In my QPT presentation, I was asked what type of thread I disliked working with – my answer was linen, due to the temperamental breakages. I was given a suggestion to play with the humidity levels in the room that I was working the lace in – if the thread was too try it could be more prone to breaking. I didn’t have a humidifier, so I improvised by storing my spool of thread in a Ziploc bag with a lightly damp (but not sodden) paper towel. After I cut and wound my bobbins, I stored them in a second Ziploc bag with another damp paper towel until I was ready to work with them.

I wanted to retry a picot style that I had first attempted in the cotton piece. One of my concerns on the first piece when I transitioned to the fully twisted picot with sewing over top was the added bulk of the threads on top of the picot. The top picot on the right hand side was done to mimic the double (twisted) picot, splitting the loop into two curves (much like the top left hand side picot on the cotton). To see if bulk was reduced (and to see if the picot could be formed tighter), I tried a single bobbin looped in from the right plait.

Note:  This post replaces content that originally appeared in October, 2015.  I'm replacing posts that have gone missing from a hard copy of my documentation.  Every effort has been made to see that the content is not altered from original posting to now - AR/JC

I was able to whip up the silk piece in less than three evenings.  Having disliked the look of the simple twist picot on the cotton and linen pieces, I decided to abandon it here.  In the photo above I have lined up all of the twisted double picots to the left, the single loop picots in the center, and the twisted picots to the right. The entomology pins are not strong enough to create picots around, so I used the Dritz Bridal and Lace pins – the larger diameter makes for more pronounced picots.