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| Broomstick Lace |
Broomstick lace is an interesting stitch that appears to defy gravity. It balances some level of sturdiness due to the single crochets against the openwork of the lace due to the twists.
I'd heard of it before, but decided to give it a go when I found a pattern for it I actually understood. It's not as daunting as it seems.
As always, when I'm trying to learn something new, I make something rectangular. In this case, a couple of baby blankets seemed perfect. Not too big, not too small.
As for gear, this stitch does require something a little more than a normal crochet project, as the name implies. They do sell broomstick lace pins, but for my exploratory foray into the stitch, I went with something a little more old school: a bamboo bo staff. As in for Taekwondo or Karate. I ended up using mine, rather than my son's because the ends of mine were cleaner and less well used.
I found it to be a little be tough to use, ergonomically, a bit too long, but after making a second blanket using the proper pin, I brought the results to work. Folks tended to like the more open lace the bo staff generated.
Anyhow, if you want to give it a go, I'd recommend picking up a good book on it or checking for patterns online. Still, those will only give you a couple of drawings and may leave some things to be desired, like knowing what right looks like.
Luckily, I took some snapshots as I went.
Stitches used
Chain (ch)
Single Crochet (sc)
Broomstick lace, which uses single crochet and loops cast on to a stick or pin.
The broomstick lace stitch involves two passes for each row.
First pass, cast loops on to the stick from left to right, one for each stitch below. Another way of looking at this is to draw a loop up through the stitch, but make it big and slide it up onto the stick. Be careful not to twist the loops or face them in different directions as that will affect the appearance.
Second pass, slide five loops off of the stick at a time and single crochet 5 times across the loops. This will twist the loops sideways.
I used two strategies to keep the loops steady while crocheting across them.
With the bo staff project, I had to pull the loops completely off and hold the loops with my thumb and forefinger, twisting and eventually holding the loop bundle open by sticking my thumb in there.
With the broomstick lace pin, it was easier to leave the loops on at the tapered end (because it has a tapered end lol) and use that as my "thumb" until I had enough singles on there to hold the work for me. The downside to this approach was the tendency for the stitches to lean to one side.
Scaling
With the 10 inch broomstick lace pin and the bo staff, I made two blankets, each casting on 90 stitches. That seemed to be the capacity for the pin.
If you want to scale it up or down, go by fives. Each broomstick lace stitch builds on the five stitches below it.
Ideas
Scarves/wraps
Baby blankets
Regular blankets (if you're really frisky and have a big stick)
