Quite a while ago I sewed an Edwardian petticoat and decided, back then, that I will add some handmade Armenian lace to the bottom. Well, I did not anticipate how long that would take. And it is not the making of the lace alone, that took so long, but all the bits and bobs accompanying the process.
First, I did not know the chosen technique. I just found some pictures online and really liked the aesthetic. I was actually glad that I had found the Turkish name “İğne Oyaları” which seems to describe a bunch of needle and crochet lace techniques and the only English translation I could find was “Armenian lace”. It was rather difficult to find tutorials, since most are Turkish, which I am not that good at understanding anymore, nor were there many tutorials available.
Nevertheless, I somehow managed to understand the basics and to make some samples. But pretty soon I realized that the intricate pattern I had fallen in love with, is just above my skill level.
So I had to step back and choose one less difficult, and I slowly figured out how to place the thread once in front and once behind the needle without looking up the process every time.
During the process I was somewhat displeased with the look of the lace. It seemed to be too clumsy for my liking, but anyone I asked told me to go on. It is just a petticoat and the lace won’t be seen that often.
I didn’t work on the lace for quite a while, but then I caught Covid and wasn’t able to do anything, that needed any brainpower, for two weeks. After one week I was fed up with doing nothing and grabbed this project once again, and I set about and tied one knot next to the other and slowly build this meters long edge of lace. It was actually a great project for me at that time and I got the great feeling of finally finishing a project whilst basically feeling entirely exhausted.
Luckily, I just had enough pearls. There were only a few flawed pearls left, all the rest of the box went into the lace.
Honestly, I still think it’s a quite clumsy lace, but that might be mostly due to the rather chunky thread.
Still, I did master the very basics of this technique and might do another way shorter lace with a far finer yarn one day.
Material used:
- White Crochet Yarn No. 30
- Transparent Rocailles
You can watch a short video showing the process here.