Bleh (continued)

So, the offending stitch is listed here in The Encyclopedia of Needlwork (Thérèse de Dillmont) as the sixteenth lace stitch. Let the boos resound.

Here were my first attempts:

As you can see, the bars (damn them) are vertical and not at the angle that I would so like them to be.

So, after very much frustration and very many headaches, I decided to look again at the picture of the stitch--several times-- to no avail.

At last, after much struggle and torment, I caught sight of text below the image and thought "Oh, what could this be?"

Note to self: It's a good idea to read the instructions

Though still not perfect, I've managed to wrangle the little devils into better-ish shape: 

It turns out that I was making the knot at the top of the loose buttonhole and working down when I should've been making it at the bottom-middle-ish of the buttonhole and working up. 

Oh, btw, the way I've been practices stitches is with a piece of canvas. What you do, is you essentially sew the edges into the canvas and work the stitches over the top. I like canvas because of the open weave which makes it easy to measure the distance between stitches --> which is good if you're semi anal-retentive like me. 

Bleh

I am having the worst time with the point de venice. The little suckers are driving me up the wall. Instead of looking like seed type things, they look like warped little bars. Grrr.