One of the most stressful parts of lace is making sure you are using the right thread. The size of the thread affects everything. It determines the scale of the finished lace, how open or dense the pattern appears, and whether the final piece is what you hoped it would be. A thread that works for one pattern could be wrong for another. Over the years, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how a thread will look before making a full piece of lace.

Last year, I started a new way of testing threads to understand how different threads look on different sizes of pattern grids. I started doing this to make my own lace look better, but it quickly changed into something more. With the help of my fellow Brooklyn Lace Guild members, I realized the information could be helpful for the larger lace community.

I created a website to provide more information about my upcoming Thread Testing for Lace Making book, and hopefully, get generous lacemakers to send thread donations. The goal of the book is to show worked examples based on graduated grid patterns. This type of pattern starts with a wider pin spacing and moves to a closer pin spacing as you get to the bottom.

Graduated grids provide a visual reference of the thread density on different sizes of patterns, all in one piece of lace. The book will also provide grids for multiple types of laces, so you can test your own threads or any mystery threads you may have.

I am asking for thread donations from the lace community. Each donation allows me to expand the reference section of the book. If there are any threads you are willing to donate, please click here to learn more about how to participate.

Visit ThreadTesting.com to read more about thread testing, follow my progress, or contribute threads to help expand the reference.