Three techniques, one thread

Last year, when I was writing my pages on The Trellis Stitch Family, I mentioned that the same knotted stitch was used for a needle lace from the Italian Alps called Puncetto Valsesiano. I have recently been trying to learn the technique. My work is not yet good enough to please me: the tension is still uneven, the joins show too much and I make far too many mistakes. I am still only practising. But I now understand the mechanics of it, thanks to some excellent links on the web. I particularly want to mention Avital Pinnick’s blog, This and That, Jeanine in Canada’s Italian Needlework and a Czech-language blog by Brona B, Šitá Krajka, which has clear diagrams of simple patterns – they need no words once you have picked up the basics.

Top right: macramé, centre: puncetto; lower left: crochet. All worked with the same size and type of thread.

As I was pinning out the sample on my work cushion to be photographed, I thought about the macramé pieces I made on this old blue cushion some years ago, including the pink and white sample at the top of the photo. This one was made with the same thread as the puncetto, Coats Opera  20 (no longer produced, but their Freccia 16 seems to be the same type of thread and the same thickness). This is a smooth, round 3-ply crochet thread. Macramé tends to bring to mind chunky string creations, but with fine threads, it can be surprisingly  delicate. I find this macramé sample more attractive than the puncetto, even allowing for beginner’s workmanship. To give another comparison, at the bottom left of the picture is some crochet – again with the same thread. It comes up slightly larger in scale than the puncetto, but lighter and softer. (I worked that sample today, just to show the scale against the other two techniques.)

Now I’ve got past the ‘so that’s how it’s done’ stage with puncetto, I am not sure how much more of it I am likely to do. In its favour, it’s very portable and easy to pick up and put down – much of the gold-coloured sample in the photo was done on the bus or in odd moments. But I find the result rather heavy-looking, ‘flat’ and not particularly attractive. This is very disappointing. I expect needle lace to be more, well, lacy than this.

While macramé is not a very quick or portable craft, it is slightly kinder to the working thread than puncetto. This is because macramé, like detached buttonhole stitch lace and tatting, is made mainly of hitches, while puncetto is all overhand knots. (Crochet, like knitting, is even easier on the thread, as it is just loops.) The knots make the puncetto sturdy, but they are not elegant. I still want to do at least one more sample of puncetto before I give up on it. Next time I will use a cordonnet thread, Coats Chain Mercer 40, not a simple twist like Opera 20.  I hope that the firmer thread will give a crisper finish to the work and the smaller size will give a more delicate look. I am not sure if my eyesight and fat fingers will cope, though.

If nothing else, I have now learnt how to work detached trellis stitch in the hand, rather than on an edging, which will come in useful for embroidery in the future.  And I’ve reminded myself that it’s about time that I pinned some more thread on my blue work cushion and made some more macramé.

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