Cloth Stitch / Whole Stitch / and I'm so confused

When I learnt to make lace, in the 80s, cloth stitch and whole stitch were the same and are described that way in many of the UK published books. 

Then, in the 90s, we went international and had access to books from around the world and we discovered that, gasp, not everyone described the bobbin movements the way we did.

This is when people started to use the terms C & T so that they could talk to each other and mean the same.

It then came as a shock to many people that Belgium had anticipated this many, many years ago and infact, had established the 'Bruges colour code' for lace back before WWI.  

Simple explanation © Lorelei Halley Laceiloi

I teach using the numbers and then when my classes get used to that I introduce terminology.

So I teach the following where you number the two pairs of bobbins from left to right; 1 - 4 and always renumber after each move:

• Half Stitch is - CT made by 2 over 3 (Cross / C), then 2 over 4 back (Twist / T) 
• Cloth Stitch is - CTC made by 2 over 3 (C), 2 over 4 back (T) then 2 over 3 (C)
• Cloth Stitch and Twist is CTCT (aka whole stitch) made by 2 over 3 (C), 2 over 4 back (T), 2 over 3 (C) then 2 and 4 back (T)

So far, so good?

Not really, because when I learnt, cloth and whole stitch were interchangable as terms and Cloth Stich & Twist was described as Cloth Stitch & Twist or Whole Stitch and Twist.

And it gets worse because some books teach it the other way, in particular, Doris Southand, in her book, teaches half stitch differently as Twist and Cross - TC rather than CT.

As Doris is very popular in the USA this can cause confusion between lacemakers who have learnt using her system, either from her books or from followers of her methods, when they move to books from the UK and Europe.

But it doesn't stop there.

Although the 'International System' was developed in Bruges in the early 20th Century, it was not internationally taken up worldwide.   

Simple explanation © Lorelei Halley Laceiloi

Now, there were a number of reasons that the International System didn't take off and the main one was limitations on printing.  

During the resurgence of lacemaking in the 70s and 80s, colour printing was exceptionally expensive.  Most designers would only have a colour cover and maybe one or two colour plates in their books.  This wasn't an issue for looking at the lace patterns and finished articles because most, if not all the lace was made in the traditional white or black and the prickings were black dots.  

Around the mid 90s, dual colour because easier to do so we started to see the addition of blue into the printing of a number of books, most noticably Pamela Nottingham's later books.  This was followed by tri colour printing and we started to see red included in Geraldine Stott's and Bridget Cook's later books.

​With the opening of the EuroTunnel in 1990, it now became easy for lacemakers in the UK to take a train to Belgium and holiday in Bruges, giving access to the Kant Centrum and attend OIDFA events in Europe.

Towards the end of the 90s, access to international books was also becoming much easier in the UK due to international lace suppliers attending events like the National Lacemaker's Fair at the NEC and teaching at summer schools.

Interest in books from outside the UK grew and UK lace suppliers found it easier to obtain books from publishers such as Barbara Vey.  

It was around this time that multicoloured printing took off and we started to see the International Colour Code being used more and more in books and people started to realise that terminology isn't global.  So, the use of C and T became the international language on many of the newsgroups such as Arachne so that lacemakers could talk to each other and understand what was being discussed.

Colour Code Key © Jenny Brandis

The wonderful Jenny Brandis adds colour working diagrams to her patterns which show the International Colours. 

​In there she uses the common names along with the CT notation.

​I particularly love how many times whole stitch and cloth stitch appear with different variations of CT.

What now?
​
My advice has always been to check the front of any book as in most cases, the author / designer will explain what they mean by half, cloth and whole stitch.  

Knowing when and where your book was published will give you a starting point as to what to expect.  Then look at the diagrams and check that you are using the same methods as the author.

​Jenny Brandis suggests making a note in pencil at the front of your book or pattern reminding you what the terminology for that book is.

​But most of all, make lace.