Lace is my favourite style of knitting. I love the fact that it is so intricate, delicate and demands concentration. The stitches fascinate me, for instance, such a simple stitch like yarn forward (yfwd) or yarn over (yo) can lead to some really dramatic pattern results.
Many knitters I speak to grimace when I say my favourite type of knitting is lace. More and more fellow knitters say if only they could get to grips with lace then they would be happy. I thought it would be a good idea to write a simple lace pattern for knitters to try.
The Design Process
The pattern for my Knitted Lace Scarf with Undyed Handspun yarn was something that I came up with by thinking in practical knitting terms. I chose a scarf as I thought the repeating pattern with no shaping would help knitters to become familiar with lace knitting.
Twigs Notes: I think of Lace knitting in simple steps. Firstly, for every knit together stitch, there has to be a yarn forward/over. There has to be an begining, edging and ending to every lace pattern. If you follow these steps, then you are well on your way with lace knitting. I have incorporated these steps into my pattern. Also, well worth noting here is that stitch markers are a must in any lace knitting. They help keep the repeats in the pattern correct, and also, if for any reason you need to undo the knitting, they are good marking points so that you can remember where you were in a pattern.
My patterns are inspired by nature, and this scarf is no exception. While the basic idea for the pattern came from creating a simple lace pattern, the actual design, colour and texture is from some deer antlers that I saw while on Cannock Chase in Staffordshire.
The antlers were a lovely bone colour, I found some fantastic locally handspun, undyed yarn in my local knitting shop Yarn Gathering in Stone. This yarn came in a 50g skein (just enough for a small scarf like my pattern) and had a lovely soft feel. It was my first experience of handspun yarn. It is unusual in that it is not a neatly spun yarn, there were parts of the scarf that felt quite think but then in others, quite sparce. This is shown in the textured effect of the scarf. If you would like to knit this scarf, but are unable to source locally handspun undyed yarn, then any 4ply or DK yarn would be just as pretty.
The pattern is available to download on my ravelry store here:
I decided to make the scarf a scarflette just as I was finishing it, and added button holes to the end before decreasing. I then embellished the scarflette with lime green jade 8mm beads, these beads reminded me of freshly opened leaf colours and accompanied the delicate nature of the scarflette really well.
Once I had finished the scarf/scarflette I decided to go back to where the antlers were to take some photographs, but unfortunately they had been moved. I am happy with the pattern and results, if you would like to download the pattern, and find it helps you get a good taste of lace knitting, then please let me know. It would be lovely to hear of other knitters success stories!
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