Fig. 751. Thirty-second lace stitch.
Thirty-second lace stitch (fig. [751]).—To introduce a greater variety into lace stitches, netting can also be imitated with the needle. You begin with a loop in the corner of a square and work in diagonal lines. The loops are secured by means of the same stitch shown in fig. [750], and the regularity of the loops ensured, as it is there, by making them round a pin, stuck in at the proper distance. The squares or meshes must be made with the greatest accuracy; that being the case, most of the stitches described in the preceding chapter can be worked upon them, and the smallest spaces can be filled with delicate embroidery.
Thirty-third lace stitch (fig. [752]).—This stitch is frequently met with in the oldest Irish lace, especially in the kind where the braids are joined together by fillings not bars. At first sight, it looks merely like a close net stitch, the ground and filling all alike, so uniform is it in appearance, but on a closer observation it will be found to be quite a different stitch from any of those we have been describing.
The first stitch is made like a plain net stitch, the second consists of a knot that ties up the loop of the first stitch. Fillings of this kind must be worked as compactly as possible, so that hardly any spaces are visible between the individual rows.
Fig. 752. Thirty-third lace stitch.
Fig. 753. Thirty-fourth lace stitch.
Thirty-fourth lace stitch (fig. [753]).—To fill in a surface with this stitch, known as the wheel or spider stitch, begin by laying double diagonal threads to and fro, at regular distances apart, so that they lie side by side and are not twisted. When the whole surface is covered with these double threads, throw a second similar series across them, the opposite way. The return thread, in making this second layer, must be conducted under the double threads of the first layer and over the single thread just laid, and wound two or three times round them, thereby forming little wheels or spiders, like those already described in the preceding chapter in figs. [653] and [654].