Hairpin Lace Crochet
There really isn’t a lot of information or patterns for hairpin Lace .I did teach myself how but never really understood why anyone would want to use this stitch for anything. Just for practice, I made an entire afghan with yarn out of hairpin Lace and I connected the strips with a very easy plain sc which looked ok but again I just couldn’t see WHY anyone would want to do this until I started collecting older crochet manuals/books. In these books I saw the most beautiful work for stoles, capes, edgings and fringe. Below are the basic steps in making Hairpin Lace.
1. Make a loop at end of thread (Fig 1.) 2. Insert hook in loop and wind thread around right prong of staple (Fig 1.) 3. Thread over hook and draw through loop, keeping loop at center (Fig 1) 4. Raise hook to an upright position with hook end down. Pass hook through staple and turn staple to the left (Fig2). If staple is too short, drop loop from hook, turn staple, insert hook in dropped loop. 5. Thread over hook and draw through loop on hook (Fig3) 6. Insert hook in front loop of left prong (Fig 4) 7. Thread over hook and draw loop through (2 loops now on hook), thread over and draw through 2 loops. 8. Repeat steps 4 to 7 until staple is filled. 9. Remove all but the last 4 loops from staple and continue as before for length desired. End off the same way as you would any crochet project by cutting and pulling the thread through the last loop. Variations can me made by doing several sc, dc, cluster, or even a popcorn stitch in the center instead of just one sc. **Easy way to count loops: If Hairpin Lace strip requires a large number of loops, always mark every 25th loop on each side of strip until the necessary number of loops have been made.
To join the strips: *Lay 2 strips side by side, with a loop on your hook, insert your crochet hook in the desired number of loops on strip A, pull loop through, yo complete sc. Ch 3 , insert hook in the desired number of loops on strip B, ch 3*. Continue alternating from strip A to B until strips are joined. Repeat from * to * to add additional strips. You can get some very interesting patterns by inserting you hook into say 2 loops, 3 loops, 4 loops etc. Don’t be afraid to experiment with this and come up with you own pattern.
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