The terminology explained and why have it.

Footside / Headside

“inner pin” and “outer pin” edge
Q: – Can anyone define what Anna magazine means by an “inner pin” and “outer pin” edge.
I’ve got an old magazine in the stack SOMEWHERE with one of their courses in it that explains it, but I can’t see from the photocopies pricking and illustration I’m working from which is which

A: – I think I read somewhere that the “inner pin” is the footside and the “outer pin” is the headside.

A: -Then there was the question on inside and outside pins.  If you have the Idrija book and look at the patterns, you will find both of these pinholes there.
The “inside pin” holes are the ones where you pin in front of the last two pairs worked, leave the outer pair and come back with the second last pair (you exchange workers)
The “outside pin” is an ordinary Torchon footside, where you ctct pin and close the pin with another ctct.  This I have been told, and it seems to be correct.

Don’t think it’s a matter of whether you’re a left-hander or a right-hander…. it’s more a matter of tradition and the way you were taught.  In most of England (with the notable exception of a village called Downton, where Downton lace originates) the footside is on the right.  However, most of the continent puts the footside on the left.

I work with a right-sided footside for Torchon (and the extremely rare piece of Beds that gets onto my pillow), but work my point ground / Binche / Flanders with a left-sided footside since I learnt to like point ground when I learnt Tonder lace in Denmark (scarred by early experience with Bucks – working through Channer) and learnt Binche in Belgium. It matters for point ground if you use the footside adjustment that is seen in Channer’s drafting. This moves both the catchpin and the footside pin up the pricking by ~1/4 of the vertical spacing and gives a much nicer line for the catchpin style footside. It was also routine in the older Tonder laces (with a pin under a whole-stitch-and-twist instead of the modern catchpin) to have the footside pinholes but not the catchpin pinholes ~1/4 space higher than the rest of the grid. If you switch one of these prickings around, the hole adjustment goes the wrong way!

I did work out that a good principle was to work the lace in the manner in which it was designed.  If I get a pricking that has been designed with the footside on the right I go with that as I understood that it could make a severe difference if the lace was made “backwards”.  As I have made laces with footside on both sides, I am capable of doing it either way.  If I design, my preference is the continental way – except for my proficiency piece.

Following on this which side footside (sounds like a dance step) – wouldn’t Bucks etc.  be easier to do (for a right hander that is) if the footside was on the left, and all those millions of tiny picots were on the right, with the more dextrous right hand putting in the picot pin?

I quickly learnt to work picots on either side of the work…its more a matter of being able to visualise the passage of the threads and make sure they go the correct way around the pin.

Just make sure you have the proper Footside on the lace! – I mean the straight edge pair. I did a handkie with a waved footside – WithOut that proper footside, –  just winkie pins- and Never, Ever again!!!!!!!!  It was a right  @#^**** to mount – as I had to pick up every pinhole individually!!!!!!!!!