When I first started weaving, so many examples of Huck, Bronson Spot, Bronson Lace and Canvas Weave were always done in fine linen and one colour. That is indeed how I first wove them and I love those pieces to this day. Over the years I fell in love with Lace Weaves and I also fell in love with colour and I have learned a few tricks about making them work well together. Sometimes your lace hides a bit when you use one colour. You can accent the lace with very little colour and the image pops us. Here is an example of multiple shaft Bronson Lace where the background is woven in lace structure and the actual image is plain weave. When I first wove it you could barely see the fleur de lis image but after I put in 4 gold threads on the outside edge, the image pops up.
Once I figured out that a little goes a long way I used this technique to frame my monochromatic laces all the time.
Another thing to remember about laces is that we get blocks of lace but we also get the big bonus of plain weave as a framer or divider. You can build your colour cleanly into your blocks of lace and plain weave. Below is a napkin where one block of the lace is in green and another block of lace is in red and a third colour is used to frame between them in purple plain weave. It makes everything much cleaner and brighter.
Placemats in cottolin. The A and B blocks are both in the same colour but the divider and frame are in other colours.
You can even apply Log Cabin theory to Huck Lace. This is alternating D/L to the centre and then L/D over to the other side. The threading is just alternating units of huck. It is treadled the same way. The thought of framing a piece in plain weave brings me to the stabilizing effect that plain weave has in lace weaving. To control your shrinkage build in areas of plain weave and frame your piece in plain weave. It will help stabilize the overall length and width of your piece. It is a design element that is very useful. Here is an example of Huck Lace woven with alternating units of A and B on four shafts, but by using plain weave down off centre and then 3 more units ABA it looks like we have 2 design elements. It makes for an asymmetrical effect. These 11 photos are all the same threading, just different combinations of warp floats in A or B, warp floats in A or B, or Huck Lace in A or B ……and there are many many more possibilities.
You could easily add colour to this by having your plain weave areas in one colour and that off centred plain weave another colour, keeping all your lace in a third colour.
