I Really Should Try Knitting Lace

I'm buried. Seriously. The end of the term is always like this. I have a pile of papers to grade in the next 3 hours, I have final exams to write, edit, and copy. I have students asking questions and making demands. (And I'm learning that I'm not fair because I won't say exactly what will be on the final. My solution, for future classes: no sample exams.) And after the exams are taken they need to be graded. Then grades need to be calculated (what did people DO before Excel?) and entered. THEN I hav emy annual self-evaluation to write, a talk to write (and give) and I'm teaching this summer.

One thing at a time, Steph. One thing at a time.

Not a whole lot of knitting is going on, to be sure. So, in light of that, I thought I'd look through my backlog of photos of finished objects, and post a few. It's an interesting lot, actually. Well, interesting to me, as I look back at what I've done.

I grouped a few lace photos together to share. I'd been knitting about 15 months when I decided I was ready to try. Elaine and I were at the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, and I admired all the lace and...it was time. I'd been told it was hard, and that you had to pay close attention and (gasp) keep track of what you were doing. Despite some evidence to the contrary, I'm usually prety good at those things.

I'd done SOME knitting with stitch patterns. Nothing hard. Time-consuming, yes. I made my mom a clapotis for Christmas 2005, a mere 8 months after I started knitting. It wasn't bad, and I loved dropping the stitches, but it took about 60 hours and used about a mile of bamboo yarn. Not really lace, but certainly lacy. When Laura was having a hard time, I picked up some stash yarn (from OFFF) and made her a narrower one. I remember taking it to the yarn store and sitting with a bunch of women older than me, and talking to them about what she was going through. One of them asked if it would be ok if we all put our hands on the scarf, and put some good energy into it for Laura. I wasn't sure what she meant, but we did it. (Now I wish we had something for that woman, who needs our good energy at this point. Can it be sent back that way?)



I got a used stitch pattern book at Powells and decided, one night in March 2006, to knit a lace swatch out of some stash alpaca. I knit until I made a mistake, cast off, and it looked like a little pile of mustard yellow (again with the mustard yellow!) trash, all clumped together. Nothing. It looked like nothing. Not a swatch. Not lace. Just a wad of yarn.

Then I blocked it.



And I was converted. The truth is that I have very little use for lacy things. I get them caught on doorknobs and hooks and velcro. I really tried to convince myself that I needed a lace scarf, but in the end, I couldn't. However, need is different than want.

At Black Sheep, I got some laceweight alpaca yarn, and decided to make myself a scarf. Of course, the first pattern I picked was about as hard as you can imagine, with a k7tog (that's KNIT SEVEN STITCHES TOGETHER) five times. In a row. I really tried to get my needle through those seven stitches (five times) but it didn't matter how I contorted my body. I couldn't do it. I tried smaller needles, larger needles, and briefly considered (then abandoned) the idea of BUTTERING MY NEEDLES to get them through seven tiny loops at once. I didn't want to admit defeat, and still haven't. I think of that project as one that has been put aside until I have less stress in my life.

Here's the thing, though. I don't LIKE it when I can't do something. I get angry, and depressed, and more than both of those things, determined. Probably that first pattern was just too complicated. Probably I could knit lace if I had something better for me. Last October, I made this, the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits. (In a discontinued Rowan yarn that I really loved).



This went to my mom, for her birthday. I will say that taking that photo was pretty awkward, since I put the shawl into a tree on campus, and at the same time a bunch of faculty walked by, and I found myself trying to explain why I was doing so. I stammered something about needing to stretch it out, and needing something tall, and there was this tree, and yes I have work to do, and...."

At Christmastime, I knit this for my department's secretary, out of the leftover yarn from Laura's skinny clapotis. The pattern is extremely easy, and can be found here.



I love it when she wears it. Makes me feel fantastic.

So, here's the thing. I have yet to knit a lace piece for myself. And I still have that alpaca yarn. And I still haven't successfully knit seven together five times. And I'm buried.

And just like I started knitting when I was under a great deal of pressure...I think it might be time to pick that thing up again.