Lace Baby Steps
The blue socks are done. These are probably the fastest socks I've ever made; nothing like spending 6-7 hours in a car twice in a week to get stuff done.
In the past few evenings, I started my first attempts at lace. I have to call them attempts because of how badly things worked out. I tried so many times to make a swatch and got only a mess and a lot of frustration out of it. Then it hit me: I had been trying to learn something new using very thin yarn. My first attempt was with Misty Alpaca in lace weight. After starting several swatches I thought I'd try a different yarn so I moved to the lace yarn I bought in Berkeley. Only, that yarn is even thinner than the Misty Alpaca (2400 yards/100 gr) and my tests were even more frustrating. I could hardly see what I was doing. Finally, some common sense prevailed and I started a new swatch with the left overs from the socks. Here is my first lace swatch: a simple pattern from the book Victorian Lace. At least now I know that I can make swatches with fingering weight yarn, but I hate to think what a complex pattern would require of me in terms of concetration. I find cables and color work relaxing. This lace stuff, however, makes me sweat.
But it's a new year, almost, and I want to learn something new. I need a new challenge every now and then and I think lace will be my challenge in 2007.
Comments
When learning lace it can also be helpful to use the recommended needle size for the yarn, rather than going up a needle size or two (which is often recommended for lace). This way, the stockinette portions of the lace pattern are more solid and help define the lacey bits, making the whole thing a little easier to read. In any case, it's always difficult to see the pattern when you start out any lace project. Best of luck! That attempt looks pretty good already!
Posted by: rfg | December 31, 2006 1:14 PM
Swatch? What's that ;-) I've just pre-ordered "Lace Style" & "Favourite Socks"!
Posted by: Marina | December 31, 2006 4:40 PM
When I knit lace (rarely... too much work for me), I will generally transpose the pattern, one row at a time, onto index cards. When I am only able to look at one row's worth of pattern, for some reason, it's easier to follow.
Also, Elena had a marvelous lace idea some time ago. Each time she finishes a sequence of rows for lace, she runs a thin thread through the stitches on her needle. That way, if she makes a mistake, she can easily pull out her work to "Row 1" again. I thought that was ingenious and if I ever knit lace again, will certainly follow her lead.
Happy New Year!
Posted by: Laura | December 31, 2006 9:12 PM
Beginning lace knitting can be a sweat inducing experience. Like you I found the first attempts nerve wracking and ended up with thicker yarn also. I have done several lace projects but still find lace weight yarns require a great deal of concentration. I've very much enjoyed your blog over the past few months and look forward to more of your knitting adventures. Happy New Year!
Posted by: Ann in Montreal | January 1, 2007 7:27 AM