Tips for working lovely open eyelets

Following on from yesterday’s little chat about eyelets, following are some tips for working more open eyelets.

Part of the problem when creating eyelets is that some people bring their needle up in the centre of the eyelet and insert it into the fabric again at the edge. Then they bring the needle up again in the centre. If you do this with any sort of tension, you’ll be pulling the threads away from the sides and into the centre, thereby making it quite difficult to create a hole in the centre. In the picture below, the example on the left was worked this way, and you’ll see that the eyelet is quite gappy around the edges.

The better way to do it (example shown above right), and I would say the ‘correct’ way, is to bring the needle up at the edge, and insert it into the centre. Then bring the needle up in the next hole along the edge. At this point, I use a gentle-to-reasonably-strong tension to pull the fabric threads to the side – always pulling AWAY from the eyelet centre. It is THIS that creates a nice open eyelet. After each stitch, pull the thread gently to pull the fabric threads away from the centre.

You’ll get a much more open eyelet, which to me is much more asthetically pleasing, and also more historically correct.

And, for the record, Mary’s eyelets are very nice. I would probably make mine just a TAD more open, but then I AM fanatical about my eyelets…!

Just so you know, my eyelets shown above are worked on 25count linen, using No 8 pearl cotton. (I just know someone will ask if I don’t tell you!)