It seems that some of us are thinking about lace knitting at the moment, I have a couple of things on the go at the moment and so thought I would share some of my own experience around a bit (please add any other thoughts to these if you would like). Lace does knit up a bit wrinkled and scrappy looking but if you hold it out or pin it out then you can get an idea of the finished pattern.
It is knitted on larger needles than you would normally use for something so fine - this gives the holey or lacy look that you are aiming for (don't be disheartened).
Take great care when winding the skein into a ball, it takes a long time as there is so much yardage in one skein and if like me you do not have a swift please don't be tempted to use your feet (as I often do with sock yarn). I found that it took several sessions to wind into a ball and that made for uncomfortable winding and also a few tangles along the way - try VERY hard not to get tangles in this weight of yarn they are the worst to unravel and it is easy to break the yarn!
The final thought for now is this question - remember last year when we all signed up for the project club and our first one was a lace shawl who actually did the project? I managed to finished in the 2 months that were alotted for it! Did anyone else finish theirs?
3 comments:
yes I did and quite liked it!
No unfortunately I didn't. I have never done any lace knitting and, being left handed, I found that the pattern as written didn't work for me, so I had to reverse it. It didn't help that the first skein of yarn I received was so tangled it was totally impossible to wid it into a ball. I bought another skein from her and my Mum wound it for me this time (she has been knitting since the 50s) but it took her over 9 hours to untangle it. I kept getting lost with the pattern and eventually gave up in despair. But I'm now going to have another go and this time I do have a swift so fingers crossed for a much less stressful ball winding session.
Sarah, you are a fabulous mine of information! You've mad eme feel much better about my attempt. Needless to say I didn't finish the Hipknits shawl - I think I was so cross about the whole thing that I didn't have the motivation to get on with it. I unraveled everything I'd done & I now have the ball sitting in my stash somewhere. I had the same experience as Claire and had to buy another ball and even when I would my second one I had loads & loads of knots! I bought a swift because of this and have never had the same problem again - thank the Lord!
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