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kniteracy...I feel a lace phase coming on.
"Can you keep secrets? Can you hear a thing and never say it again? And puzzles and codes, I imagine they lay down to you like lovers."
Tangled Up In Lace?
My relationship with knitted lace has been, well. It's been a little rocky, I suppose you could say. While other knitting techniques have opened up for me very easily, lace has frustrated me.
Why is that? I'm not sure. Possibly it's because I'm so confident in my other knitting skills that I don't read the directions properly. Possibly it's because I want to go too far, too fast. Possibly it's because I tend to knit while doing other things and lace requires more concentration than I've been willing to give. Whatever it is, I want to get over it, and not because I want to knit anything in particular; I just want to feel confident about knitting something more complex than a simple lace panel on a swatch or sock.
I spoke to one of the other IKL teachers last night, and she pointed me toward See Eunny Knit, which of course I knew about but hadn't been to in some time. Eunny Jang used to keep a fantastic knitting blog before she accepted her dream job as the editor of Interweave Knits magazine. She stopped updating the blog in 2007, but there are plenty of technique notes there that are good for everybody, including two things that have been of interest to me lately: steeking, and her three-part series, "Majoring in Lace." I also picked up a copy of Meg Swanson's A Gathering of Lace, since it seemed to have a fairly cohesive and understandable introduction. I took a look through Knitted Lace of Estonia, but I suspect that, as with Victorian Lace Today, the fantastic patterns would have charmed me away from reading the introductory material and enticed me to bite off more than I could chew, again. The lace section of Barbara Walker's first Treasury also appears to have a decent explanation of lace techniques and conventions.
As an amusing aside, Part III of Eunny's "Majoring In Lace" series is blocked by the school's firewall for "Criminal Skills, Occult". I have no idea what might be in there, but I can certainly see lace knitting as an occult art.
When I was a girl, I loved to crochet. But I didn't like to crochet afghans and dog blankets and coasters. I loved using fine cotton thread and making doilies and small tablecloths and things like that. I made snowflake ornaments for our Christmas tree one year, a couple of dozen of them, starched and ironed and sprayed with glitter. I dressed my dolls in lacy headscarves and marvelled at the old ladies who covered their heads for church with what looked exactly like one of the doilies I loved to crochet. I made flowers and filet lace and crocheted between classes in elementary school and junior high.
There was a long gap in there, during which time I became a serious musician and got the idea into my head that handicrafts were for women who wanted to sit home and not do terribly much. I don't know where I got that idea, because it is absolutely wrong, of course. And then eventually when I started knitting again, what I wanted to make were substantial garments: lovely aran jumpers, warm hats, cozy socks, things that were both stunning and practical. Actually, when I first started knitting again, my goal was to knit a lot of jumpers. I didn't think I would ever actually knit socks -- what was the point? I laugh at that idea now. Duh. Does there have to be a point to sock knitting? Sock knitting just is! Anyway, I felt the same way about lace. Lace knitters, too-- I have this idea that they're precious, concerned with detail the way some crosstitchers I knew when I was in my twenties were, absolutely concerned with putting everything where it belongs, not colouring outside the lines, following the rules. When I consider the lace knitters I actually know, that doesn't hold up at all! And yet still I see them, prim and straight-backed on their couches, meticulously checking off rows and working in complete silence, possibly contemplating the essential nature of womanhood, or how to properly decorate a five-tier wedding cake. Agh! I know it's not true! I know that knitting lace won't turn me into a stereotypical church lady, and my house won't immediately start to smell of lavendar and mothballs, really I do!
Why knit lace? Lace is frivolous, decorative, it doesn't do anything practical for anybody, it probably won't keep you warm in winter, or not as warm as a nice aran, anyway; what's it for? I'm still not sure I know, but I want to be able to create it, and that's what my impending lace kick is all about. Probably I'll begin with something very simple, though possibly not quite as simple as the Beginner's Triangle from A Gathering of Lace, (Oh, here we go-- Harper wants to jump right in again!). Maybe I'll start out with something for one of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clothsprogs' dolls, since I have had one for ages now and haven't finished a single thing for her.
Lace knitters, tell me your secrets! I'll never repeat them. ;)
"Can you keep secrets? Can you hear a thing and never say it again? And puzzles and codes, I imagine they lay down to you like lovers."
Tangled Up In Lace?
My relationship with knitted lace has been, well. It's been a little rocky, I suppose you could say. While other knitting techniques have opened up for me very easily, lace has frustrated me.
Why is that? I'm not sure. Possibly it's because I'm so confident in my other knitting skills that I don't read the directions properly. Possibly it's because I want to go too far, too fast. Possibly it's because I tend to knit while doing other things and lace requires more concentration than I've been willing to give. Whatever it is, I want to get over it, and not because I want to knit anything in particular; I just want to feel confident about knitting something more complex than a simple lace panel on a swatch or sock.
I spoke to one of the other IKL teachers last night, and she pointed me toward See Eunny Knit, which of course I knew about but hadn't been to in some time. Eunny Jang used to keep a fantastic knitting blog before she accepted her dream job as the editor of Interweave Knits magazine. She stopped updating the blog in 2007, but there are plenty of technique notes there that are good for everybody, including two things that have been of interest to me lately: steeking, and her three-part series, "Majoring in Lace." I also picked up a copy of Meg Swanson's A Gathering of Lace, since it seemed to have a fairly cohesive and understandable introduction. I took a look through Knitted Lace of Estonia, but I suspect that, as with Victorian Lace Today, the fantastic patterns would have charmed me away from reading the introductory material and enticed me to bite off more than I could chew, again. The lace section of Barbara Walker's first Treasury also appears to have a decent explanation of lace techniques and conventions.
As an amusing aside, Part III of Eunny's "Majoring In Lace" series is blocked by the school's firewall for "Criminal Skills, Occult". I have no idea what might be in there, but I can certainly see lace knitting as an occult art.
When I was a girl, I loved to crochet. But I didn't like to crochet afghans and dog blankets and coasters. I loved using fine cotton thread and making doilies and small tablecloths and things like that. I made snowflake ornaments for our Christmas tree one year, a couple of dozen of them, starched and ironed and sprayed with glitter. I dressed my dolls in lacy headscarves and marvelled at the old ladies who covered their heads for church with what looked exactly like one of the doilies I loved to crochet. I made flowers and filet lace and crocheted between classes in elementary school and junior high.
There was a long gap in there, during which time I became a serious musician and got the idea into my head that handicrafts were for women who wanted to sit home and not do terribly much. I don't know where I got that idea, because it is absolutely wrong, of course. And then eventually when I started knitting again, what I wanted to make were substantial garments: lovely aran jumpers, warm hats, cozy socks, things that were both stunning and practical. Actually, when I first started knitting again, my goal was to knit a lot of jumpers. I didn't think I would ever actually knit socks -- what was the point? I laugh at that idea now. Duh. Does there have to be a point to sock knitting? Sock knitting just is! Anyway, I felt the same way about lace. Lace knitters, too-- I have this idea that they're precious, concerned with detail the way some crosstitchers I knew when I was in my twenties were, absolutely concerned with putting everything where it belongs, not colouring outside the lines, following the rules. When I consider the lace knitters I actually know, that doesn't hold up at all! And yet still I see them, prim and straight-backed on their couches, meticulously checking off rows and working in complete silence, possibly contemplating the essential nature of womanhood, or how to properly decorate a five-tier wedding cake. Agh! I know it's not true! I know that knitting lace won't turn me into a stereotypical church lady, and my house won't immediately start to smell of lavendar and mothballs, really I do!
Why knit lace? Lace is frivolous, decorative, it doesn't do anything practical for anybody, it probably won't keep you warm in winter, or not as warm as a nice aran, anyway; what's it for? I'm still not sure I know, but I want to be able to create it, and that's what my impending lace kick is all about. Probably I'll begin with something very simple, though possibly not quite as simple as the Beginner's Triangle from A Gathering of Lace, (Oh, here we go-- Harper wants to jump right in again!). Maybe I'll start out with something for one of
clothsprogs' dolls, since I have had one for ages now and haven't finished a single thing for her. Lace knitters, tell me your secrets! I'll never repeat them. ;)
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-05 11:57 am (UTC)I'm getting back into lace again as well.
I'm finding it's alot easier now then last time with branching leaves. but then again I knitted that 2 years ago so that must be why!
I'm doing a scarf at the moment and when I finish that I will be trying a shawl for the first time.
We can geek out when I come over this weekend.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-05 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-05 12:31 pm (UTC)But then, I'm easily bored.
It's one of those projects that goes on holiday with me, in case there's so little to do that I can't even watch the grass grow.
I must admit, while I'm not exactly lavender and mothballs, I am a detail-obsessive. You have to be, to program computers.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-05 02:24 pm (UTC)But I disagree that it's frivolous. WEBS has a pattern for a BEAUTIFUL cardigan (unfortunately, not in plus sizes) that is lace, and I've made a couple of hats that are essentially very simple lace and are quite practical...so there! *grins*
no subject
Date: 2009-03-05 05:57 pm (UTC)Remember that lace is air defined by thread. Revel in the yarn overs. Start with something you can easily envision yourself wearing and just go for it. I'm working with alpaca yarn and it is heavenly.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 01:35 am (UTC)My tips:
Count
Count again
Count once more (especially if you're like me and tend to zone out and count 24, 25, 26, 28, 30....)
Stitch markers are your friends, if you're working on a pattern that repeats. Beware of YO's that happen near the ends/beginnings of repeats, though. They can make you think your marker is in the wrong place.
Sometime it's the CHART that's wrong. Years ago, I knitted my first top with a lace pattern. I started over THREE TIMES before it occurred to me that maybe it wasn't me. It wasn't. However, if you're not a blind follower like me, you probably won't have that problem.
Pointy needles are the best.