Honiton

This little guy is what I've been working on this week. Actually, this weekend is more accurate. I *finally* took the plunge and jumped into Honiton lace! I don't know why I waited so long! I literally had *everything* needed to make the lace for several years now. Pins, thread (including coarse!), patterns books - another words, everything but the pillow.

I discovered Honiton a few years after learning how to make lace. It immediately caught my eye, but I was a bit intimidated by the size of the thread. A few weeks ago I was leafing through my Honiton books really paying attention to the techniques, and I realized that it really doesn't look hard at all! Except for a few Honiton-specific techniques, I was familiar with the general "how-to" of the lace. I finished the little metallic star and started to wind bobbins. I swear, it took longer to wind the bobbins than it did to make the flower...

The pricking is from Introduction to Honiton Lace by Susanne Thompson. The explanations are very clear, although as I said, I did not find this hard to make at all. I have quite a bit of experience with various kinds of free laces, just not in thread that fine! In fact two of the three times I had to retrolace was because I was trying to slavishly follow directions in the book. I kind of forgot to do that, and ended up doing my own thing. Nothing major, just doing a backstitch one pin too early etc. I think as clearly as the book is written, a beginner could probably follow along quite well. The first time I had to retrolace was because I snapped a worker thread:)

Some observations:

-really, I know this is the easiest of Honiton patterns, but I did not find it hard at all. The most difficult thing was working with the fine thread, and I'm sure that will get easier with practice

-pay attention to the Honiton-specific techniques like the coarse pair. I don't know if Duchesse or Withoff use it (haven't done those yet), but it was new to me. Not difficult, but you need to know what to do with it

-I need more light in the house! The thread was hard to see at times. And I was using "thick" thread by honiton standards!

-sewings with a pin are hard! I have a needle pin, but found it easier to make the sewings with just a pin. And I am used to sewings, but I normally do them with a crochet hook. I know for some, sewings are difficult even made with a crochet hook and I would imagine using a pin would be that much harder for those. I don't want to say that this is a Honiton-specific technique though, as my lace teacher also made all her sewings with a pin. She was most definitely not familiar with Honiton techniques. She just found it too much of a hassle to pick up a crochet hook for the sewings:) Even with the few sewings I had to do in the pattern, it did get easier. I only had to "cheat" with a sewing needle/thread for 3 pairs. It did take several tries for most sewings, whereas with a crochet hook I can practically do them blind folded.

All in all it was fun to make and I look forward to making more Honiton patterns. I am so-so happy with the result. The tension is a bit odd, mainly because after the first thread snapped, I was afraid to tug at all. Towards the end I tried tensioning a bit and managed not to snap any threads... Definitely need more practice if I want it to look nice!

I used 120/2 for the thread (usually Honiton is made with 180/2) and DMC No. 50 thread for the coarse. I think the coarse would definitely show up better if I had used 180/2:)