Lace knitting was something that I fell in love with from the very first glance. At the very beginning of my knitting adventure it was something I was striving for. That is why one of my first knitting projects was an alpaca shawl with a triangle lace motif. For me, as a beginner knitter, it was an ambitious and challenging thing. It took me almost a year to finish it, but I did it! I was very proud of myself and I still like and often use this shawl.
I’m writing this post to show you that lace knitting is not ‘secret knowledge’ but something beautiful and accessible for you. I hope it will help you start an adventure with lace knitting and avoid some of my mistakes and confusions.
What is lace knitting ?
Lace knitting is one of the types of knitting focusing on combining eyelets (holes) into various motifs. Creating those awesome and complicated patterns requires a lot of work and concentration. During the knitting process you have to carefully follow the pattern – sometimes it’s easy to remember, sometimes not. Unfortunately making a mistake usually costs you to unravel at least part of your hard work. That is why lace knitting is very often called one of the most challenging types of knitting.
Does it mean that lace knitting is reserved only for advanced knitters? Nothing further from the truth! I’m sure that learning some basic rules will allow you to start an adventure with lace knitting. So let’s start from the beginning.
How to read lace knitting patterns?
First of all take a look at the legend. I think that it’s the most important part. I will use some examples that will help me to keep it simple. As you can see in the example legend there are several types of stitches. You do not have to bother about those specific stitch types right now if you don’t know them. What is important is to read the legend and get to know those stitches before you start your lace work.
As you can notice each stitch is marked with a different symbol. Those symbols are not united and universal for each pattern. It means that the same stitch type may be marked with a different symbol in another pattern. Moreover you can notice that some symbols have different meanings depending on the knitting side (if you are knitting in rows). For instance empty square means knit on the right side (RS) and purl on the wrong side (WS).
Rows(rounds) and stitches
As we know stitches that we will use we can go through the pattern. Our example pattern (see ‘example pattern’ at the top) is of size 28 stitches and 20 rows. In our example stitch number is shown at the bottom and top of the pattern. Sometimes it is only shown at the bottom. Rows are marked on the sides. There are several rows marking methods that you can find:
- even and odd numbers marked on separate sides
- all rows numbers marked on one of the sides
- only even/odd numbers marked on one of the sides
If you would like to use a ‘round’ pattern to knit in rows (flat) or a ‘flat’ pattern to knit in rounds just try it! Sometimes it’s easy just as it is and sometimes you have to try several variants.
Repetition
Usually patterns are made up of repeatable blocks, that I will call motifs. Motifs can be repeated in length and height. For instance in our example pattern each motif is 14 stitches, 10 rows. It is repeated twice for each row. The ‘height’ of the pattern includes two motifs.
Usually the repeated pattern motif is marked with a thick line or rectangle. There is no need to print/write the whole pattern stitch-by-stitch if it consists of repeatable motifs. Next to the motif (or in the description) you will find a number that tells you how many times the motif should be repeated. For instance in the example above we should repeat the motif 5 times in a row.