New member and question re knitted lace

Hi Catherine, I'm sorry that I cannot answer your question, as I have not knit any lace, but just wanted to welcome you to the group. I am sure that someone else will be able to help you as there are many talented, experienced knitters here. I hope that you will stay even after your questions are answered.

Janise

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 10:25:53 +0200, "Catherine Milton" spewed forth :

Hi Catherine. If you have a goodl library system you should try to get hold of some of the following:

Gladys Amedro _Shetland Lace_ ISBN 0900662891

Amedro provides line-by-line written instructions for shawls and stoles using traditional Shetland lace patterns. If you're REALLY ambitious there's a pattern for a christening gown, too. She uses standard Shetland stitch abbreviations but there's a key in the front of the book :D

++++++++++++++++

Any/all of the Barbara Walker stitch treasuries will give you endless hours of viewing enjoyment and an equal amount of time spent deciding what patterns to use! The patterns are all written in "standard" knitting code, you decide how to use them.

+++++++++++++++++

Meg Swansen, ed _A Gathering of Lace_

1893762025

Patterns for various lace-based items published in Knitters' Magazine. Meg is a crack knitter and designer, some of the things in the book I wouldn't make myself, but the patterns are well-written and most of the shawls are worth consideration.

+++++++++++++++++

Margaret Stove _Creating Original Handknitted Lace_

0916896633

This is a formulary sort of thing with some charted stitch patterns in the back. As with all things Margaret Stove there is much self-congratulatory verbage to wade through in order to find the useful information.

[NB: Stove is an excellent handspinner and knitter, but her writing style is not much to my liking, hence the above comment.]

+++++++++++++++++

For basic lace scarves and stoles I just find a pattern I like, figure how many repeats I'll need and get after it. I'm partial to Vine Lace, Horseshoe Lace, and the old standby Old Shale. All three are variations on a theme, and all three are pretty mindless to knit once you've got the pattern set up. Cat's Paw lace makes a nice ground and you can add a fancy lace edging if you like; you'll have hours of mindless knitting with the Cat's Paw and can look forward to fiddly knitting around the edges.

For a guy's scarf I like lace rib or Italian rib, or even mistake rib which I make as (k2, p1) going both directions.

I have the same problem with weather as you - today is the coolest we've had in three months - the low was 38F and its already near 50F at 9AM. Winter? What's that?

Wooly Who knits everything with wool anyhow, and be damned to the weather. Those desert nomads are on to something, wearing wool year-round even under the blistering summer sun...

+++++++++++++

Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET. This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%. Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

Wow, thanks for posting all that info, Wooly! I printed it out and will be searching for some of those books myself!

Hi Catherine! I just joined the group myself. I'm a newbie knitter.

Pam

This may not be what you are looking for, but I think it is attractive:

of the lace patterns Wooly mentions in her post are part of thevictorian lace shawl on - certainly wouldn't want to use aran weight but there is no reasonyou couldn't just use one or more of the patterns in a lace weightscarf. By the way, welcome. We are a friendly bunch and come from all over the world. Nice to see someone from South Africa (We hosted a student from there many years ago)

Judy

Hi Wooly,

Thanks for the response, and thanks to the others for the welsome.

No, I don't have a good local library! lol I moved just a few months ago to a tiny town with a population of about 150, and the library they have has mostly Afrikaans books anyway. But thanks for the information, it'll point me in another direction here on the Internet. Thanks, but I don't think I want to do another christening gown!

Let me go and surf now,

Catherine

I was thinking about the Knitty pattern too Judy, but done in a finer yarn, maybe silk or a cotton blend. I think cotton would be too "stiff", but a blend might be good. In fact any fairly open lace scarf pattern done in a fine yarn would be good Love & higs Christine

Hi Catherine,

I can't help you either, but do want to welcome you to this great group and hope that you come back and tell and maybe show us what you are making. We do love seeing pictures of what others have made.

Nora in upstate NY where the weather is weird today.

I have a book that I bought 25 years ago. The Art of Shetland Lace by Sarah Don. There is a pretty scarf in there that is done in Shetland lace yarn.

There are only two rows to the pattern and it called the New Shale pattern. The scarf is 46 inches long and is knitted in 7 colours. Shirley

In message , "Christine in Kent, Garden of England" writes

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:35:27 +0200, "Catherine Milton" spewed forth :

Ugh, no library!! Amazon will be your friend, then if you can stomach the shipping rates.

If you find yourself ordering books I'll recommend the Amedro if you can find it (OOP last time I checked) as well as one called _Heirloom Knitting_ by Sharon Miller. The latter is a comprehensive how-to of both lace knitting and knitted lace. I have *no* earthly idea why I didn't include it in my first list!

+++++++++++++

Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET. This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%. Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:35:27 +0200, "Catherine Milton" spewed forth :

OY!!

Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET. This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%. Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

Welcome, Catherine. I don't have a precise source right now, but since there seem to be many answers, I will assume that someone has found one for you.

Higs, Katherine

I found the site Heirloom knitting. And I found a book by Gladys Amedro - they want US$70 for it. That sounds awfully expensive to me!!! At that rate I can definitely not afford it.

I also found a site that sells patterns (individually) as well as wool. The designs I liked are called 'cobweb', and I like the stoles best. I think I'm crazy! These are sold in Canada. Have no idea what shipping would cost. Sigh.

Tomorrow night I'll see if I can find a source in South africa.

Thanks for the help.

Catherine

I did see that one, and it is lovely, isn't it? I saw it before I posted here, and wasn't impressed at first, but now that I've looked again it's probably ideal, especially if I want to do more than one this year. lol

I'll look at this one tomorrow, as I've logged off now.

Catherine

Don't say that too loud or you may be mugged for it!! Judging by the prices I saw on Amazon!

Catherine

Oh Catherine... at least one of the pages I gave earlier in the thread about seed stitch had a couple of lacey scarves on them. It's gone from my viewer now because I had already clicked on it... but maybe someone else can grab them and re-post the URLs for you to have a look if you can't find the message yourself. :o)

Gem>> Hi,

This looked interesting, also:

Carey in MA

Hi, Catherine! Welcome to the group!

I'm a lace fiend myself, having knit almost exclusively lace for the last six months. I get a lot of my lace patterns from

, which has pictures of most every pattern, although the site itself isn't very pretty.I just finished a lace scarf in mohair and a metallic railroad ribbon. I did it lengthwise, in Old Shale but with one extra purl row at the beginning of each repeat. Here's my pattern: Cast on 264 stitches loosely (I used a size 7 needle) Row 1 (with mohair): *k2tog twice, (yo, k1) 3 times, yo, k2 tog twice. Repeat from * to end of row. Row 2: p Row 3: k Row 4 (with ribbon ): k Row 5 (change back to mohair): p

I just repeated these five rows six times, then repeated rows 1 - 3 once more before casting off. I haven't decided if I want to fringe it or not, but I really liked how it turned out. I'll post pictures once Webshots is up and running again. I should put pics up of all the shawls I've done, too. We'll see.

Again, welcome, and happy lace knitting!

Anastasia

--who's wondering what's taking her Addi Turbo 0s so long to come in. I can understand the wait on the cobweb laceweight, but the needles? Hmmm....

Just curious, what's wrong with the site that makes it not pretty?

I'm not being defensive (it's my website), I'm just wondering. I changed the old scheme because I had complaints about it being ugly so I'm curious as to what people find attractive/ugly in a website design.

Sarah, I've not been to your site lately (since the August/Sept. FIASCO), but found your site very well put together and easy to navigate. JM2C, Noreen