Lace net embroidery

I’ve been looking through my Weldons encyclopaedia of needlework at the section on embroidering on net to produce lace. It gives some lovely filling stitches and a great variety of them. One of the other things I like about this book is that it also gives examples of antique lace for all the techniques. I realise that during my recent foray into net embroidery for my Battle of Britain lace panel I have broken most of the rules! For example it says that you should use only the best quality net and the way to measure that is by inserting a stiletto (like the ones used for broderie anglaise) through a mesh, if it stretches without breaking it’s a good quality. I deliberately chose a net that didn’t stretch at all and was as rigid as possible. However, I did use a blunt needle and a long thread for working as recommended. Luckily I didn’t tear my net, or cut through it while I was using a Carrickmacross technique, but had I done so, Weldons has step by step instructions for repairing a hole in net, which looks very effective and the result blends in beautifully with the surrounding net – I suspect that kind of result takes years to perfect though!