A Year of Lace

One of the things I love most about knitting is that, no matter how much you know, there's still so much more to learn about. I remember the year I decided to really figure out fair isle; I must have knit three or four man sized multi-colored pullovers one after the other. I love watching the patterns develop row by row by row. There's a real rhythm in two color knitting, a chant specific to each row and its colors that moves me to a Zen place (one-one-two, three-one-three, two-two-two.) It's very hypnotic, and one of the reasons I knit.

And learning to strand with a color in each hand, which makes a beautiful, fluid fabric, was a great accomplishment to me

But that was then, and this is now. This is The Year Of Lace.

I don't know why lace has taken over my knitting preferences lately, but it seems like every new project I pick up is lace based. It started at the beginning of the year with the Brenda Cardigan, and lace has followed into just about every project I've chosen since with rare exception. Some of my projects have been true lace weight lace, the yarn as thin as cobwebs. Some have been knit of quite heavy yarn, the lace weighty and substantial. And others have been a little of both.

Of the four classes I took while at Stitches South, two were about lace. And actually, since each of those two were full day classes, they are each the equivalent of two regular classes, so I guess you could say I took seven classes and four of them were about lace. But I digress.

The first of the Stitches lace classes was about freeform lace, run by Myra Wood. I've taken other classes by Myra over the years, and she's a hoot. Freeform lace and I, however, are not a good match; the concept is that you can knit lace that is not, by it's very lack of design, symmetrical. Being the daughter, sister, and wife of engineers (and a closet obsessive compulsive) I find this somewhat disturbing. A yarnover with no attached k2tog is bad enough, but freeform lace asks one to accept many many instances of unpaired holes in the fabric. I tried, really I did, to "go with the flow" but I'm just not that kind of girl. (Well, my knitting's not "that type" of knitting.) I spent hours in that class with lace weight merino on size 5 needles, making random holes in a 5" wide strip of knitting. It was frothy. It was ethereal. It was random. My brain takes delight in recognizable patterns. The minute I got that swatch home I pulled out the needle and frogged. Thanks, Myra, for the attempt to shove me out of my comfort zone. Sorry I couldn't oblige.

The second class was on Shetland Shawls. I wasn't familiar with Shetland shawls when I signed up for the class, which is why I signed up for it. The instructor, a lovely woman named Joan Shrouder, was knowledgeable and well prepared and a great knitter. She knew her shawls. What I came to understand is that Shetland shawls are based on garter stitch. Both EZ and Jared Flood have a deep love and respect for garter stitch; not so I. I just don't like the way it looks. Garter stitch always looks a little juvenile. I know it's fast. I know it's easy. I just haven't found a way to appreciate it's deep simplicity. I loved learning how Shetlands are made. I loved learning how to build a square shawl from the middle and add the borders and edgings in one piece. I just wish it hadn't all been garter stitch. So I guess Estonian lace is more my style.....