Half stitch fan using twist cross?

[Christina King]

• Im still new to Twist Cross , since i now have a Spanish pillow that I love. I’m unsure doing a half stitch fan- do I need to put on two twists as go around the curve or since the next stitch begins with a twist do I just keep going’s?

[Christina King]

I forgot to mention I’m doing the lobelia bookmark (#7) from Geraldine Scott’s bobbin lave manual and she is a twist crosser

[Lorelei Halley Administrator]

If I understand your question, I would say there is no hard and fast rule. You don't need to put an extra twist on the weaver as it goes around the pin, but you can.  Every little thing you do does have an effect on the result.

Look at the photo above. At the blue dot pins I did not twist the weaver as it went around the pin. I just did tc pin, then started the new row with tc pin, tc pin etc.

At the red dot pins I twisted the weaver one extra time as it went around the pin. I did the last stitch as tc, pin, ttc, then contined across the row with tc tc tc.

Notice the difference between the 2. If you put no extra twists on the weaver as it goes around the pin (or put an even number of twists on it) the weaver will change for every row.  But if you put 1 extra twist ( or an odd number of twists) on the weaver as it goes around the pin, then you keep the same weaver row after row. You can choose which you want to do, depending on the effect you want. If you are working with only 1 color of thread it hardly matters. With several colors, the difference is significant.

[Christina King]

thank you

[Nancy M. Terselic]

This is my version of Stott's Lobelia, although I'm not sure if the photo will answer your concern.  I'm twist-crosser:

[Lorelei Halley Administrator]

Christina - Now I have a better idea what the problem is with your pattern. First there is the problem of the connection between the half stitch fan and the rose/virgin ground. Rose ground is unusual in that pairs leave it and enter it vertically or horizontally. With other torchon grounds pairs enter and leave the ground diagonally. Here is a photo from my website. Study the colors and you can see how the pairs enter and depart the half stitch diamond.

The other problem is that the edge stitch on the fan itself is worked tctc pin tctc. In this example below variation 4 matches what Nancy did in her version.

Green is CT (or TC) and red is CTCT (or TCTC).

[Lorelei Halley Administrator]

Here is another example