How to Make Needle Lace
Needle lace is often the most expensive lace because it can take such a long time to make. However, you don't have to buy it. If you can make a buttonhole stitch and an overcast stitch, you can make needle lace.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Challenging
Instructions
Things You'll Need
- Needle lace pattern
- Piece of card stock
- Tape
- Sewing needle
- Sewing thread
- Couching thread
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1
Make your needle lace base. Take your needle lace pattern, and put it over a piece of card stock. Use clear tape to secure the pattern to the card stock. Don't tape over the lines on your pattern. Poke small holes in your needle lace pattern where indicated.
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2
Lay out enough couching thread to cover the borders on your pattern. Your couching thread should cover the outside borders as well as the thicker borders between your shapes. If you cannot tell where the couching thread goes, lay it across areas that you think should be firm enough to support your lace's shape.
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3
Use sewing thread to secure the couching thread along your pattern. Push a threaded sewing needle up through one of he holes you made in Step 1. Wrap the sewing thread around the couching thread and push your sewing needle back through the same hole. Move on to the next hole until you secure all of your couching thread.
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4
Use a buttonhole stitch and more couching thread to cover all of the couching thread on your pattern's borders. Keep your stitches close together. Hide any thread ends underneath your buttonhole stitches. Cover all of the borders.
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5
Make the other lines on your pattern. Lay couching thread over them, and this time use an overcast stitch to cover the single thread. Professional needle lace makers call this a bride.
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6
Fill in some spaces so that they look solid. Do this using a buttonhole stitch. Start at the widest part of your solid space, and make row after row of buttonhole stitches until you have filled in the whole space.
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7
Turn your needle lace base over when you are done. Cut the sewing threads that you used to secure your lace onto the card stock, and you are done.
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