Once you’ve mastered whole stitch and half stitch (see here for tutorials) one of the next techniques you’re likely to come across in Torchon lace are Spiders. They are so called because of their appearance but they don’t need to have eight ‘legs’- they can be made with anything from 4 upwards.
The basic spider is marked on a pattern like this:
To make a basic spider comprising eight legs follow the instructions below. If your spider has more or fewer legs, the technique is just the same.
If you want to see a video of a spider being made, check out my #40lacestitches video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/shorts/Ey8a-2l5elc?si=HQ5spBF7f-oa6oGz There are also videos there for different types of spiders including spider with a hole, half stitch spider, linked spiders and haloed, all pictured at the bottom of this page.
8-legged whole stitch spider:
1. Identify the pairs that will make up the spiders legs- for an eight-legged spider there should be four entering from the left and four from the right.
2. Twist each of these pairs three times (you can adjust the number of twists to fit your pattern- if there is a large gap, add more twists, but if the legs are short, add fewer).
3. Take the centre two pairs and make a whole stitch. Then working through the other three pairs to the right, do a whole stitch through each pair.
4. The next pair from the left then works whole stitch through the four pairs to its right, coming to rest to the left of the first worker pair.
5. Repeat this with the remaining two left hand pairs until all the pairs have swapped places- the four pairs that were originally on the left are now on the right and vice versa.
6. Put up a pin between the middle pairs and pull them all up neatly.
7. Repeat steps 2-4 so that all pairs are back on the side they started from. Pull the pairs down carefully so that they sit straight and there are no gaps.
8. Twist each pair three times again and they’re ready to re-join the rest of the lace.
After working a couple of stitches with each of the outgoing legs, you can remove the pin from the centre of the spider’s body.
There are several spider variations which all have different effects – as with all lace, a twist or two in certain places, or swapping from whole stitch to half stitch can make a world of difference.
Cattern Lace 