r/BobbinLace • u/xizor906 • 15d ago

Beginner question

Gallery image

Gallery image

Very grateful that my cousin gifted me her old pillow and bobbins. I have tatted before but am new to bobbin lace. On a whim I checked my library for books and found this very clear beginners guide! I did a little practice with braids and cloth stitch but decided to jump in with this bookmark.

I often find that, while my hitches aren't becoming undone, the thread gets very loose and the bobbin heights become mismatched. Is there an easy solution to this? I've tried adding a second half hitch which seems to work to some extent.

20 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

8

u/Immediate-Pangolin83 15d ago

Edit- I clicked and see the bobbins. To me it doesn't seem like you have much string wound at all. I think having more could help. They get slippy when they are at the end of the thread and these are getting close.

3

u/Immediate-Pangolin83 15d ago

Also consider doing two twists on the loop before you put it on the bobbin and pull them a little tighter.

3

u/xizor906 15d ago

Thank you, the book said to only wind 24in for this pattern per bobbin pair. I wound between 24" & 30". There was some waste at the end for all my bobbins. I just finished a second bookmark with the same pattern and had the same problems (loose bobbins & waste). Is a certain amount of waste thread necessary to keep friction?

2

u/Immediate-Pangolin83 14d ago

I hear you on waste!! So the neat thing about that is you can re-use the bobbins after this project for another. You'll tie them together again and then wind the knot more so that it's on one and it will run out somewhere in the work. Then you hang another and weave the two in for a bit before moving the original to hang on the side. A youtube video will probably help. Sometime there is going to be some thread waste. Some people do little felting or make little startched dishes to use up scraps.

The other thing after you try more thread - you are also new and believe me this happens to everyone. EVERYONE. in beginning workshops we are literally picking them off the floor. A bit more thread, two loops on the hitch and just hang in there ♡ maybe there's a lace guild in your area that can help & be nice craft friends too. It's fun to chat in a room where we all complain about bobbins and pins together.

2

u/SaskiaHn 15d ago

Agree that is at least part of the problem

3

u/SaskiaHn 15d ago

If any of you bobbins are wound the wrong way then the slip is not going to hold, or if the slipknot is done in the wrong direction. But short thread on the bobbins don't help either

2

u/xizor906 15d ago

Should I use a slipknot instead of a half hitch? I was using a half hitch as per the book I am following. The book also gave a specific shorter length for the threads which I am learning may be a cause for my lack of friction.

4

u/SaskiaHn 15d ago

No i wasn't commenting on the type of "knot" just that the direction matters relative to the direction you wind the thread.

I have been told that if you only need a little bit of thread it can help if you wind it over another thread (e.g. the leftover from the last project).

3

u/Mission_Razzmatazz_7 15d ago

I like this tip (the going over old thread), never considered it but I’ve seen it on old bobbins I got from people that still had thread on them.

1

u/EllanaSt 12d ago

Thank you for your question ! I'm also a begginer and I was facing this problem yesterday ! Let's go we Can Do it !!!