the first pattern I liked.  Which was spider and line ground from Jo Edkins' website.  

Many observers may notice the spiders look awful.  Especially keen-eyed ones will note that every spider is done in whole stitch, instead of cloth stitch, so they were having a lot of trouble closing.  Plus there are a few too many twists in the legs for my preference.  

At this point, I was celebrating completion of a real pattern.  I also learned that Jo Edkins' website is an incredible resource for people like me who want to throw themselves at a thing until it starts working.  There are animations and clear explanations and great diagrams for everything I needed to know.  

My learning process is very much "let's just see how far we can get", and "we'll learn what we don't know very quickly along the way".  With fiber arts, this generally works well.  There is of course a lot of tangled thread and unstable fabric created, but hands-on experience is incredibly valuable, and more fun for me than reading reference information. 

With the confidence of an unseasoned beginner, I purchased a pattern for a mat (MyrtleAndEve on Etsy).  Turning the corners was easy until the last segment, when I realized that my haphazard pin-pushing made it impossible to neatly flatten them into the cushion.  So I learned that pins should be placed a little more neatly than I had been doing. 

 

In the end, I was rewarded with a non-squared square. 

Then I tried another of MyrtleAndEve's patterns, paying special attention to technique this time. 

Still unsure how to finish pieces, but it turned out pretty well!  And using size 50 thread.  The main thing I learned from this was "don't use a white pricking for white yarn". 

I feel like a much more confident bobbin lace beginner now.