Bias Grounds

Contents

• Introduction
• Traditional Bias Ground
• Bias Ground crossed rose style
• Bias Ground crossed differently
• Bias Ground with a diagonal in between
• Bias Ground crossed and a diagonal in between
• Unit bias in a diamond
• Bias Ground crossed and in a diamond
• Short bias
  ** Solo
  ** Crossed
• Double bias
• Bias with vertical
• Stretched

Introduction

Traditonally, a bias ground is made as follows: make two stitches diagonally, make a stitch in the middle with these two, make two diagonal, stitch in the middle, etc. Usually, the same stitch is applied for this connecting stitch in the middle. See the green dots on the picture to the right.

We can make many variants, by applying two or more different stitches for the middle stitch, see the dots in the picture.

More variants can be made by making connections at the corners, like the rose-ground.
The colors in the picture have no meaning.

Traditional Bias Ground

examples with one connecting stitch

• ground 0228

examples with two connecting stitches

• ground 0225

Bias Ground crossed rose style

• Whiting D6, Whiting F4, ground 0278

Bias Ground crossed differently

Bias Ground with a diagonal in between

Bias Ground crossed and a diagonal in between

Unit bias in a diamond

Bias Ground crossed and in a diamond

Short Bias

Solo

Take just one unit of the Bias ground and place them all in the same direction (ground 0228 S), or in alternating directions (ground 0228 A). The latter may give nice results in two colours. The placing of the units in alternating directions is also shown in mrs Irvine’s paper Developing a Mathematical Model for Bobbin Lace.

• ground 0228 S, ground 0228 A, VI

Crossed

Take one unit of the Bias ground, place them in alternating directions, and cross at the corners.

Double bias

Bias with vertical

Stretched

The pictures below show three different units. The units are placed like the white tiles on a checker board.
The one on the left is a bias ground, stretched vertically, as found in the Whiting index F4. Experimenting with stitches, I created the units in the middle and the right. The ground in the middle is equivalent to the little snowflake. The one on the right proved to be a real surprise! See the example. These grounds also look nice when made on a hexagonal raster, connecting the units with a short plait.

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