Learn to Lace Knit
Lace knitting is magical
Take a beautiful one shade yarn , larger than normal needles and a bit of guts and you can create beautiful feminine knits. Try your new skills with wonderful kid silk haze (mohair / silk mix yarn) like I did to create pretty cuddly scarves. Just be prepared to follow instructions / charts accurately (tick off rows you have done / count stitches in pattern repeats) and you will achieve perfection. Oh and block your work (read the ball band to see how) when finshed to spread out those holes.
Ready to start?
A lace knitted fabric is basically made up of yarn overs ( the holes in the lace) and different slanted decreases (such as K2 together or Slip Slip Knit). The knitting designer will have arranged these together in each of the rows in your work to form a pattern.
The UK Knitting and Crochet Guild have brought together a wonderful guide for beginners of lace. Take a read before you move on.
If I was starting lace knitting from scratch I would take a lace pattern that was only worked on the right hand side , where you were just knitting stitches , doing a few different decreases and a few yarn overs. A pattern that just consisted of 2 rows , row 1 , the lace pattern row and row 2 , all purl stitches would allow you to get into the rhymn of lace knitting, let you see where the decreases sat, which way they slanted and you could easily rectify any mistakes without getting in to a total mess.
The free valentine cowl pattern consists of just 2 rows, rows 1 is knitted all across and row 2 is where the lace pattern is. These 2 rows are repeated until you run out of yarn. Here are the instructions
As you do more and more lace knitting it will become more important that you do understand your knitting and that you are prepared to take your knitting back a few stitches to sort any errors out.
Red Lace Shawl Free Pattern
The red lace shawl knitting pattern is a 10 row repeat with the lace pattern only on the Right Side rows. The wrong side rows are worked in purl stitches apart from the 3 selevedge stitches. So this is a pattern you could try when you are feeling more confident.
Ready to move on, try something even more complicated? .......... why don't you try one of the patterns below, from the free gloves pattern to the lace sampler scarf (6 different lace patterns for you to try) I'm sure there is something at your level.
Try out my new technique to incorporate a little colourwork into your lace knitting
All of my lace patterns include row by row written instructions AND lace charts. As patterns get more complicated, you will find that some designers ditch the written instructions and just provide lace charts as they give an accurate pictorial representation of the pattern you are trying to achieve and providing the written instruction would be too long winded. . Click here to find out how to read lace charts.