Clover

Clover from Idrija Lace.

This is my most recently completed bobbin lace mat. I wasn't too crazy about the pattern, but luckily it did grow on me as I worked it! Looking at the ground, I need a lot more practice making the tallies. As you can probably see, I had a hard time keeping the tension even as I moved pairs between tallies. I tried several different things in order to maintain tension:

1. knot the worker after each tally - dismal failure!

2. sew in or work with the two passives before continuing with the worker (either to the next tally or to sew in) - for the most part, this worked the best, however in some cases it was very difficult to do because of the way the pattern was laid out

3. continue with the workers (either to the next tally or sew them in) before picking up the passives again - in some cases this was unavoidable, and as long as I was veeeeery careful, it worked OK.

I think it just needs more practice...

Although the ground is definitely not even, it looks much better now that I took it off the pricking. While the pattern was still on the pricking, it was much, much more obvious when the ground did not match the perfectly straight lines on the pricking:)